The forthcoming issue of Contemporary Security Policy will contain, among a great many things, a review I wrote of Keith Shimko‘s latest book, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge University Press). The journal editors have kindly permitted the review to be reproduced, in advance and in full, here at Kings of War. By around December, the original will be published in volume 31, number 3 of Contemporary Security Review (which also, I should add, features an article of mine on ‘Peacebuilding After Afghanistan’).

Here is the review, courtesy of Contemporary Security Policy.

The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, Keith L. Shimko. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 249. $27.99 (paperback).

by David H. Ucko

Keith L. Shimko, associate professor of political science at Purdue University, makes the case that the US military has, since Operation Desert Storm, undergone a ‘revolution in military affairs’ (RMA) based on the emerging technologies of precision strike, communications, and reconnaissance. In a book published 2010, this claim is less novel than it is bold: to most, the RMA lost its appeal in 2003 when the promises of ‘transformation’ and ‘network-centric warfare’ proved largely irrelevant to the challenges facing the US military. Critics piled on, pointing out how the theories of RMA proponents had led to some of the grossest strategic missteps in recent American history.

If the RMA was the thesis, the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were the antithesis. What Shimko provides is a synthesis of the two, creating a middle ground between RMA proponents and critics. The result is a much-needed reworking of typical RMA assertions, informed by a decade of experience with insurgencies in various theatres. Thus, the RMA will not ‘lift the fog of war’ but significantly reduce it, and while Shimko still sees the associated capabilities as ‘revolutionary’, they are not, he explains, relevant to all types of war.

This attempt at reconciliation is the book’s strongest point. By placing the RMA in historical context, and by elaborating on the ‘newness’ of its related innovations, Shimko offers an assessment that is less hyperbolic than usual, yet that nonetheless gives commonly discredited concepts their due. Thus, charting a course between sales-pitches and diatribes, he astutely identifies ‘the limits as well as the promise of RMA technologies’ (p. 208).

The note of moderation relies on a dichotomy in the book between conventional warfare, where the RMA is said to fit perfectly, and stabilisation or counterinsurgency, where the RMA is less helpful. The bifurcation is evident structurally as well as conceptually. The book’s first half, covering the 1991-2003 period, largely ignores the challenges of insurgency, waxes lyrical about the RMA, and feels in its sources and content like it belongs (and may have been written) in the time-period it deals with. The second half, dealing with the Iraqi insurgency, leaves the RMA lexicon behind and focuses instead on the ascendance of a US counterinsurgency strategy. The implications of each isolated half are never carried over to inform the argument as a whole; nor does the concluding chapter convincingly integrate these two sides of the same coin.

Instead, the conclusion drawn from this bifurcation is that ‘the RMA was about a revolution in warfare, not postwar stabilisation’ (p. 145). This conclusion is commendable for flagging the ‘lower spectrum of operations’ and for its recognition that precision-guided munitions have only limited relevance in such settings. Nonetheless, the dichotomy between conventional and irregular wars is questionable, and even pernicious if it allows RMA advocates to dismiss the ‘lower end of operations’ as inconvenient exceptions to otherwise foolproof theories. This appears to be the tendency of the book: Shimko even refers to the conventional and insurgency phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom as two separate wars, and draws separate conclusions about the RMA from each. This allows for a glowing endorsement of the RMA on the basis of the war’s initial blows, and the ascription of subsequent trouble to unrelated factors.

Yet to judge the RMA solely on its ability to hit or reconnoitre targets, and conventional targets at that, is to mount an artificially bounded testing-ground in which these technologies can shine. Conclusions drawn on this basis are not wrong, but the context in which they are right is too limited to allow for broader statements about the nature of warfare. Furthermore, Shimko’s ‘two wars’ are not separate: from the number of troops deployed and lack of plans to the immediate ownership of seized territory and towns, the ‘post-war’ phase in Iraq overlapped with and stemmed directly from the manner in which the country was invaded. It follows that ‘revolutionary’ technology is never really ‘decisive for outcomes’, even in ‘conventional’ wars (p. 217), because conventional wars are themselves means toward political ends, and it is here that decisiveness comes into play. Even in World War II, where the conventional and post-war phases appear so distinct, planning for the occupation of Germany began as early as 1941 and related intimately to the manner in which the war was fought and also concluded.

