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The Forever War: Dispatches from the War on Terror

by Dexter Filkins

Knopf, 2008, 368 pages

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq

by Linda Robinson

Public Affairs, 2008, 416 pages

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008

by Bob Woodward

Simon & Schuster, 2008, 512 pages

Read more of the reviews at Azure.

The War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor, Azure

More at Azure.

I left for the 20 minute drive to the airport early -- 6am -- insurance against unknown delays or issues. Good thing too. One would expect Kabul airport security to be tight. One would hope and expect Indian Airlines security to be extra tight considering the Indian Embassy in Kabul was bombed only two months prior. Correct on both counts. My car had barely reached the outskirts of the airport when we reached the backup for first security checkpoint. The Afghan National Police (ANP) were searching all cars, searching all bags, and doing pat downs on all passengers. After I piled back in the car, we crawled for another quarter mile before reaching the second checkpoint, manned by the Afghan National Border Police (ANBP). This time, passengers and their bags were forced to exit the car, go through a bag and personnel scan/search, and then rejoin their searched car for the final quarter mile drive to a chaotic parking lot where one could catch a bus to the terminal. After a ten minute wait, the bus made the two minute drive to the terminal where all passengers were dumped into an outdoor baggage and personal screening line for the third security check. Successfully passing this check entitled me to enter the airport terminal building and try to figure out how to turn my e-ticket into a boarding pass. Turns out, e-tickets are issued for flights from Kabul but not advised. I lucked out and the Indian airlines agent literally hand wrote my ticket out on a blank piece of white paper. Next came two more security check points inside the terminal (including one where they wrap your baggage in a strap) before finally getting to the gate at 8:55am, only 45 minutes before scheduled departure. The flight was delayed thirty minutes so we finally boarded at about 10am — but not before going through one last bag search and pat down literally right at the door of the plane.

All the waiting in traffic, security lines, and at the gate gave me plenty of time to reflect on the trip and core policy and operational questions about our mission in Afghanistan. At the start of the trip, I intended to learn more about the causes of conflict in Eastern Afghanistan and whether the US strategy and resources were matched and organized effectively to the problem. In particular, I wanted to look at the question of whether the US strategy of expanding governance from Kabul was still realistic or if a more local political engagement approach might make more sense.

I came away from the trip angry at the negligence of the Afghan politicians and the Bush Administration for squandering six years and countless billions of dollars on a politically soft and ineffective version of nation building. Spending money on infrastructure projects and coaching good governance is a grossly insufficient political strategy, particularly in the corrupt and inefficient atmosphere of Afghanistan today. I saw no evidence of a strategic approach to apply pressure and leverage on Afghan politicians, warlords, and tribes in order to build pragmatic support, stamp out corruption and isolate extremist influence. There apparently has been little effort to forge pragmatic political deals with the Pashtun tribes or to devise a more nuanced relationship between tribal authority and participation in the political process. Areas where security is good like Kabul or the West are not nearly the economic success stories one would expect from six years of security and economic development. Organizationally, the US military in has been asked to do the impossible in Afghanistan, burdened with too few troops and unsupported by a US civilian presence so minimal and irregular to render itself strategically meaningless. The net effect has been to falsely raise expectations, effectively lower responsibility and accountability, and turn the US military into an undermanned welfare program.

These critiques do not undercut in any way my admiration for the many tremendous individual leaders like John Spiszer or Steve Erickson who are making a difference despite organizational or resource shortcomings. In my view, Afghanistan's backslide is the result of weak leadership at the national level, not failures at the operational level.

There are reasons for optimism. The Obama team is leaning hard into AfPak, as evidenced by injection of both new and additional senior leadership, both civilian and military, as well as the surge of military and civilian resources into Afghanistan and the new assistance programs for Pakistan. What is less clear at this point, is how the Holbrooke/Eikenberry/McCrystal team will reenergize the political process in Afghanistan to impose more accountability and pragmatic cooperation from key Afghan leaders in Kabul and across the East. Having been an inside observer of Mr. Holbrooke's work in the 1990s, I'm confident we'll see much more political leverage in play in the coming months, in Kabul, Islamabad and in the provinces. Regardless of who wins the fall presidential elections in Afghanistan, the new Afghan President must take a tougher political line with corrupt or tainted warlords and work relentlessly to forge political deals with the Pashtun east at the expense of extremism. He should tell Afghans stop expecting the West to lift them up and call upon them to rebuild the Afghanistan they dream of. Stronger leadership in Kabul and Washington can make secure areas like Kabul shining examples of progress and prosperity to remind people what is possible and offer Afghans a more tangible alternative to conflict or the Taliban.

