But White House officials are resisting McChrystal's call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, "A lot of assumptions -- and I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions - were exposed to the light of day."
Hey senior admin official - I'd like to take you outside for a talking to - yea - that's the ticket.
Yes, I know -- there you go again Dave -- a SWJ guy who does not post much concerning his personal opinions -- doing just that. That said, Gen McChrystal and his assembled group provided us ground truth on the situation in Afghanistan and by extension Pakistan. I for one am glad he has been pressing this assessment in the mainstream news media. Ground truth trumps all and the average Joe should be just as informed as the senior admin official.
Comments
Dell:
"And something that gives me a lot of pause (beyond Kilcullen's first sentence in his Sunday NYT piece) is this question: in what ways does Karzai (and everything around him) differ from Diem?"
I don't know much about Diem, but did he enter the conflict as basically an honest broker, and then did the US force him to have to depend on warlords who we financed INSTEAD of Diem's central gov't?
I think Karzai continues to get a bum rap, here. Accepting a minimum amount of Afghan corruption that is unavoidable, the US' policies have consistently emasculated Karzai and forced him to settle for the really corrupt gang of thieves that US policy has reinforced.
And the increasing drum-beat against Karzai is extremely hypocritical by USians. We own a bunch of the responsibility for the major (vice minor) corruption in Afghanistan.
Following up on what Zenpundit said, it does figure back a bit to our earlier article on policy and strategy. There is a void where the grand strategy should be, and McChrystal, to some extent, is being forced by the circumstances to be more assertive. This statement of Zen's is fundamentally right: "The White House political aides want McChrystal to deliver a theater strategy while being forced to guess what the overarching grand strategy and policy might be - provided he gets it right - when they get around to making one."
I appreciate the responses - even the commentary that basically says I'm totally off base here. So be it - I really, really, have a problem with the original quotation. Maybe that's my problem as some here see it. But I won't back off one iota on this issue. Our boots on the ground are ill-served by such commentary as <i>... I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions - were exposed to the light of day...</i> I have no idea who said this - but - and he or she could well beat my butt - Id really like to invite he or she outside - in the vernacular sense - the dialect of my Baltimore roots that dictates some people just deserve a beating - they earned it and should not be deprived of such.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post <a href="http://www.thunderrun.us/2009/10/from-front-10082009.html">From the Front: 10/08/2009 </a> News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
Dave,
I'm not saying it's true (or false) in this case, but certainly, in military history, there have been instances of on-scene commanders pressing "ground truth" as they see it--and being catastrophically wrong.
And something that gives me a lot of pause (beyond Kilcullen's first sentence in his Sunday NYT piece) is this question: in what ways does Karzai (and everything around him) differ from Diem?
To me at least, this call, about both the strategy and then what to do going forward, is excruciatingly difficult.
It seems to me that GEN McCrystal has given his assessment on the situation in Afghanistan in a realistic manner. For his troubles he seems to be the target of individuals not willing to openly voice their views in the light of day.H.R. McMaster in his work "Dereliction of Duty" accused the JCS of abandoning their duty to the servicemen of the American military and to the country they served. GEN McCrystal can not be accused of that. He has stated very plainly his considered advice on Afghanistan. It is now the administration's place to make their decision on this war and then accept responsibility for the outcome.
I have to disagree this time. I think GEN McCrystal gave an honest assessment on what was required to execute a particular strategy in Afghanistan to beat back the insurgency. That was what he was asked to do, but the so called pukes in D.C. have every right and even the obligation to question it (wish more questioned Westmoreland), and to weigh the risks to other U.S. interests outside of Afghanistan. I don't see any bad guys in this discussion.
>>why an inside the Beltway puke can spit on a boots on the ground assessment?<<
I don't understand this statement. As far as I can tell, no one disputes ANY of McChrystal's "on the ground assessments." Everyone accepts his judgment that the situation is worse than people realized, that the Taliban, et al., are more adaptive than many expected, and that there are probably too few forces in country.
What people are questioning is whether a full-blown pop-COIN campaign is required to do CT; whether our CT activities are indeed doomed to failure; whether a strategy to "contain" rather than "defeat" the Taliban can work, etc.