In lesser ways too, the book’s defence of the RMA is problematic. Shimko argues that RMA theorists of the 1990s cannot be faulted for excluding from consideration the type of enemy that would eventually be faced, as no enemy presented itself at that time (p. 130). While this is doubtlessly true, does it justify the exceedingly narrow conception in RMA thinking of war essentially as a targeting drill, ending with the military defeat of fielded forces? Similarly, Shimko argues that it was not due to transformation fetishism that war planners failed to prepare for the stabilization of post-war Iraq, but because of the entrenched US military tradition to separate political and military thinking. Again, this is no doubt true, but does RMA theory look any better if it simply shares in, rather than exclusively own, this failing? The search for nuance is commendable but sometimes appears tendentious.

Still, the book is extremely readable and well researched, offering a detailed review of American defence modernisation over the last two decades. It is unfortunate that no primary research appears to have gone into the manuscript, as much of its content is therefore rather familiar. Also unfortunate is Shimko’s occasional tendency to highlight disagreements in the secondary literature without establishing where he himself stands. For example, the John Nagl vs. Gian Gentile polemic regarding counterinsurgency as a US military priority is recited in a few quotation-laden paragraphs, yet the author moves on before presenting his own take (p. 228). Indeed, upon finishing the book, it is unclear whether Shimko is advocating greater investment in RMA systems or a rebalancing of priorities toward ‘irregular war’.

Maybe the conclusion is just that RMA capabilities have some value, in targeting, reconnaissance and communications, in some settings, and against some adversaries. As a conclusion, this one is welcomingly moderate and well presented, but it nonetheless irks this reviewer, as it rests on a conceptual dichotomy of wars as either ‘conventional’ or not, which has not been helpful to the US military either in the past or today.

In the coverage of the American drawdown in Iraq, all of the celebratory ‘end of the combat mission’ rhetoric has largely glossed over the 50,000 US troops that will remain in the country. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised to read this bit of honesty in the Washington Post, particularly this paragraph (UPDATE: for a more in-depth explanation of the ‘post-combat’ strucutre, see the Army Times):

By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded “advise and assist brigades.” The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops.

Yes, training might be their primary mission, but I find it hard to believe that we’ll have 50,000 troops just staffing desks ‘mostly in offices’, as reported on NBC News last night.

Those advisers are likely to continue to patrol the streets with Iraqi units in the embedded Military Transition Teams (MiTTs – at least that was the term when I was last there), and the United States isn’t going to commit 4,500 SOF solely for the training mission. There will still be counter-terrorism operations in coordination with the Iraqis that could also result in American casualties. I wonder if there will be any backlash from the public when ‘trainers’ and ‘advisers’ continue to die after this overselling job on the end of the ‘combat mission’. My inclination is to say ‘no’, but only because the American public is so focused on the economy and casualties in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan seem to register at the moment, though I’m admittedly an outside observer from London these days. Thoughts?

Yesterday morning I took a break from writing the Afghanistan chapter of my thesis to watch the Secretary of State for Defence give a speech on the ongoing Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and the future of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). BBC News televised the entire speech and the Q&A live (BBC, Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian). Toward the end of the Q&A I thought Dr Fox gave an important soundbite: ‘This needs to be the defence review that puts the Cold War to bed’.

Interestingly, the term ‘Cold War’ was nowhere in the speech itself, but the comment suggests the frame of reference the Government is taking its approach to reforming the MoD. The Conservative Party left office in 1997 – not so long after the Cold War ended. It was clear (and unsurprising) from the attack on the previous Labour Government at the beginning of the speech that Government policies during the Conservatives’ 13 years out of power are viewed harshly by the current Government. Yet it is as if the Conservatives’ clock stopped in 1997 and is resuming now that they are back in office, with the Cold War only a few years deceased in the minds of ministers after their 13-year absence. It is worth remembering, after all, that the Berlin Wall came down before many of the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan were born.

At the same time, I do not dispute aspects of what Dr Fox was getting at. Many of the structures and processes within MoD (and within my own military’s five-sided building) do suffer from a Cold War hangover, especially procurement. The operational military (particularly ground forces) has gone through a bloody transformation in the last decade while the bureaucracy churns virtually uninterrupted. I certainly hope the SDSR and the ‘root and branch reforms’ address such issues.

