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| History Will Not Judge General Petraeus Kindly | |
| 2007-09-30 | |
The opinion of Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University.
.... David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the "way forward," Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind—one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes. .... The general has now made his call, and President Bush has endorsed it: the surge having succeeded (so at least we are assured), it will now be curtailed. The war will continue, albeit on a marginally smaller scale. As events develop, it just might become smaller still. Only time will tell. Petraeus has chosen a middle course, carefully crafted to cause the least amount of consternation among various Washington constituencies he is eager to accommodate. This is the politics of give and take, of horse trading, of putting lipstick on a pig. Ultimately, it is the politics of avoidance. A political general in the mold of Washington or Grant would have taken a different course, using his moment in the spotlight not to minimize consternation but to stir it up to the maximum extent. He would have capitalized on his status as man of the hour to oblige civilian leaders, both in Congress and in the executive branch, to do what they have not done since the Iraq War began —- namely, their jobs. He would have insisted upon the president and the Congress making decisions that wartime summons them—and not military commanders—to make. Instead, Petraeus issued everyone a pass. In testifying before House and Senate committees about the current situation in Iraq, Petraeus told no outright lies. He made no blustery promises about "victory," a word notably absent from his testimony. The tone of the presentation was sober and measured. It contained the requisite references to complexity and challenge. Petraeus acknowledged miscalculation and disappointment. In contrast to his commander in chief, he did not claim that U.S. troops were "kicking ass." Yet the essence of his message was this: after four years of futile blundering, the United States has identified the makings of a successful strategy in Iraq. The new doctrine that Petraeus had devised and implemented —- the concept of securing the population and thereby fostering conditions conducive to reconstruction and reconciliation —- has produced limited but real progress. This gives Petraeus cause for hope that further efforts along these lines may yet enable the United States to create an Iraq that is stable, unified, and not a haven for terrorists. In so many words, Petraeus told Congress that senior U.S. commanders in Iraq had finally found the right roadmap. The way ahead may be long and difficult—indeed, it will be. But Petraeus and his key subordinates know where they are. They know where they need to go. And above all, at long last, they know how to get there. .... The critics make a good case. Yet let us ignore them. Let us assume instead that Petraeus genuinely believes that he has broken the code in Iraq and that things are improving. Let’s assume further that he is correct in that assessment. What then should he have recommended to the Congress and the president? That is, if the commitment of a modest increment of additional forces —- the 30,000 troops comprising the surge, now employed in accordance with sound counterinsurgency doctrine —- has begun to turn things around, then what should the senior field commander be asking for next? A single word suffices to answer that question: more. More time. More money. And above all, more troops. It is one of the oldest principles of generalship: when you find an opportunity, exploit it. Where you gain success, reinforce it. When you have your opponent at a disadvantage, pile on. In a letter to the soldiers serving under his command, released just prior to the congressional hearings, Petraeus asserted that coalition forces had "achieved tactical momentum and wrestled the initiative from our enemies." Does that reflect his actual view of the situation? If so, then surely the imperative of the moment is to redouble the current level of effort so as to preserve that initiative and to deny the enemy the slightest chance to adjust, adapt, or reconstitute. Yet Petraeus has chosen to do just the opposite. Based on two or three months of (ostensibly) positive indicators, he has advised the president to ease the pressure, withdrawing the increment of troops that had (purportedly) enabled the coalition to seize the initiative in the first place. This defies logic. It’s as if two weeks into the Wilderness Campaign, Grant had counseled Lincoln to reduce the size of the Army of the Potomac. Or as if once Allied forces had established the beachhead at Normandy, Eisenhower had started rotating divisions back stateside to ease the strain on the U.S. Army. .... If Petraeus actually believes that he can salvage something akin to success in Iraq and if he agrees with President Bush about the consequences of failure —- genocidal violence, Iraq becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks directed against the United States, the Middle East descending into chaos that consumes Israel, the oil-dependent global economy shattered beyond repair, all of this culminating in the emergence of a new Caliphate bent on destroying the West —- then surely this moment of (supposed) promise is not a time for scrimping. Rather, now is the time to go all out —- to insist upon a maximum effort. There