Having left Kabul, I arrived safely in Nepal, where soaring mountains and ancient Buddhist and Hindu culture now host a fledgling democracy — and a reminder of what is possible. The long time insurgency in Nepal has ended because the Maoist rebels are now part of the political process. Political engagement, process and compromise are the critical ingredients of peace more so than road projects or laser guided bombs. Security and reconstruction operations cannot themselves create political stability, they are only essential tools in pursuit of the political process. In Afghanistan and Pakististan, there is much political work to do. But I am thankful to have seen the beauty and the opportunity of Afghanistan and to meet Afghans who so passionately want peace and prosperity. I look forward to a future visit to Afghanistan that is far closer to that goal.

Thank you to Small Wars Journal for allowing me to share my thoughts on my Afghanistan trip. Readers can contact me at [email protected]

A Report of the Harvard Kennedy School's Defense Leadership Project

Transforming the National Security Culture (Full PDF Report)

From the Preface

General Edward C. Meyer, former Army Chief of Staff, has compared our best leaders to diamonds. Just as the diamond requires three properties for its formation—carbon, heat, and pressure—successful leaders require the interaction of three properties—character, knowledge, and application. We at the Harvard Kennedy School seek to foster an environment in which our student leaders can develop their character, expand their knowledge, and launch into promising career trajectories through the application of newly polished skills for the benefit of our nation's security. The Harvard Kennedy School Defense Leadership Project is a proud example of the work that can be produced in this environment.

As we seek to generate and promote more effective leadership in national security policy, we are deeply committed to bridging the gap between leadership theory and practice. Supporting collabora¬tive thinking among experts in the field is critical to this objective. The student-generated Defense Leadership Project aptly sought to address a critical shortfall in national security leadership through its collaborative endeavor. As this report attests, the Defense Leadership Project specifically created unprecedented opportunities for reflection and discovery for students and prominent practitioners from different disciplines, sectors, and cultures to elicit proactive solutions to tomorrow's challenges.

Well-trained and equipped leaders sharing collaborative mentalities are paramount for successfully preserving our national security. The combined support of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, and the Center for Public Leadership speaks to the shared belief in the importance of this initiative, and the associated recommendations. We applaud the students involved in the Defense Leadership Project and the energy this team put into organizing guest speakers and writing this report. We hope our nation's leaders might draw from their informed and insightful findings.

From the Introduction

In late winter 2007, a small group of veterans attending Harvard University decided to challenge the status quo. Frustrated by their experiences overseas and what they perceived as a lack of innovative leadership within their own organizations, they sought to develop new ideas. They wanted to create something the business world would call a skunk works, an autonomous group of creative thinkers, charged with working on advanced projects. Enlisting the help of three separate research centers at Harvard—the Center for Public Leadership, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy (which also had played a role in the publication of the Army's new counterinsurgency manual), and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs—the students took their proposal to the larger student body.

At a special reception for all Harvard graduate students who had served (or were serving) within the national security community, the students announced open applications for an initiative they called the Defense Leadership Project sponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership. The response from the crowd—which had been full of veterans returned from combat tours, homeland security officials, intelligence analysts, private security consultants, and others—was overwhelming. Applications poured in, and after selecting the most talented, experienced, and creative individuals, the panel set to work defining its mission.

The students almost immediately came to realize that most of their frustrations were rooted in leader¬ship and organizational culture. In their eyes, the national security establishment was facing a major crisis: leaders at all levels were routinely ill-equipped to understand, visualize, or respond effectively to the modern security environment. The problem was one of adaptation: decades of Cold War doctrine and thinking had left behind a sense of unassailable institutional inertia. Despite the undeniable rise of asymmetric threats such as insurgents, terrorists, militias, and other nonstate actors, the defense establishment had continued to invest overwhelmingly in preparations for traditional, conventional warfare.

