Questioning the Brass

Generals who are (1) given the task of overcoming those opposed to the transformation of their states and societies along modern western lines but who (2) have not been given the leeway and other tools needed to accomplish this mission; these generals will have great difficulty.

The public seems to understand this and that may be the reason why our military leaders have not been castigated by the public.

And doing such things as having our military leaders rotate in and out of theater less frequently will not resolve the fundamental problem that I have addressed above.

I would suggest that, in earlier times (American Civil War; American Indian Wars), when our generals then were given the task of overcoming those opposed to the transformation of their states and societies along modern western lines; our generals then were not constrained in the manner that they are today.

Consider, for example, what would have happened if Grant and Sherman had been forced to "go in light" and/or had been required to use something along the lines of our "nation-building" approach to deal with their adversaries.

Thus, should we believe that those states and societies who produce the fighters who we contest against today are much less wedded to their values, attitudes and beliefs -- and to their corresponding ways of life -- than those states and societies who we fought against in the latter half of 19th Century (American Southerners; American Indians)? Or would such thinking be, in truth, the true source of our difficulties and a most fatal mistake?

Ricks and the many "SMEs" he cites can add themselves to the list of what has made the conflicts of the past several years problematic.

Calling things "wars" that are not really wars;

We've been seeking warfare solutions to issues of policy and governance that are not well addressed in the annals of history by "warfare" of any type, to include the "pop-centric" variety.

Equally, there is a case to be made that our problems with military leadership are not from rotating leaders too often, but rather from leaving the same small clique of leaders in charge of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for too long. This was only aggravated by then taking members of the "successful" Iraq clique and making them the new Afghanistan clique to transfer their successful lessons, tactics and experience from one place to the next.

It appears to me that we are as inept at looking for villains to blame for our failures as we were at seeking the understanding and approaches that might have prevented those failures in the first place.

Blaming Generals is easy sport. The think tankers and Academics who have been framing this so wrong from the very start are holding cloaks and throwing rocks right along with everyone else. Likewise the politicians who have largely set on their hands for the past 12 years agonizing over reports and presentations on "the enemy" and on "the war" while never pausing and considering that this is all just one massive metric of how out of synch US foreign policy is for the world we live in today. The military can mitigate the symptoms of failing policy, but ultimately it is fully on the thin shoulders of civilian leadership to understand, update and address those policy problems and render the need for such mitigation obsolete.

We have a nation at peace, but a military "at war". That should have been a red flag that maybe, just maybe, we were out of step with the world we live in.

I am all for accountability and believe that military advice and judgment can and should be questioned by the senior civilian leadership (and I am a believer in Cohen's and Gooch's thesis that all military failures can be attributed to the three failures: failure to learn, failure to adapt, and failure to anticipate). But this is rich:

"My former colleague Andrew Exum, an ex-Army captain who studies insurgency, sees such rapid turnover as evidence of “the casual arrogance with which the U.S. military has approached the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.” And yet our political leaders have not publicly questioned the rotation policy."

This is quite an indictment and I think neither Ricks nor Exum are qualified to make such a judgment as to the casual arrogance of the US military. Rapid turnover is not evidence. I would like to see concrete examples of the casual arrogance of the US military that can justify painting the entire US military with such a broad brush. I do not think either of these men have witnessed the real inside decision-making that goes on at the most senior levels and listened to the debates on military strategy and the deep concern with which the vast majority of senior leaders have over how to best accomplish the mission and take care of the troops and consider the long term effects on our military. Having access to senior decision makers as journalists or even paid advisers does not make them privy to the inner workings of military decision making and to accuse senior military leaders of casual arrogance based on their interpretation of a rotation policy is not a very strong argument. Mistakes have been made and yes people should be held accountable. There should be no doubt about that. But there has also been an awful lot of cheerleading going on in many quarters outside the military by would be strategists and pseudo policy makers particularly toward recently fallen generals. I think we should remember who was responsible for starting the Iraq war (civilian leadership) and who contributed to making Afghanistan an unnecessarily long war:

"OVER the last 11 years, as we fought an unnecessary war in Iraq and an unnecessarily long one in Afghanistan,..."

Yes, there were generals that made mistakes in terms of military strategy making Afghanistan an unnecessarily long one, but as I recall both Ricks and Exum were supporters of and advisers to and certainly cheerleaders for some of those generals.

Let's critique our military decision making and our senior leaders and even the rotation policy but I do not think that accusing the military of casual arrogance is a valid criticism and I do not think either RIcks or Exum are qualified to offer such a judgment.

I'm generally not a fan of Rick's articles and books, and while this article has some shortcomings the thesis is sound and needs Congressional level attention.

A couple of quotes from the article captures the thesis accurately:

"As Paul Yingling, a recently retired Army colonel, noted during some of the darkest days of the Iraq war, a private who loses his rifle is punished more than a general who loses his part of a war.

In the past, Congressional oversight hearings might have produced some evidence that challenged the military’s self-satisfied conclusions. But today, politicians are so fearful of being accused of “criticizing our troops” that they fail to scrutinize the performance of those who lead them."

Based on the following comments I think he is off track:

"Why, for example, do we serially rotate our top war commanders?"

Come on Ricks, you can't have it both ways. You want Generals held accountable, but when they're fired (even if politely removed) you complain about rotating generals.

"Why weren’t our troops better prepared for the challenges of protecting civilians from resistance fighters, interrogating suspected insurgents and detaining enemy fighters?"

This is where Ricks pretends to be a great strategist by embracing our COIN doctrine. Another question may be why did the military focus on protecting civilians instead of carrying the fight to the enemy?

While Ricks is bias and punching above his weight class, many of our senior officers have failed miserably and were never held accountable. Not becaus the troops were not prepared to protect the populace, but because they failed to embrace even the basic principles of war fighting.