As a personal example of the time lag outside the operational force, in 2004 I wasted devoted countless hours memorizing the structure of notional Soviet Tank Divisions in my officer training while we were actually fighting two nascent insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent years, at the top across the Atlantic, Secretary Gates has waged his own campaign against the Pentagon (with the latest salvo earlier this week against too many Generals and Joint Forces Command, those who brought us ‘effects-based operations’), and General Petraeus did something similar to the US Army on his way up the General Officer ranks. (As an aside, a relevant article on the demands of high command by Thom Shanker, Win Wars? Today’s Generals Must Also Politick and Do P.R., is worth reading from Thursday’s New York Times. It’s probably worthy of its own post, but I’m not sure I’ll get that far this weekend.)

The question is, Is Dr Fox Britain’s Gates? If so, does that make General Richards (the outgoing Chief of the General Staff and incoming Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) who commanded ISAF in Afghanistan from May 2006 to February 2007) the British Petraeus? The latter analogy has been made more than a few times already, such as in his Sunday Times profile 11 July (requires registration):

Marie Colvin, the Sunday Times foreign correspondent, who has observed Richards in various theatres of war, sees him as Britain’s answer to General David Petraeus, who recently replaced General Stanley McChrystal as overall commander in Afghanistan. “He’s the type of officer we’ve seen only in the past decade, taking a broader world view than ‘Who can I kill?’. Even physically he’s like Petraeus — medium height and very wiry.”

It remains to be seen whether Fox can do for Britain what Gates is attempting to do for the United States Defense Department. I am firmly in the camp that believes Gates is the best SecDef in the modern era – maybe ever. Firing Generals is great for the morale of Captains, especially after enduring the period when it seemed that Secretary Rumsfeld rewarded loyalty over competence and seldom held senior officers accountable for failures with those below suffering the consequences. The manner in which current CDS Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup’s relief was announced suggests Dr Fox might be of the Gates mold. Whether he can successfully wrestle the MoD bureaucracy into submission, however, is a question that will require much more time on the job to answer.

One of the hands-down best policy podcasts out there is “The Political Scene,” produced weekly — and superbly — by The New Yorker (iTunes link).  I’ve been listening to it for about two years now, usually while running in Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. Now that I’m not in DC any more, it’s one of the things that, oddly, makes me feel most connected. Voices just feel more immediate than the printed word.

This week, Jeffrey Toobin hosts Raffi Khatchadourian and Steve Coll on the WikiLeaks reports. Coll said something noteworthy in his closing words on the war in Afghanistan. It may be repeated and quoted here. Keep in mind the context: the summer has been hard. This July is now the deadliest month of the entire 9-year war so far, for the United States at least. 63 soldiers were killed, surpassing last month’s record of 60.

Now try taking a step back. “A new phase of the war has already begun,” Coll tells us. He’s not sure American decision makers always recognize and acknowledge that we’re in a transition phase — I certainly know the feeling from Europe. “The exit strategy is already under way,” he says. The date is not certain yet, but certain is that it will be some time between 2011 and 2014. That is not far off, mind you. “Every actor in the war knows it’s coming.” And “everybody” is “hedging for a post-NATO combat role in Afghanistan.”

Now, here Mr Coll might be a bit too optimistic. There can be little doubt that some actors are preparing for a post-NATO — read: post-counterinsurgency — Afghanistan: yes, the Taliban are patiently preparing; many among the local population are preparing; probably the current regime in Afghanistan is preparing; certainly Pakistani intelligence is hedging its bets in the shadows. But what about Washington? What about London and Berlin? In the past month I took part in two pretty high-level off-the-record workshops on irregular war and Afghanistan, one in the United States and one in Germany. In Berlin I asked a colonel, a diplomat, and a development expert about the government’s plans in case the current strategy does not work in the next year or two. First was silence. Then they said it will work. Hoping seems to be the West’s choice, not hedging.

Most informed observers – some seem stuck in 2006 — would probably agree with Coll, the big issue is not: “can [Washington, or NATO for that matter] achieve a military victory, but can it manage this transition so that Afghanistan does not collapse back into civil war or produce a second Taliban revolution.” What a heavy dose of realism. I’m not used to it any more. Feels like a dirty vodka martini after years of abstinence (another reason for missing DC there).

