Stop Making Sense
Nadia Schadlow at WSJ on the Pentagon’s effort to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:
The U.S. just dodged a bullet in Iraq.
Recently it was reported that Pentagon leaders were considering Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq since February 2007, for a prestigious redeployment to Europe. It is good news for Americans and Iraqis alike that Gen. Petraeus decided to stay in Baghdad through the fall.
What’s depressing is that top political and military leaders in Washington asked him to consider the move in the first place. The proposal to shift Gen. Petraeus out of Iraq reflects the unwillingness of the military as a whole to make the larger cultural changes required to succeed in tough counterinsurgency missions.
Schadlow goes on to point out that through pretty much the entirety of U.S. military history, successful top commanders have been kept in place. As she points out, some of our greatest, defining victories would quite likely be trainwrecks. Then, there is the military’s own COIN doctrine, in a COIN war.
Indeed, the military’s own counterinsurgency (COIN) manual emphasizes the need to cultivate effective leaders in the host country. Younger officers deploying to and from Iraq have reinforced these themes, writing consistently about the importance of maintaining a stable presence and getting to know the political, social and cultural terrain.
Yet the turnover of top commanders in Iraq directly contradicts much of the COIN manual’s observation that crafting a political solution over time is the only proven means by which insurgencies are defeated. Senior commanders play a huge role in integrating military policy with political goals. This is hard to achieve when top officers below Gen. Petraeus’ rotate out either every seven months (for the U.S. Marines) or 12 to 15 months (for the U.S. Army). Not only will U.S. Army corps commander Gen. Raymond Odierno leave later this month, but his entire staff will as well.
While units at the brigade level and below have an extraordinarily high operational tempo and endure constant combat stresses, the situation is different with large, well-staffed headquarter units. Despite this fact, all are on the same rotation schedule.
…
What seems clear is that personnel decisions in wartime — decisions made by the White House as well as top military leaders — should be driven by what is required to accomplish the mission, rather than mechanistic peacetime policies that call for the periodic rotation of top commanders and their staffs.
Topics: everything
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:20 pm on Thursday, February 7, 2008
7 Responses to “Stop Making Sense”
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February 7th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Perhaps when Gen. Petraeus finally retires from the military, he’ll consider a run for president. We could use some hard-nosed consistency.
February 7th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
The move to NATO wasn’t all that dumb a consideration. Afghanistan isn’t exactly going wonderfully.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I had wondered about the military following some kind of rotation schedule in Iraq and rotating generals in and out as if they were interchangeable parts.
They’re not.
However flawed any individual might be, at least he/she has developed some feel for the situation that the replacement has not. You can’t pass on many kinds of knowledge in a report or meetings or conversations.
It would be great if General Petraeus would consider a run for President someday. Besides his deep understanding of the specific situation in Iraq, his general intelligence was amply on display during his 2 days of Congressional testimony.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Sometimes I wonder about people.
The Surge couldn’t have happened with any effectiveness any sooner than it did.
There’s this thing called reality.
In reality, the Iraqis had to have time to sort through the endless deluge of bullshit propaganda that arab/muslim media, mullahs, western media, western libtards, DNC operatives, etc etc were filling their heads with and find out for themselves who their actual friends were.
The “insurgents” needed to beat themselves to pieces against the American bulwarks to the point where the futility of that effort finally percolated through their dense noggins.
The AQI needed time to show themselves to be the unrelentingly murderous animals that they are to enough of an extent that the average Iraqi couldn’t ignore or forgive it any more.
It was not until large, dedicated elements of the Iraqi “insurgency” began coming to American forces and asking if they could switch sides that the civil/social leaders felt it safe enough to openly stand with the Americans too.
It was then, and only then, that a Surge could have any real positive effect.
Before that, a large increase in forces would have been played by our own domestic traitor party, the muslim media and the western allies to our enemy as proof positive that the Americans were, in fact, invaders and intended to take Iraq for themselves as a colony, forever.
Now, pull your head out for a moment and ask yourself what that would have accomplished?
Life is harsh. Always has been. Always will be. Sometimes a situation just has to be ugly for as long as it needs to be ugly. And in such times, the options are to be the weak suck bag of snivel, or stand up and deal until the situation breaks.
February 7th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
The top command positions in Iraq are planned by Central Command (CENTCOM). The Pentagon was probably considering recommendations from CENTCOM, at a guess.
I say this because CENTCOM had some odd personnel rotation policies when I was in theater back in 2005. I can only imagine some junior assistant J1 looking at a calendar, and asking the assistant J1, “Sir, it’s time to rotate flag officers so that everyone can get quality command time.”
Whereupon brains cease functioning, and The Process™ takes over.
Sound impossible? I would describe it as “plausible”.
February 7th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
TRJ:
Sadly, the military, like any large organization filled with people, it is a bureaucracy and most of the rules and functions are developed during times of peace. Such rules and functions are primarily focused on the production and submission of reports, processing of paperwork, the maintenance of schedules, etc, and have little to nothing to do with actually fighting a war.
As in all cases, where there are people, there are such systems.
February 8th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Grimmy, you’ve said about everything I would have said, and said it well (despite the weird idea you have that you can’t write!).
You are right to point out the fact that the military is a government entity, and as such, works much the same way that all government bureaucracies work. Although a peace-time mindset is always a problem at the beginning of a war, we’ve had a political aspect within our most important institutions, including intelligence and the military, that has precluded the necessary change of attitude. If we look at this country’s history of war, we find two things: a diminished military that requires upgrading in force and material, and an entrenched officer community full of incompetents who made grade because of politics, not efficacy in running a war. There has always been a rash of firings at the top at the beginning of every war we’ve fought. Not this one. And it shows.
I am very thankful that the good general is staying in Iraq. Just think of what might have happened if we had not had someone in charge who understood the situation when the Iraqi people began to see where their interests lay!