The Optimism of GEN Westmoreland persists...

Another Vietnam? Maybe a bad analogy.

It seems that, once again, senior leaders of the military are painting a rosy picture of progress in a war zone. What do you expect from career officers who lead the most can-do organization in the world?  The can-do attitude of the America military is both its greatest strength and weakness. Here is an excerpt from the article describing the reaction of DNI Clapper, who is himself a retired 3-star USAF general that has fully embraced the goatee and a less rosy picture of progress as DNI, to testimony regarding the sentiments expressed by the operational commander in Afghanistan, the CENTCOM Commander, and the EUCOM Commander (as well as Ambassador Crocker):

Well, yes [there are differences in opinion], Clapper said, those officials “took issue with the NIE on three counts having to do with the force structure, didn’t feel that we gave sufficient weight to Pakistan and its impact as a safe haven and generally felt that the NIE was pessimistic” about the situation in Afghanistan and “the prospects for post-2014,” when troops are to withdraw. Clapper tried to ease Levin’s concerns. “If you’ll forgive a little history, sir,” he began. “I served as an analyst briefer for General Westmoreland in Vietnam in 1966.” Clapper said he learned there that it’s typical that the “operational commanders sometimes don’t agree” with the intelligence team’s assessment of their efforts.

Here is an example of how foreign armies view the American can-do attitude:

It's fun to kill Taliban

Good luck General Mattis.

Fox Fallon

Admiral (R) Fox Fallon

The neoconservatives were apparently thirsting for some action with China when Admiral Fallon was the commander of USPACOM in 2005. Here is an excerpt:

"There were people who warned me that you'd better get ready for the shoot 'em up here, because sooner or later we're going be at war with China," recalled the commander, William Fallon, a retired navy admiral. "I don't think that's where we want to go. And so I set about challenging all the assumptions."

In his first extensive interview since resigning from the navy this year, Fallon said that the United States desperately needed to come up with a strategy for dealing peacefully with a rising China.

Fallon if you remember, went on to become CENTCOM commander after serving as PACOM commander - an oddity within the senior officer corps. It was as CENTCOM commander that Fallon continued to challenge the Bush administration and some reports state that he had trouble containing his subordinate, then MNF-I commander GEN David Petraeus, whose influence on the White House was growing by the minute. In this piece, Fallon also stated that, the war in Iraq "is essentially over."

"We have some combat activity still ongoing occasionally up in the Mosul area, but other than that it's pretty much over and been over," he said.

But the war in Afghanistan, though showing some progress in recent months as a result of increased cooperation with neighboring Pakistan, is "probably a bigger challenge than Iraq," Fallon said.

Afghanistan Is in Its Worst Shape Since 2001, European Diplomat Says

From The New York Times:

One of the most experienced Western envoys in Afghanistan said Sunday that conditions there had become the worst since 2001. He urged a concerted American and foreign response, even before a new American administration took office, to avoid “a very hot winter for all of us.”

Mr. Vendrell said that nevertheless it was time not to abandon Afghanistan but to redouble efforts there, both military efforts and those to build up civilian institutions and ensure that elections are held next year. In particular, he said, the United States must develop clear standards to govern the detention of hundreds of Afghans it holds without trial.

“This is not the time to leave; we are not destined to fail, but we are far from succeeding,” he concluded.

How exactly is GEN Petraeus going to fix Afghanistan? It is a trick question. Petraeus' tactical warfighting days are now over... implementing an effective counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan falls to NATO/ISAF commander, GEN David McKiernan. Petraeus can only help influence the efforts of the commanders in theater. Since he is now exclusively at the strategic level, GEN Petraeus must focus on the big picture.

First, he must focus on the destruction of the jihadist logistics supply chain across CENTCOM's area of responsibility. This chain includes the drug trade and the money from it that goes towards purchasing weapons in addition to the movement of fighters to the conflict areas. He needs to follow the money. Disruption requires a tweak of the human intelligence targeting system at the strategic level by issuing guidance refocusing tactical units' priority intelligence requirements from the whereabouts of terrorist leaders to the whereabouts of the movers and shakers (e.g. Taliban members who speak Russian, Farsi, Arabic, French, or Chinese, and Iraqis that speak Farsi, Pashto, Russian, French, or Chinese - all of whom undoubtedly play a role as messengers or in securing weapons - yet seem to be low level jihadists, well-educated engineers who undoubtedly help teach the popular "IED Construction 101" at Helmand Community College or Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib University of Najaf - now with an extension center in Sadr City!). Killing or capturing the movers and shakers will disturb the links the Taliban needs to sustain itself and help erode the power of its well known leaders. The Taliban's strength, its ability to operate in a decentralized manner, is also its weakness in this aspect.