While many blue ribbon panels and study groups have been convened since 9/11 to develop recommendations for the security establishment, few have focused on the role of the individual leader. New organizational models and next-generation technologies may improve our nation's readiness, but—in the humble opinion of the students—success or failure would be defined by the ability of individual leaders to operate effectively with minimal guidance, adapt, and collaborate across traditional institutional stovepipes. In other words, victory will not be gained by overwhelming our enemies with brute force, but by empowering our leaders to innovate faster than the enemy can respond.

The panel's methodology would be simple: Invite senior level defense leaders to Harvard for closed door, nonattribution, and brutally honest discussions. Combine the enthusiasm and on the ground" perspective of the students with the strategic outlook of decision makers and experts. Develop bluesky solutions, record notes for every session, and eventually, write the proposals into a report intended for senior policy makers. This booklet is the end result of our efforts. We respectfully submit these recommendations for your consideration, in the hope that a few of the ideas might prove useful or inspire further inquiry.

From the Foreword

When the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School brings together graduate students and national security students at Harvard—military veterans, homeland security officials, intelligence officers, private security contractors, and others—in a Defense Leadership Project, one expects powerful results as they work with distinguished guest panelists. After all, it's Harvard, the Kennedy School, David Gergen's Center for Public Leadership, and our own country's security leaders. We have great expectations.

Rarely do results of such an intellectual engagement provide the call to action that this report delivers. Not an academic treatise, this is a tough report by people on the ground, across the sectors, examining every aspect of the defense community, and this is the powerful result. And it's all about leadership, the leaders of the future required right across the national security community, to lead, respond, mobilize, inspire, build the alliances and partnerships an uncertain future demands in the emerging security environment.

The formal recommendations the panel makes in this report are sobering and illuminating and fall into four categories:

• Transforming talent into institutional capability

• Reforming the existing organization to promote balance and interoperability

• Accelerating generational change.

Three powerful messages flow through the recommendations, the rationale, and the call to action in this report:

• Emerging leaders, the new generation of national security professional workers, will generate the change essential to meet evolving challenges

• The inspiring ideas will come from bright young minds committed to our security establishment who know change is the leadership imperative of our time.

Transforming the National Security Culture (Full PDF Report)

By Captain Timothy Hsia

"We are looking at the future of the force mix, examining what it is going to look like in the years ahead, and it's possible at the end of this process the decision will be made that some of the heavy brigades will become Stryker brigades." [Secretary of the Army Pete] Geren said, adding that the Stryker concept has been an extraordinarily successful program."

Since 2003, the Army has fielded seven Stryker brigade combat teams, each equipped with about 300 Stryker wheeled vehicles built on common chassis. Stryker units have spent most of their time in Iraq, but the Pentagon announced in February that the 5th Stryker BCT would deploy to Afghanistan for the first time.

-- Army Brass Hint at More Stryker Brigades by Matthew Cox

Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of the Veteran Affairs, has his work cut out from him. For the next few years, the Veteran Affairs will be handling the cases of thousands of returning veterans from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who return home with physical and psychic wounds as testament to their tours of duty downrange. If the past is any guide to Shinseki's competence and character, then the future bodes well for the Veteran Affairs, as Shinseki's reforms of the Army during his tenure as Chief of Staff were absolutely crucial to the Army's ability to better wage a counterinsurgency campaign...

Via CavGuy at the Council.

Via The Baltimore Sun and The Morning Call:

With that - here's David's inaugural post at Politics Daily - Moving Target: The Pitfalls Facing US Air Power in Afghanistan.

Much more at Politics Daily.

The PRT paved road through the Panjshir valley features gorgeous scenery contrasting with rusted hulks of Russian vehicles -- memorials to the Russian failure to control Massoud's Panjshir valley. The Taliban learned this lesson and didn't even challenge Massoud for control of Panjshir. Today, Panjshir is one of the most secure and peaceful provinces in Afghanistan. But the anger and impatience with Kabul is on the rise. Where is Massoud's successor as the leader of Afghanistan? The joke in Panjshir today is that Massoud died as a warrior but all Massoud's lieutenants became fat and rich.

Having met with many American officials in the early portion of my trip, the remaining days in Panjshir and Kabul focused on the perspectives of the Afghans themselves, from Governors to senior Karzai advisors to leading Kabul businessmen.