Then, yes, let’s have more of it. And just to be a little more creative, how’s doing that exercise without using the word counterinsurgency?

I like making reading lists. Actually, I don’t like it, I love it. Name the occasion and I’ll make the party-mix. How much do I love making reading lists? As much as these guys like making music top 5′s. 

High Fidelity Top 5

So I was pretty excited to see General James Mattis’s reading list posted on Small Wars Journal. I met the man a few years ago at the RUSI Land Warfare conference and was very impressed. It’s easy enough to be impressed by a Marine general in full dress uniform but I found him particularly enthralling. I invited him to come join the War Studies Department after he retired and we spoke for a few minutes about books. It was rapidly very apparent that this guy knows his books. I had a fleeting ‘I’m not worthy’ moment when he graciously and diplomatically said that he could think of nothing better than spending a year or two at King’s as a scholar. Which makes me wonder about how much he really had to do with this list because, well, it’s pretty mixed. There are, in my opinion, some absolute must reads in there alongside, frankly, a fair bit of blah. Anyway, my point is not to dissect the list–have at it in the comments here or at SWJ, if you wish.

A few years ago a more senior colleague was explaining to me his philosophy when putting together a course reading list. His were minimal. Basically a handful of books, his theory being that students got far more out of reading, really reading, just one excellent book than they did out of reading a dozen mediocre ones. He taught international relations so his students really read Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society. Now here’s my suggestion for CENTCOM. The static reading list feels kind of stale; what I think would be absolutely fascinating, what I would pay money for, would be to hear General Mattis talk about his top 5, or even his top 1 in the categories already on the list. Half an hour to an hour of his time then put it out as a podcast. What does he think people think should read and why. What did he get out of reading it? What does he hope that they would get out of it? That would be pretty illuminating and it would probably also tell people a lot about commander’s intent. (General Mattis, we’d love to have you here at King’s War Studies! Stop by when you are next in London. I also know where all the best pubs are to be found). 

Anyway, for what it’s worth here’s my Top 5.

1. On War by Clause… Naaa, too easy! It’s not that kind of list. My first choice is C.S. Forester’s Rifleman Dodd and I choose it for three reasons. A/ it’s under 150 pages and a ripping read that any private who can manage Penthouse Forum can get through in a weekend. B/ the Rifleman in question is one of Wellington’s troops who gets stuck on the wrong side of enemy lines hanging with the Spanish insurgents fighting against Napoleon during the Peninsular Campaign–a useful insurgent perspective. And C/ I think that Dodd exhibits what I reckon is one of the supreme soldierly qualities–equanimity, the quality of being even-tempered and calm despite crisis. Unfortunately, the latter is at the moment even more vital than usual because the chances are good that this war is not going to end well.
2. For reasons stated on KOW earlier, John Mackinlay’s The Insurgent Archipelago.  
3. Either Manuel Castells, Information Age trilogy or just his Communication Power. Insurgency is the quintessential bottom-up form of warfare; it naturally reflects the society from which it emerges. If you want to understand insurgency in the Information Age then you need to start by understanding the precepts of the Information Society in which it operates and upon which it preys. This is hard. So far, Castells is your best guide.
4. Quintan Wiktorowicz, Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach. Not all social movements are insurgencies but all insurgencies are social movements. Your enemy is not so much Al Qaeda, or the Taliban, as it is the mood of sullen resentment that animates the peoples who these groups purport to represent. Understand that mood. Learn about ‘social capital’ and what makes messages resonant; study how successful social movements work, it’s not all that different from successful insurgencies.
5. Clifford Bob, The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media and International Activism. Of all the books I’ve read in the last year this is the one that I found the most consistently thought provoking. ‘How do a few Third World political movements become global causes célèbres, while most remain isolated?’ The Taliban is not one of the case studies in the book (if you’re looking for a PhD topic, hint, hint) but it well could be. A very mature, balanced and non-hystrionic analysis of the insurgent-media-NGO nexus, particularly notable for dealing with NGOs which are normally forgotten about. I have to say that Bob’s book has helped me more than any other to understand why groups like Amnesty International, at least the UK branch, have cozied up with Islamists and people like that creepy egotistical prat Julian Assange of Wikileaks act the way that they do.