The policy decision was driven by a syllogism based on unexplored assumptions -- AQ remains is a threat, a return of the Taliban will provide safe haven to AQ, the only way to defeat the Taliban is pop-centric COIN, etc. etc. etc. There are all assumptions open to challenge, and they have little to do with rejecting McChrystal's on-the-ground assessment of conditions in Afghanistan.
SShogun - seaworthy
You said: <i>My beef here isn't with McChrystal's preferred strategy, it's with Dave Dilegge's implicit characterization of the McChrystal assessment as an "objective" reason why his request should be supported.</i>
Your take on my implicit characterization is well taken - and I appreciate your comments here...
When WH staffers leak steadily but anonymously it usually means their preferred policy option cannot make the cut if openly argued. Their case will look more plausible only if Gen. McChrystal is steadily discredited and resigns.
The White House political aides want McChrystal to deliver a theater strategy while being forced to guess what the overarching grand strategy and policy *might* be - provided he gets it right - when they get around to making one. Oh,and McChrystal should also guess at the resources needed to meet these unknown larger objectives.
Why aren't more ppl saying WTF?
It may very well be true that Gen. McChrystal could deliver a report with more varied military options than he did. It would also help, if the WH decided what they wanted military force to accomplish.
BTW, I'm not in favor of centralized COIN from Kabul as national policy. Afghanistan's culture requires a decentralized approach to COIN and the opportunity for corruption will be far less at any one point of aid delivery. That said, much of the criticism being levied at McChrystal is coming from people covering up the extent to which they are part of the problem.
Seaworthy: My beef here isn't with McChrystal's preferred strategy, it's with Dave Dilegge's implicit characterization of the McChrystal assessment as an "objective" reason why his request should be supported. I also take issue with Dilegge's visceral, threatening, and worst of all, unfounded, attack on the "senior admin aid," who simply stated his (probably correct) opinion that Afghanistan's on-the-ground reality highlights the tensions in the Galula/FM 3-24/COIN theory's assumptions. (And there are *many* *strong* *assumptions* that have to be true in order for this vision of COIN to work in Afghanistan or anywhere.) Dilegge implies that the senior admin aid doesn't know anything because he wasn't part of the assessment, or that the aid is engaging in an anti-McChrystal smear campaign.
McChrystal is (obviously) entitled to his own operational preferences, but that isn't the issue here.
The issue is Dilegge's claim that McChrystal's preferred strategy is necessarily better than the naysayer's because, on the basis of the McChrystal team's assessment, McChrystal objectively arrived at the best possible diagnosis of how to accomplish the U.S.' stated goal of disrupting, dismantling, and destroying AQ safe havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The problem is, there's no evidence that the assessment was objective or that the information gleaned during the assessment period drove the request for more troops and an escalated COIN campaign.
Think about it: before the assessment was conducted--Christ, from the day he was appointed--McChrystal was saying the same things about COIN that he said in the assessment and that he continues to say now.
McChrystal's consistency is admirable, but there's no reason to think that anything other than escalated COIN was on the table during the assessment. Despite all the learning that presumably occurred, and for all of the local and regional complexity that gained new appreciation during the assessment period, the assessment failed to make a single new meaningful operational or tactical recommendation.
From the start of the assessment, COIN was the only game in town. It strikes me as profoundly wrong to engage in visceral, angry, and threatening attacks against critics of an assessment that was commissioned by a COIN-oriented commander who personally selected a team of liked-minded people to conduct it under his own supervision. (And which, surprise, surprise, confirms that more COIN is necessary.) Claiming that the findings of the assessment, rather than the priors of those who wrote it, demonstrates that bulkier COIN is the best way forward is a non-sequitur at best and dishonest at worst.
I think COMISAF's assessment with respect to the current reality at the time of writing and its indications for the near future relative to the Administration's preferred strategy announced last Spring is probably about as good as it gets. That is not to say such things are 100% accurate, but that it would likely be more free of the bias that would pervade perspectives influenced by other interests and desires outside of Afghanistan.
The use of the word "myths" by the unnamed official has some dirty connotations, and implies a lack of trust in either the purpose of the assessment or the competency of those who put it together. Either way it implies someone in the administration believes that at least parts of the report were fallacious, and that someone else outside of those who authored the assessment has better information then COMISAF.