The lack of a political leadership or strategy in Afghanistan was obvious from both US and Afghan sources. The reconstruction effort has essentially created a corrupt welfare effort, with little political responsibility. The leadership on the Afghan side has been negligible. In my meetings, one Afghan governor went on for twenty minutes about how ineffective Karzai had been. Karzai's doesn't seem to take a strong position on anything. Meanwhile, US aid has been given out with no more strategy or conditionality than more the merrier" creating essentially a welfare economy rife with corruption and with no Afghan having much incentive to take responsibility or initiative. One former government official and Kabul businessman told us you have turned Afghanistan into a nation of conniving beggars."

Ambassador Holbrooke, so effective in applying leverage to chart a political course in the Bosnia and Kosovo, must apply a similar approach in Afghanistan. This means applying US and international leverage to demand much more from the Karzai government and Afghan political officials in terms of taking responsibility, countering corruption, and countering Taliban influence in eastern tribal areas. We must single out or sideline those Afghans that are content to milk the reconstruction effort and not challenge militant influence in their areas. We must challenge substantive corruption that threatens key political objectives in reconstruction. And we must view the application of force primarily in political terms, not military terms.

None of this is to suggest that the US choose the next President of Afghanistan. When one Afghan politician advised me that the US choose more carefully than they did with Karzai, I firmly noted that it was the responsibility of the Afghans themselves to choose their leadership. No American anointed President can hold credibility or legitimacy in Afghanistan.

The blame for this political ineffectiveness in Afghanistan lays with both Karzai and the Bush team. Both have neglected their responsibilities in Afghanistan over the past six years. Obama's enhanced focus on Afghanistan is apparent, but it is too early to see effects. State has outlined a broad enhancement to the civilian capacity both in Kabul and in the field. The elevation and/or reshuffling of political and now military US leadership in Afghanistan is the clearest indication of both higher priority and a new direction. A new strategy is in play in broad strokes but the application in the field is not underway substantially.

Others are also thinking strategically about Afghanistan. Perhaps the most stunning and visual construction effort in Panjshir is Massoud's tomb - a massive undertaking impressively perched on a mid-valley promontory. This project, a worthy memorial for Afghanistan's fallen hero, is funded by Tehran for pennies compared to the US reconstruction effort.

Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and soft power" types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although a veteran of print and television media interviews and publications, this is his first foray into SWJ.

Much more at The New York Times.

Updates:

Jules Crittenden on Death From Above

Andrew Exum on Killing Civilians Remains Bad

Noah Shachtman on Calls for 'Moratorium' Hit New York Times

Spencer Ackerman on Stop The Drones

Andrew Sullivan on The Trouble With Predators

With overwhelming firepower, Western armies rarely lose in combat to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. But in the communications battle, the militants appear to hold the edge. The gap has grown especially wide in the Afghan war zone, analysts say. Using FM transmitters, the Internet, and threatening notes known as "night letters" (TIME), Taliban operating from the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan have proven effective at either cowing citizens or winning them over to their message of jihad. U.S. special representative Richard Holbrooke told journalists in March 2009 that "the information issue--sometimes called psychological operations or strategic communication" has become a "major, major gap to be filled" before U.S.-led forces can regain the upper hand. As part of its new strategy for the Afghan war, the White House has called for an overhaul of "strategic communications" in Afghanistan "to improve the image of the United States and its allies" and "to counter the propaganda that is key to the enemy's terror campaign." But U.S. officials have acknowledged an institutional weakness in coordinating strategic communications across agencies, as well as broader disagreements on definitions and tactics. "A coordinated effort must be made to improve the joint planning and implementation of strategic communications," says the Pentagon's 2008 National Defense Strategy.

Much more at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Much more at The Washington Post.

A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan operates as a combined military-military-military-military-civilian unit. The idea is that counterinsurgency and stability operations required civilian agency capabilities. In reality, PRTs are almost entirely military, even though many of the officers are air force pilots and ship drivers with little or no experience in reconstruction operations. PRTs are supposed to have a State, USAID, and USDA representative in their command group but often these civilians have not shown up, are on TDY, go on leave or transfer every three months, or don't work effectively on the PRT.