I could go on but I won’t. Make your own list! We can have a mature debate about in comments. Like these guys:

Monday mix tape

Today, again, is one of those days where reality seems like satire.

Lawmakers in Europe and America are debating the damage done by the leaked Afghanistan logs and the merits of Special Forces and drones in the fight against Islamic extremists in Afghanistan. The U.S. Congress just approved $59bn (£45.4bn) to pay for ongoing operations.

Meanwhile, the extremists are busy with … what their womenfolk wear.

Ayman al-Zawahiri ripped into France for banning the voile intégral, also known as burqa, sitar, or khimar. A step, Zawahiri thinks, that “violates every Muslim woman wearing a face veil and every student wearing a veil.” (By the way, Ayman, Syria also banned the niqab.) You would think they have more important things to care about in these times of conflict. But it gets better. Hamas is concerned with the next layer below, quite literally: lingerie. While France is banning the burqa, Hamas is banning the bra. The Islamists seem to think that’s okay.

I don’t even know what to say. It’s so confusing. And this is treacherous ground on so many levels. Clearly we’ve passed the stage where the battle is merely about the hearts and minds. Here’s a whole new dimension of the mind-body-problem. I mean, Foucault would love this stuff. I want some French philosopher and a four-star general to comment on this. I hear General James Mattis, the new head of Central Command, has a track-record of plain talk on such matters.

Please help.

A running theme among actors and institutions involved in ‘managing’ war-to-peace transitions is that they typically struggle to meet the requirements of the job. Inadequately supported, struggling with vague mandates, or lacking in capability and capacity, there does not seem to be one institution particularly well configured or able to undertake the difficult challenges of stabilisation and peacebuilding. NATO’s political disunity, consensus-driven approach to decision-making, and limited military capabilities all suggests that this body may not be the right tool for long-term foreign occupation. The US military, largely unsupported by its civilian partners, structured for conventional combat and with few allies to lean upon, has had to struggle to be at all successful in counterinsurgency environments. A cursory glance at recent British operations makes it difficult to see how this old master of counterinsurgency can continue to play a significant role in these operations, given the political commitment and resources now devoted to these efforts. And if this is true for Britain, it is certainly true for less well-equipped European nations, and for the EU as a whole, whose interest and capabilities for counterinsurgency were never really there to begin with.

The same problem affects the United Nations, whose recent expansion in ambition and commitments has brought all sorts of difficulties to the fore. Particularly in relation to the concept and practice of ‘robust peacekeeping’, the organisation often attempts painful compromises, between vague (or wholly over-ambitious) mandates and inadequate capabilities; between commitments to impartiality in doctrine and use of force in theatre; and, sometimes, between ‘peacebuilding’ and ‘statebuilding’. Of course these contradictions are most acute where the country is big, the government not entirely on your side and the security challenges manifold – the types of operations that the UN may in the future seek to avoid. As Richard Gowan writes in a recent article over at World Politics Review:

Some U.N. officials,… talk about Darfur and the Congo as “outlier missions”: too big and too dangerous for the organization to undertake. They point out that, while former Secretary-General Kofi Annan favored sending peacekeepers to Darfur, many of his senior advisers were extremely skeptical… Many officials in New York argue that there must be no more “outlier missions”.

What these actors all face, therefore, is a choice: muddle through and wish it all away; adapt institutionally to the challenges faced in the field; or retrench, opting for a less ambitious list of commitments. Of course, most organisations try to do a little of all three, though the option of muddling through often wins out. A slightly more enlightened response is to limit where and when to commit, to enter a period of retrenchment, borne out of prior miscalculation or, even, some degree of failure. This, however, also raises some tough questions.

Is retrenchment institutionally fatal? Some observers of NATO point to Afghanistan as a ‘do-or-die’ scenario, where ignominious withdrawal will spell the end of the Alliance. Not only does this exaggerate the inevitable ambiguity of end-states – the circumstances of NATO’s eventual withdrawal will be spun, contested and debated for years and decades to come – but it also underestimates the ability of organisations to adapt in the face of setbacks, even severe ones.