is only one plausible explanation for Petraeus’s terminating a surge that has (he says) enabled coalition forces, however tentatively, to gain the upper hand. That explanation is politics —- of the wrong kind. .... an incremental reduction in U.S. troop strength makes sense only in one regard: it serves to placate each of the various Washington constituencies that Petraeus has a political interest in pleasing. A modest drawdown responds to the concerns of Petraeus’s fellow four stars, especially the Joint Chiefs, who view the stress being imposed on U.S. forces as intolerable. Ending the surge provides the Army and the Marine Corps with a modicum of relief. A modest drawdown also comes as welcome news for moderate Republicans in Congress. Nervously eyeing the forthcoming elections, they have wanted to go before the electorate with something to offer other than being identified with Bush’s disastrous war. Now they can point to signs of change —- indeed, Petraeus’s proposed withdrawal of one brigade before Christmas coincides precisely with a suggestion made just weeks ago by Sen. John Warner, the influential Republican from Virginia. Although they won’t say so openly, a modest drawdown comes as good news to Democrats as well. Accused with considerable justification of having done nothing to end the war since taking control of the Congress in January, they can now point to the drawdown as evidence that they are making headway. As Newsweek’s Michael Hirsch observed, Petraeus "delivered an early Christmas present" to congressional Democrats. Above all, a modest drawdown pleases President Bush. It gives him breathing room to continue the conflict in which he has so much invested. It all but guarantees that Iraq will be the principal gift that Bush bestows upon his successor when he leaves office in January 2009. Bush’s war will outlive Bush: for reasons difficult to fathom, this has become an important goal for the president and his dwindling band of loyalists. Granted, no one is completely happy. Yet neither does anyone go away empty-handed. The Petraeus plan offers a little something for everyone, not least of all for Petraeus himself, who takes back to Baghdad a smidgen of additional time (his next report is not due for another six months), lots more money (at least $3 billion per week), and assurances that his tenure in command has been extended. This outcome reflects the handiwork of someone skilled in the ways of Washington. Yet the ultimate result is to allow the contradiction between our military efforts in Iraq and our professed political purposes there to persist. .... The president has made no serious effort to mobilize the wherewithal that his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan require. The Congress, liberal Democrats voting aye, has made itself complicit in this shameful policy by obligingly appropriating whatever sums of money the president has requested, all, of course, in the name of "supporting the troops." Petraeus has now given this charade a further lease on life. In effect, he is allowing the president and the Congress to continue dodging the main issue, which comes down to this: if the civilian leadership wants to wage a global war on terror and if that war entails pacifying Iraq, then let’s get serious about providing what’s needed to complete the mission —- starting with lots more soldiers. Rather than curtailing the ostensibly successful surge, Petraeus should broaden and deepen it. That means sending more troops to Iraq, not bringing them home. And that probably implies doubling or tripling the size of the United States Army on a crash basis. ... Of course, if he had done otherwise —- if he had asked, say, to expand the surge by adding yet another 50,000 troops -— he would have distressed just about everyone back in Washington. He might have paid a considerable price career-wise. Certainly, he would have angered the JCS, antiwar Democrats, and waffling Republicans who want the war to go away. Even the president, Petraeus’s number-one fan, would have been surprised and embarrassed by such a request. Yet the anger and embarrassment would have been salutary. A great political general doesn’t tell his masters what they want to hear. He tells them what they need to hear, thereby nudging them to make decisions that must be made if the nation’s interests are to be served. In this instance, Petraeus provided cover for them to evade their responsibilities. Politically, it qualifies as a brilliant maneuver. The general’s relationships with official Washington remain intact. Yet he has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly. | |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #15 Oky doky lotp, call me when US Moslems will become loyal american citizens. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-09-30 23:33 |