Second, Petraeus must be a diplomat and a military advisor. He must throw a lump of clay onto his potter's wheel and form the base needed for stability in the region for years to come... the next CENTCOM commander and president will hopefully then be able to add a few coils of clay and continue to mold the regional sculpture. One of his first acts as CENTCOM commander should be to petition outgoing President George W. Bush and whoever the incoming president is to make guarantees to the Pakistani government that we will not withdraw prematurely leaving them with the problem of the Taliban. Given that they have an inexperienced president,Asif Ali Zardari, these assurances are needed. Also, it will go a long way towards convincing Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, that, since U.S. premature withdrawal is off the table, he needs to ensure that the ISI shares actionable intelligence on the Taliban to its infantry units and NATO/ISAF, rather than allowing the Taliban to operate in Pakistan for fear of retaliation upon U.S. withdrawal. This will also pave the way for U.S. cross border raids into Pakistani territories to eradicate the Taliban.

Third, Petraeus must also ensure that a farmer subsidy program is begun in Afghanistan by petitioning the defense secretary and president for more money so that the opium eradication is accomplished not by crop spraying, but by paying poor farmers not to grow opium, which funds the Taliban.

Finally, he must ensure that the lights are turned on across the CENTCOM area of responsibilities and that infrastructure is built linking the countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to other countries... a task more easily said than done. These are just a few things that should be on Petraeus' to-do list, but I am confident that he is already tracking.

See also:
Willing To Win in Afghanistan?

Odierno takes charge

General Odierno propaganda art
[courtesy of the The Weekly Standard]

From The Guardian today:

The physically imposing Odierno, who will be promoted to four-star general, was a relative latecomer to the hearts and minds techniques of Petraeus. During his first stint in Iraq in 2003, when he commanded the 4th Infantry Division, Odierno was responsible for an area north of Baghdad known as the Sunni triangle, which included Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

Few US military commanders or soldiers have much good to say about Odierno's aggressive tactics. His division's mistreatment of Iraqis and the heavy use of artillery appalled others within the country's armed forces.

Army reporters and commanders said Odierno's unit - a heavy armoured division, despite its name – used an iron-fist strategy that may have appeared to pacify the area in the short term, but alienated large parts of the population. Some argue that the behaviour of the 4th Infantry Division helped create the insurgency.

"Fourth ID fuelled the insurgency," an army psychological operations officer told Thomas Ricks in his book on the Iraq war, Fiasco. An unnamed general said bluntly: "The 4th ID – what they did was a crime."

Odierno defended his troops' conduct by saying his men faced a population more hostile than in the rest of Iraq and had to act accordingly. The capture of Saddam in an underground bunker in December 2003 by Odierno's soldiers did little to dispel their cowboy image.

The division's tactics contrasted with those of Petraeus, whose troops complemented searches of ex-Baathists' homes with meetings with tribal chiefs and community projects such as rebuilding schools and painting over old murals of Saddam. Petraeus went on to rewrite the US military's counter-insurgency manual and then took overall command in Iraq.

Odierno was slow in recognising the strength of the insurgency at the start of 2004. At the time, he told reporters that the insurgents had been "brought to their knees". He was not alone in his overconfidence. A few months later, violence erupted and US forces all but ceded control of places such as Fallujah to the rebels...

Odierno is now a convert to the Petraeus approach, telling troops it is their job to protect the population and that counter-insurgency takes time.

From Al Jazeera today:

General Ray Odierno, a US military commander known for his aggressive tactics, has taken command of US-led forces in Iraq, replacing General David Petraeus.... [the 4ID] used a heavy-handed strategy that has been accused of devastating large parts of the Iraqi population. It was Odierno's soldiers who captured Saddam in December 2003. <>But later, he appeared to have adopted Petraeus's approach... He has argued consistently against sharp cutbacks in troop levels in Iraq, which is negotiating a controversial security pact with Washington to determine troop levels that will remain in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

Here is a copy of General Petraeus' farewell letter to the troops:

Finally, a picture from the change of command ceremony:

Is Odierno ready?