Still, retrenchment is likely to come at a cost in terms of profile or prestige. If NATO wants to avoid counterinsurgency in the future, its ground-based operations will be limited to peacekeeping missions, precisely the type of commitment that the Alliance has sought to extricate itself from in the Balkans. If the UN wants to avoid ‘robust peacekeeping’ it means saying no to the most pressing of humanitarian emergencies and concentrating solely on those settings where peace is already firmly established and ‘Blue Helmets’ are unlikely to be resisted; the El Dorado of a benign, permissive and consensual operating environment. This may not be such a bad idea, but it will involve a difficult, some might say unlikely, recalibration of what is expected from the world organisation.

Furthermore, retrenchment is often easier said than done. For the US, the alternative to counterinsurgency is often held to be conventional combat and more traditional assertions of power, yet it is difficult to envisage a major combat operation that would not also involve or lead to more ‘irregular’ challenges – stabilisation, asymmetric threats, urban operations – even if on a smaller scale. This is one reason why, in the US context, previous attempts at retrenchment – the Nixon Doctrine, the Weinberger Doctrine, Clinton’s presidential decision directive in the aftermath of Somalia and George W. Bush’s renunciation of ‘nation-building’ in 2000 – were all eventually ignored or forgotten. In the UN context, countless blue-ribbon panels and think-tanks reports have called for clearer mandates, greater resources and more selective engagement, yet these warnings have not prevented a steady expansion in UN peacekeeping commitments, also to areas where there really is no peace to keep.

Perhaps the freshness of recent disappointments and traumas will ensure stricter adherence to set preconditions, but what will this mean when the next crisis comes along? Back in 1999, Edward Luttwak famously proposed that we ‘give war a chance’, as war, for all its horrors, ‘brings peace’. This may very well be the new slogan for chastened peacekeepers and counterinsurgents, but is it a domestically sellable proposition, in a globalised and mediatised world? Despite all the costs of recent interventions, in the US, the UK and elsewhere, future inaction may also become too costly, at least politically. Indeed, it seems unrealistic that the need to intervene, whether for altruistic reasons, calculations of national security, or political profile, will not again be felt: the next genocide, an uprising against a friendly government, or a peace process on the verge of collapse.

Oddly, this is what makes the lessons learned in recent, highly ambitious operations so relevant for the longer-term, even if such operations, on this scale, are now purposefully avoided. Yet it does raise the question of who, in an age of retrenchment, will be the ‘intervener of last resort’. There simply are no takers: NATO can provide supporting assets to facilitate interventions conducted by others; the UN can consolidate the peace achieved by others; yet locating these ‘others’ will be a more difficult proposition; regional organisations such as the African Union have been found lacking, as has the European Union, despite the wealth of some of its individual members. As far as I can see, this leaves us with two choices: inactivity, or a highly problematic reliance on the US, a nation that day by day is becoming increasingly aware of its own limitations.

Recently The New York Times had a number of thought-provoking columns on the war in Afghanistan, triggered by the MacArthuring of McChrystal, as Frank Rich put it in a usually biting piece yesterday. Today, Ross Douthat has a piece on Afghanistan, “One Way Out.” He’s the Times‘s token conservative, often with quite refreshing ideas, who came in after Bill Kristol was booted. At first glance Douthat’s argument does seem fresh. At second glance it is dishonest.

The argument is that the worse things get in Afghanistan, the longer America will have to stay there. “Counterinsurgency” à la Petraeus is the way out; “Counterterrorism plus” à la Biden is the way to get stuck:

in terms of the duration of American involvement, and the amount of violence we deal out, this kind of strategy might actually produce the bloodier and more enduring stalemate.

Now, what’s wrong with this? A few things.

For one thing, nobody said that an alternative to counterinsurgency would “actually eliminate the American presence,” as the column implies. Some sort of  presence in the region will be required for the foreseeable future, no matter what strategy will prevail in the end, protecting the population or punishing an enemy. We should be honest about this.

Second, plainly: that America and its allies are protecting and keeping in place a corrupt regime in Afghanistan which “barely deserv[es] the title of mayor of Kabul” is not a far-off future fiction to be avoided: it is actually a quite accurate description of today’s reality.