| #14 Ok, let's try again with a little detail. The relatedness vs. reciprocity tension is not simply one between Arabs vs. the West. As early as 1968 Fauzi M. Najjar argued, in an influential paper, that this tension existed within Egypt, as Nassar's socialism came into conflict with traditional feudal Islamic culture. Indeed, he argued that the emerging Islamicism of the Muslim Brotherhood was a response to the real inroads made by socialism and the interaction of traditional Egyptian ways of life with the modern western world. Ahmed al-Najjar certainly agreed. A German-trained Egyptian economist, he was an early and tireless promoter of Islamicism. Among his accomplishments was to encourage the Sauds and others to form Arab banks which became - by intent - the channels for promoting Salafist / Wahabist movements. His argument for so doing was that the Western banking systems inevitably would erode Islamic forms of relationship power in favor of quantitative reciprocity, thereby eroding Islamic identity -- an erosion he believed had already happened and would continue under Nassar. The relationship vs. reciprocity tension has created cracks within Arab countries for decades. Petraeus understands this and is using it beautifully: find, create, deepen and exploit those cracks. Create relationships of convenience such as those in Anbar. They may not have deep roots, but they are useful for now. We'll see over time the degree to which those roots deepen and spread. Or not. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 14:54 |
| #13 Doesn't have to be about ethics vs. relatedness. As I said, voice in the wildness. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-09-30 14:25 |
| #12 The time for huge forces was when we first went in. This guy is an idiot for not even bothering with cultural and political considerations in IRAQ, not the US, dictating the level of forces. It's possible that a large amount of troops at the early stage might have been counter-productive, due to Iraqi cultural and political considerations. It is funny tho, that being a 'political general' is an epithet when he doesn't serve your purposes. Colin Powell was a political officer; I don't recall Bacevich and his ilk ever putting this kind of blather out about him. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-09-30 12:59 |
| #11 Let us assume instead that Petraeus genuinely believes that he has broken the code in Iraq... WARNING: Bad Metaphor Alert! Code breaking is a static problem - find the key and it's game over. A better analytical model for war is a game - you move, your opponent moves; moves and counter moves. The situation changes constantly as one side or another gains the initiative. Something people ignore when talking about Iraq is that 'the war' is two separate conflicts. The first was the Shock and Awe campaign that successfully removed Saddam. It was over at the Mission Accomplished stage. Following that is the ongoing proxy war being waged by Iran and Syria via their imported jihadis and al Qaeda. It is a separate game and Petraeus seems to be playing it very well. Bottom line: I'm not impressed with this guy's analysis. Like OS said, the change ROE is making a difference. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2007-09-30 11:57 |
| #10 Lt Col carries no weight, especially a blanket folder like this guy was. Lets face it, if you are West Point and as far as you go is Lt Col, you aren't much of an officer to refer to on command and strategy. I'm sorry for his loss, I've personally seen 3 of my boyscout kids buried, and one nephew who lived with us for several years as a teenager as well as my son;s best friend (Anbar, there wasnt enough left for an open casket). But his loss gives him no more athority on this that mine do me. He is a political hack like Cindy Sheehan, grinding his axe. Biggest flaw this dumbass has? If we blanket the place, the Iraqis will quit, and it will be far too heavy a hand, and will result in backlash. The time for huge forces was when we first went in. This guy is an idiot for not even bothering with cultural and political considerations in IRAQ, not the US, dictating the level of forces. Its a kin to saying a little bit of starter gar helped start this camp fire nicely, lets dump the whole gallon on there now. Furthermore, remember that the success were due to PRESENCE that was balanced, and ROE that allowed us to be effective. Ask any soldier over there - and look back to my complaints - the ROE held us back. This moron former officer completely missed the point: The change in ROE and tactics (staying once we get there) is what turned thigns around, For it to be effective we needed more troops, but we got what we needed, and have succeeded. Tell me again professor, how will more troops help us in Anbar? The Marines there aren't even wearing heavy armor in many places. How ill more troops help us in Baghdad? We shop up and pacify all the areas without Iraqi faces (there aren't enough well trained troops to match us), then it becomes an occupation again, not a liberation. This professor is a fool trading on his west point diploma. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2007-09-30 10:55 |
| #9 It's a J curve issue. Iraq dipped way down in the instability part of the curve. At that point people want stability first and foremost and the surge is providing that, bit by bit. Iraqis will need to pull themselves up the right hand side of the curve to an open, representative and responsible society. What we can do to foster that is to make it clear we're not leaving soon, thereby threatening increased instability if they go backward to embrace a strongman / mullahs. Doesn't have to be about ethics vs. relatedness. Boots on the ground in just the right numbers combined with persistance. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 09:25 |