If the official did not want to say "myths" then he would not have said it. He did, so he meant to.
To me this is the most troubling comment I've read since 2000 with respect to civ-mil relations. The politics associated with such remarks are troubling and to me indicate an air of superiority and aloofness on the part of at least one anonymous official. Perhaps they did not mean it that way, but then why say it all.
Past the polemics and into logistics, the policy puke just may have a better long-term perspective than the guys on the ground. A decision matrix called TREAT - Time, Resources, Experience, Attitude, Training - would certainly suggest that. The rule is, if you have any three, you can play. If fewer, dont waste your men and effort.
Time is clearly not there. As Dave Kilcullen recently suggested, creating a successful outcome in Afghanistan is likely a 10 - 15 year process. (On top of the 8+ years invested to date.) The attention span of the American voter / politico is far shorter, and support will diminish at an accelerating rate.
With a fearsome attrition rate in materiel - multiplied by an exploding deficit and a pentagon still focused on big, expensive and largely useless weapons systems - the ability (and willingness) to pump Resources into AfPak will significantly degrade over the near future.
Experience is missing, too. COIN depends on a legitimate government to support, and we never seem to have learned that propping up thieves and thugs - think Diem, Batista, Pahlavi, Karzai, et al - doesnt work. Pop-centric only works if there is an entity worthy of the pops loyalty.
Attitude - Good to go!
Training - yes and no. Good on combat skills at the troop level, less so at command level. (See above.) Not good on cultural / situational skills, which is more important in COIN.
Conclusion: 1.5 out of 5. Indicated action: Save your forces. Disengage and get out. As the Richard Thompson line goes, "You dream too much. Its gonna end bad."
Shogun. Possibly lost, having been overshadowed by the ground troop issue, is the fact that Gen. McChrystal stated no guarantees even with a troop increase.
This misguided back-and-forth leak political staff infighting aside, it seems the General has presented a realistic assessment, albeit, prior to the recent national Afghan election, which has additional impact as well.
I think your comment, "I wouldn't put much faith that Gen McChrystal and his assembled group's assessment provided any kind of "truth," is less than charitable and you'd be hard pressed to qualify it?
Whether one agrees completely or in part with his strategy (grand tactics of pop-COIN), at least we have something solid for the first time in eight years.
Another take on the Gordian knot that is Afghanistan is given by Hugh Fitzgerald of Jihad Watch: "The 'New' Policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan"
http://howtostoptheislamicjihad.blogspot.com/2009/09/fitzgerald-new-pol…
Hugh's opinion goes counter the current preferred strategy as concerns what to "do in"--rather "do to"--countries that pose a danger to the United States.
If by "Gen McChrystal and his assembled group provided us ground truth on the situation in Afghanistan and by extension Pakistan" you meant "Gen McChrystal and his assembled group provided us with their own preconceived ideas about counterinsurgency theory," then your assessment would be correct.
I don't think that's what you meant.
I wouldn't put much faith that Gen McChrystal and his assembled group's assessment provided any kind of "truth," except, of course, the disappointing truth that winning in Afghanistan is going to be very, very difficult.
I had the same reaction as Sean, but with one exception. What rubbed me the wrong way was this snippet from the quote...
<blockquote><em>his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war</em></blockquote>
Is that really what his recommendation called for? A "vast expansion"? I detect some spin.<br />
And at what point did "the good war" become the "increasingly unpopular war"? I wonder what the target audience is and what the desired effect is for that change of term.
I dunno Dave. There have been quite a few cases of "on the ground" commanders making completely crap calls. I've never served anywhere near McChrystal, so I don't have the personal experience to make a judgement on this, but I do remember lots of idiots with plenty of shiny stuff on their collars spouting complete nonsense from an "on the ground" perspective when I was in Iraq.
I'd really need more context than is provided here to make an accurate assessment of this quote and whether or not it's reasonable. I mean, do we even know what "assumptions/myths" this guy is talking about specifically?
Also, a "senior admin official" talking on background could be anyone from the secret service driver to Joe Biden. The whole thing just smells really sketchy to me.