A strong exception to this stereotype of PRT dysfunction is the Laghman PRT. The PRT Commander, LTC Steve Erickson, USAF, really impressed us with his description of how he and his USAID rep talk through COIN and development principles in their operations. Laghmanis are known as particularly clever and well educated Afghans, particularly the Pashtuns along the southern branches of Alingar and Alishing rivers and the fertile plains around Mehterlam. The more remote parts of the province do offer some pockets of insurgency and Erickson and his team have responded with a popular COIN reconstruction strategy focused on roads. Roads are a popular project because they effectively address multiple issues and needs -- allowing security forces more rapid and secure transit throughout the province, enabling commerce through much faster delivery of goods or customers to market, building government capacity by extending reach of health clinics or schools, and by putting people to work. Although Erickson confessed that he and his USAID rep do not always agree, he described a healthy relationship of communication, dissent and debate, and decision-making that are the hallmarks of good teams.

Why would this military aviator and USAID development worker form such a strong working partnership? When I ask those in the field why a civ-mil partnership works (or doesn't work), the answer is usually personality." While I think that is true, it also illuminates a bigger problem: organizations dependent on personality for effective team work are rolling the dice. Military officers, Foreign Service diplomats, and development professionals are three different tribes each with unique cultures, dialects, and belief systems and not an insubstantial amount of rivalry. We throw members of these tribes into a difficult, cramped, stressful environment and expect them to operate with unity of effort and minimal friction. And then we pin our hopes on personality?

It shouldn't. Organizations that effectively and consistently address the challenges of teamwork and leadership do not depend on personality as much as they depend on clarity of responsibilities, clarity of process, and clarity of mindset. If all the players clearly understand who is supposed to do what, why each of their roles is critical to the whole, how to make decisions that properly weigh each perspective, and why they must bring a mindset of collaboration and cooperation, personality becomes much less of an issue (although never a non-issue). This type of organizational clarity and mindset requires clear communication and training/mentoring programs. As a trainer of military units and, just recently, PRTs heading to Afghanistan, we are working hard on the clarity of roles, staff processes, and a mindset of collaboration. Building effectively cooperation will be especially important as the civilian surge in Afghanistan increases the civilian presence in PRTs. Hopefully these efforts will improve the civil-military and PRT-maneuver unit cooperation in Afghanistan and make success less dependent on personality.

As for the impressive LTC Erickson, his situation underscores another weakness in our current system. In just a couple more months, he will leave Afghanistan and return to other USAF duties. Will DoD and the USG capture and leverage his knowledge of and relationships in Laghman province and his understanding of how to blend defense, diplomacy, and development in the Afghanistan COIN environment? Almost certainly not. Instead, LTC Erickson's reward will be a return to his role as an Air Force pilot and have little further to do with the political and economic challenges in Afghanistan. Success in Afghanistan requires that we better leverage the knowledge and talent of human resources with this type of experience and understanding. We can do better.

Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and soft power" types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although a veteran of print and television media interviews and publications, this is his first foray into SWJ.

More at The Washington Post.

More at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education

By Craig M. Mullaney

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty Seconds' worth of distance, run,

Yours is the Earth and everything in it,

And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling, "If"

This Isn't About You - Craig M. Mullaney, Vanity Fair.

"Having served as a platoon leader in the Afghanistan war, Craig M. Mullaney—an Obama-administration adviser and author of the new best-seller The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education—understood full well the dangers that his younger brother, Gary, would face when he deployed to Baghdad. Watching from the audience at Gary's Ranger School graduation, Mullaney reflected on his own experiences, and lessons learned, during three rigorous months of training."

Much more at Vanity Fair.

Occupying Iraq

A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority

by James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Benjamin Runkle and Siddharth Mohandas, Rand

The American engagement in Iraq has been looked at from many perspectives — the flawed intelligence that provided the war's rationale, the failed effort to secure an international mandate, the rapid success of the invasion, and the long ensuing counterinsurgency campaign. This book focuses on the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority and its administrator, L. Paul Bremer, who governed Iraq from May 2003 to June of the following year. It is based on interviews with many of those responsible for setting and implementing occupation policy, on the memoirs of American and Iraqi officials who have since left office, on journalists' accounts of the period, and on nearly 100,000 never-before-released CPA documents. The book recounts and evaluates the efforts of the United States and its coalition partners to restore public services, reform the judicial and penal systems, fight corruption, revitalize the economy, and create the basis for representative government. It also addresses the occupation's most striking failure: the inability of the United States and its coalition partners to protect the Iraqi people from the criminals and extremists in their midst.

Full monograph at Rand.

More at The Philadelphia Inquirer.

More at The Los Angeles Times.