| #8 This is the difference between a Colonel and a General. Colonels are really the highest ranking military leaders. Generals are liaisons between superior units, different armies, and civilian leaders. Once this distinction has been made, just by listening to a Colonel, you can tell if he ever has a chance to become a General. Granted, in a time of severe stress, a "fighting Colonel" may be made a General, but it will never be a good fit. There are indeed "Command" Generals, but there are also "Logistical" Generals, "Administrative" Generals, and yes, "Political" Generals, all of whom are essential in supporting a military and keeping it fit. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-30 09:22 |
| #7 Only time will tell. That's why we call it history. It takes time. I remember all the 'professional' moaning and groaning about 'not winning Korea' through the 60s. I doubt anyone today looking at the two Koreas can even question, 'who won'. after four years of futile blundering And yet you reference 'Grant' before that. Sorta skips your mind that your description fits the situation Grant was put in and at best all he could do was lock Lee into place, while Sherman cleaned up everything else along the Eastern seaboard. But, that was the plan. What then should he have recommended to the Congress and the president? That is, if the commitment of a modest increment of additional forces �- the 30,000 troops comprising the surge, now employed in accordance with sound counterinsurgency doctrine �- has begun to turn things around, then what should the senior field commander be asking for next? A single word suffices to answer that question: more. More time. More money. And above all, more troops. No. You might be a officer and historian, but you ignore Korea. We 'surged' till the Koreans could do more of the effective heavy lifting. It took time to train and equip [and reequip] the Koreans. It worked. Korea was a 'economy of forces' theater, because the newly minted DoD was far more concerned about the threat posed in Central Europe. Yep, that's the message, ignore your own record on Korea. No model there. This defies logic. It�s as if two weeks into the Wilderness Campaign, Grant had counseled Lincoln to reduce the size of the Army of the Potomac. Or as if once Allied forces had established the beachhead at Normandy, Eisenhower had started rotating divisions back stateside to ease the strain on the U.S. Army. .... Grant wasn't training and equipping locales to take over the heavy work and neither was Ike. Sorta miss that 'nuance' there didn't you. I guess its natural given that submerged in our own record of the Korean conflict and our contribution is the bottom line fact in casualties is that the South Koreans paid the premium of the butcher's bill. We shifted a lot on their shoulders. They didn't have the luxury of others giving them enough breathing room to do the training in a less deadly environment, so they learned the hard way, in blood. The author misses a point of an American character of war. Enlist the locales to carry the fight. In the end it wasn't the Army that got Geronimo, it was the Apache Scouts. In the end it was the South Koreans who shouldered the bulk of the fighting in Korea. It was the South Vietnamese who were carrying on successfully, till a Democratic Congress cut all material and financial funding giving the enemy their triumph that so long had been denied them. The object is to provide just enough [remember the concept of 'economy of force'] support to the Iraqis to carry the fight. And it appears that has begun. The Iraqis provide the depth. With AQ's turning on the population and the 'awakening' to their own security needs filling the ranks of the Coalition, that depth is now denied AQ and is added to 'our' side. The enemy can not sustain themselves. It's the logistics of personnel. The author needs to really revisit the turn around achieved by Gen. Matthew Ridgway after the collapse of the Army at the Yalu in Korea. This piece demonstrates either ignorance of that record or his own sand bagging for his argument. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-09-30 08:49 |
| #6 Do tell. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 08:16 |
| #5 The man would be right---if some kind of US-friendly government in Iraq was possible. It isn't (I've written here in the past about the difference between the Arab---relatedness based, and "Western"---reciprocity based, systems of ethics. Voice shouting in the desert, so to speak). IMO, that Petraeus, and Joint Chiefs, are doing is trying to preserve US military, which cannot survive another Vietnam like retreat---hoping, I guess, that reducing Iran will overawe Iraqis enough for a retreat which is not a rout. p.s. 3 billion a week---as an Israeli I find the number, shall I say, interesting. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2007-09-30 07:15 |
| #4 Bacevich's posts at HufPo are filled with the same breathless urgency and profligate rhetoric that shows up in a lot of blog entries and comments from all sides of the political spectrum. I haven't read Bacevich's books. From his articles online and in the popular press, however, he strikes me as being stuck in Vietnam era assumptions, shaped by his 1 year in Vietnam, early in his Army career. Two examples of this from the article above. First, the assumption that the army can and should double or triple its size on a crash basis. That arguably was a doable course of action in the Vietnam era of conscript soldiers wielding relatively low tech equipment. It is not (from what I can tell) doable at all today under anything other than a national consensus of extreme emergency. And even then I'm not sure it's doable - not without destroying our Army's effectiveness. This is not your hippy-draft-dodger, learn which end of the rifle to hold and we're