GEN Raymond Odierno, new MNF-I commander, contemplating
OPERATION KIBBLES 'N BITS

I have maintained from the beginning that the only reasons GEN Raymond Odierno, a career artillery officer, continues to be promoted is because his wife runs a great officers' wives club, his son was badly injured in Iraq, and he is a yes man [see Nomination of LTG Odierno for MNF-I commander]. As a major general in command of the 4th Infantry Division (4ID), Odierno overflooded Abu Gharib and did not even know what counterinsurgency was. Meanwhile, his peer, then MG David Petraeus, referred to as "King David" by Iraqi tribal leaders and mocked as a "perfumed prince" by fellow officers who thought his tactics were ridiculous, followed a much different course. Petraeus, the "pied piper of Northern Iraq" in NBC parlance, was constantly preaching about "winning hearts and minds" in Mosul and was billed "Iraq's Repairman" by Newsweek; clearly he got it from the beginning. In striking comparison, the only nickname Odierno, a New Jersey native, earned was "Tony Soprano." Odierno shunned Petraeus' tactics and instead followed the limited guidance given to him in the sermons of his boss, LTG Ricky Sanchez, who also happened to be Petraeus' boss. Odierno killed or captured the Iraqi "bandits" while denying that there was an insurgency, all tenets of the Sanchez Doctrine. Here is an Odierno quote from a June 18, 2003, USA Today article:

"Although major combat operations have concluded, our soldiers are involved in almost daily contact with noncompliant forces, former regime members and common criminals," said Odierno, whose troops operate north of Baghdad to Kirkuk and east to the Iranian border. The area includes Tikrit, Saddam's former hometown.

"We are seeing military activity throughout our zone, but I really qualify it as militarily insignificant," Odierno told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Tikrit. He added that the attacks are "having no impact on the way we conduct business on a day-to-day basis."

Apparently, Odierno just didn't get it! Doesn't America deserve adaptive leaders with foresight and vision? Odierno's performance as a division commander should have ended his career, but it didn't.

Odierno began to see the light in the summer of 2004 when Petraeus was promoted ahead of him to lieutenant general on May 18, and his son lost his left arm due to injuries sustained in an ambush. From that point on, Odierno worshipped at the altar of counterinsurgency. Odierno read the French Coptic texts of David Galula and the Gospels of John, also known as Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and FM 3-24. Odierno forced himself to believe that his diminutive former peer, David, could perform miracles and slay Goliath.

I truly hope that I am wrong about Odierno and he can run this war himself. Hopefully, his years of Counterinsurgency Bible study have prepared him for his apostolic succession. I hope that he is thinking of what the transition from counterinsurgency operations to nation building entails and reads Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, by Francis Fukuyama of The End of History and the Last Man fame, as a way to start to wrap his mind around the issues he could face. I hope he is prepared to start from scratch if the oil spots dry up; this time, however, there will be no surge forces available to keep the peace unless the selective service system is activated. I also hope he is prepared to execute a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and take the last chopper out of Baghdad if he is called to do so (which I think is highly unlikely). Finally, I hope that he does not take Petraeus' focus off of the strategic issues he needs to deal with as CENTCOM commander and he will not be calling Petraeus every few hours asking him what to do...

Odierno will have an able corps commander to help him, LTG Lloyd Austin, who, while serving as the ADC-M for the 3ID during the initial invasion of Iraq, was awarded the Silver Star. Austin, an infantry officer with numerous light infantry commands, is described as a "soldier's soldier" by peers and will bring a needed perspective to the heavy handed Odierno, who has a proclivity, as evidenced by his command of the 4ID, to fall back on his more than 25 years of conventional/force-on-force/3GW warfare training as a heavy artillery officer. On Monday, when asked if he thought progress could be moved along any faster or if he expected any changes from Petraeus to Odierno, Austin said, "I'm not sure that pushing them [the Iraqi government, the IA, and IPs] forward is the right thing that we want to do. We tried that once before and found that that didn't work." Hopefully, Odierno's heavy hand does not reverse the limited gains made in Iraq during the reign of the infallible David and he does not prove the Peter Principle as MNF-I commander, which I argue he already proved as a major general from March 2003 to April 2004.

See also:

Odierno's Conversion