Third, Douthat argues that counterterrorism will not be “antiwar.” The intended image, we presume, is the feel-good, peace-loving solution of the kind a Rolling Stone-reader would appreciate. But did the hippies understand that their magazine suggested that killing too few people might be the problem? Well, again, that’s a straw-man and a setup for dishonesty. Any strategy “will mean more enemies like Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber.” Yes, it’s a hard-to-face reality, but it is a reality: we just don’t have any policy option that would eliminate terrorist plots for good. Not Petraeus and not Biden. But try a dose of cynicism for a change. If you have to chose between two evils, maybe it would be better for America’s image — and worse for would-be Shahzads — if Afghans cause Afghan casualties, not Americans?

Fourth, protecting the population would be better than “relying instead on drone strikes and special forces raids.” Just to avoid another potential misunderstanding: we are not talking about mutually exclusive tactics here, one happening now and one not. Drone strikes and special forces raids have reportedly increased during the last year. And the administration is praising the tactic.

Fifth, one of the debate’s often implicit assumptions is that after counterinsurgency has succeeded, the Afghan government will be just fine and would not need foreign assistance on the ground to survive. Viewed from the Middle East, I can’t possibly muster such optimism — if not naiveté – and assume such a scenario could become reality in the next decade or two. Time moves so much slower in these dry desert mountains. I hope I’m wrong — but that is no guide for strategy.

And now the real irony: of all the options that the White House may consider, we read, counterinsurgency is “the one that holds out hope of enabling a real withdrawal from Afghanistan.” Here it goes again, Hope. Early on some more realist-minded observers in Europe, I remember, were concerned about a hope-driven security policy under Obama. But nobody expected the president would be under hope-attack from the right.

Both the media (NY Times, WSJ, Time) and blogs (SWJ, Abu M, Danger Room, Wings over Iraq, Best Defense, Armchair Generalist, ATTACKERMAN, to list only a few) are alight over the profile of General Stanley McChrystal in the forthcoming issue of Rolling Stone, weighing in on whether McChrystal ought to / will be fired now that he has been recalled to Washington, rather than attending his regularly scheduled AF-PAK meeting by teleconference.

There are many ways in which this crisis echos the profile of Admiral Fox Fallon in Esquire that led to his resignation and retirement during the Bush administration. Secretary Gates’ official statement does not bode well for the general, but still leaves the President room for maneuver:

I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine.  I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case.  We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world.  Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose.  Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions.  Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well.  I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person.

Regardless of the strategic concerns in practice in Afghanistan (see Abu M above) and the theoretical concerns of civil-military relations in principle, what might actually be just as important are the domestic political implications, as suggested by a statement from Senators Lieberman, Graham and McCain:

We have the highest respect for General McChrystal and honor his brave service and sacrifice to our nation.  General McChrystal’s comments, as reported in Rolling Stone, are inappropriate and inconsistent with the traditional relationship between Commander-in-Chief and the military.  The decision concerning General McChrystal’s future is a decision to be made by the President of the United States.

While these three are saying it is an issue for the the President, by calling McChrystal’s comments ‘inappropriate and inconsistent’ with American civil-military relations, they are suggesting Obama only has one option, if he’s really the Commander-in-Chief. The groundwork has been laid for second-guessing a decision.

There are likely going to be others on both sides of the aisle that will make this a lose-lose for Obama. If Obama keeps McChrystal, he is likely to be attacked for not having control over the military, as President Clinton was similarly accused in the 1990s. If Obama fires McChrystal, he is likely to be attacked for his lack of wisdom in having selected such a ‘loose cannon’ in the first place, especially after having fired General McKiernan, McChrystal’s predecessor. The President was less vulnerable to the latter charge in the previous case, because McKiernan was not ‘Obama’s general,’ but had been put in place during the Bush administration. Just as Obama now ‘owns’ Afghanistan after two troop increases and strategic reviews, he likewise owns McChrystal.

In the end, unlike the Fallon episode, this is an issue of style and personalities, not policy substance. McChrystal and his team basically won the debate last autumn on strategy. That Secretary Gates has to talk about ‘unity of purpose’ rather than ‘effort’, much less ‘command’, however, suggests one of the ways in which the United States (both directly and via NATO) has created a command structure that elevates the importance of playing nicely with others, since no single person is in charge of all aspects of strategy in theatre. Quoting from the President’s BP interview, he doesn’t have a single ‘ass to kick’, though he’s letting a particular one flap in the wind for now…

Here’s Andrew Bacevich, with a great presentation. He doesn’t think the US Army War College does strategy, and explains why.