off, Army. The second Vietnam era echo in Bachevich's writing is the charge that Petraeus is first and foremost a political general who has betrayed and broken promise with his troops. Set aside, for a moment, the fact that from what I've heard Petraeus is a highly respected and loved operational commander whose combat leadership was deeply effective before he assumed this larger command. Bachevich is arguing that Petraeus should have been MORE political - attempting to change national policy in broad ways. The key here is that Bachevich's call for doubling or tripling the size of the Army is disingenuous in the extreme. He does indeed want Petraeus to make such a call -- because he It would appear from what I've read of his writings so far that it is Bachevich, not Petraeus, who is ultimately the accomodater. He and those of like mind believe that we can find our way through the post 80s world by diplomacy that will yield lasting peace if we only find the right accomdations to make with the Arabs, with the Palestinians, with the Russians, with the Chinese. One has only to look at the CRFP document calling on Israel to withdraw to the green line, combined with vague statements that the Palestinians should be given aid to help them establish a stable country, to see the thrust of that point of view. What he ignores is that under Clinton that was exactly the policy we followed. And it's pretty clear it didn't work. He's right that our Army and Marine Corps is stretched to near the breaking point. Where we go next, tho, is a matter not only for debate but of great urgency as well. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 06:21 |
| #3 LtCol (ret) Bacevich is also a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy. The Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy is a group of scholars, policy makers and concerned citizens united by our opposition to an American empire. The Coalition is dedicated to promoting an alternative vision for American national security strategy that is consistent with American traditions and values. |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 05:42 |
| #2 If Petraeus actually believes that he can salvage something akin to success in Iraq and if he agrees with President Bush about the consequences of failure —- genocidal violence, Iraq becoming a launching pad for terrorist attacks directed against the United States, the Middle East descending into chaos that consumes Israel, the oil-dependent global economy shattered beyond repair, all of this culminating in the emergence of a new Caliphate bent on destroying the West —- then surely this moment of (supposed) promise is not a time for scrimping. Rather, now is the time to go all out —- to insist upon a maximum effort. Sounds real good on paper. There is some logical merit to what Bacevich has written - if you take Iraq as an isolated situation, not connected in time or space with any other events. Lone Ranger, cuts to the chase. Who probably knows the most about possible future plans that might require a somewhat "fresh" fighting force? Is it Bacevich? Or is it Petraeus? I'll put my money on Petraeus. Given who has been most successful in actual combat circumstances, I'd have to agree. As far as I am concerned, Iraq is looking less and less like a war, and more and more like a particularly nasty civil disturbance. The idea that US troops should be shedding blood to prevent Iraqi troops and police from shedding blood does not make sense to me. It is like having a $100,000 computer system blow out, to protect a $0.25 fuse. Old saying: "A $300 picture tube will protect a 50¢ fuse by blowing first." I suspect that a "shock and awe" event involving clear cut combat offense is drawing near - and not in Iraq. We can only dearly hope so. Iraq is but a prelude to the real event. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-30 03:52 |
| #1 There is some logical merit to what Bacevich has written - if you take Iraq as an isolated situation, not connected in time or space with any other events. One question that might be asked: Is Iraq following September 2007 the ultimate best test and worst trial that the US Armed Forces are likely to face within the next generation? Or within the next ten years, Or next three years? Bacevich is basically advocating the "commitment of the reserve" in support of winning a decisive battle. Committing your reserve is always a last resort measure - that you only take when the potential rewards outweigh the probable risks. Might there not be a coming conflict of even greater proportions and significance, for which we need to conserve some resources? The "Normandy" style battle to which he refers mght be next year, in another nearby cesspit nation. And - it might be wise to "rest and refit" the forces a bit, in preparation for that battle. Who probably knows the most about possible future plans that might require a somehwat "fresh" fighting force? Is it Bacevich? Or is it Petraeus? I'll put my money on Petraeus. As far as I am concerned, Iraq is looking less and less like a war, and more and more like a particularly nasty civil disturbance. The idea that US troops should be shedding blood to prevent Iraqi troops and police from shedding blood does not make sense to me. It is like having a $100,000 computer system blow out, to protect a $0.25 fuse. I suspect that a "shock and awe" event involving clear cut combat offense is drawing near - and not in Iraq. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2007-09-30 03:21 |