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I think Gen. McChrystal erred in talking publicly about the war in Afghanistan because he is a man who, constitutionally, cannot not tell the truth about his assessment of the war and what we need to do differently. And now that he's the ISAF commander, he can't go on making public speeches because what he says has political import. But I have not been able to get all worked up over this or have sympathy for those trying to make this out to be MacArthur '51. Spencer Ackerman and Walter Pincus*, especially, sum up why such talk is silly, and I recommend you read them both on this matter.
*I met Walter Pincus at a dinner last night, actually. I shook this older man's hand, introduced myself, and he [might well have] said in response, "Hello, Yoda my name is." I don't normally get too awed when meeting people, but it was kind of an honor to meet the guy who has been covering national security for the Washington Post since Katherine Graham was in diapers. What a legend.
UPDATE: Fred's thoughts...
I actually listened to that speech.
(On an unrelated note, I need to get a life.)
I'll say some of the same stuff I said over at Mudville Gazette/Greyhawks, and, again, me being a clueless outside-the-beltway-civilian-never-been-in-the-military likely colors all of my misunderstandings, er, I mean, thinking :)
1. The beginning and end of the speech was flanked, quite touchingly actually, by a thanks to the British soldiers. In a coalition, are such speeches, at the behest of others in the coalition (at least, their think tanks) necessary from time to time? I thought it was a bit of 'rally the troops' frankly. Seriously, the very last line of the speech is incredibly touching.
2. I thought the content plain vanilla COINage, and what one would expect from a General, hand-picked to much fanfare, for 'getting it.' Not so much fanfare over strategic reviews, next time, White House publicity types, if you don't want subsequent attention.....
3. The speech was riddled with quite innocuous phrases, like, 'things are bad, but not all things are bad, some things are good." I, as a political animal, could spin that stuff anyway I wanted. A person could have seized on the 'things aren't so bad stuff,' and spun that, too, to support a more limited approach. Well, you could, if you wanted to.
4. If, during the Q&A, he said, 'no comment,' that, too, would be spun. Everything can and will be politicized, and in that environment 'it's a dam*ed if you do, dam* if you don't situation' for the military, I think, so maybe, not giving speeches would be best.
5. In a Media 2.0 environment, where the general public may expect more from commanders in terms of communications than in the past (well, perhaps they don't, and perhaps they shouldn't?) should we be mindful that such potentialy missteps will happen from time to time? How can they not? No one is perfect. I'm reminded of a passage, I wish I had the book with me now, in Thomas Rid's War 2.0 where an Israel general gets on t.v. to explain certain actions, and is accused of politicizing military actions and retorts, essentially, that in a vaccum someone has to speak up! Yes, I know, we are not Israel. The commentary around the McChrystal brou ha ha made me think of that particular passage in the book. I hope I remembered it correctly - I might not have. Double check everything on the internets, people!
6. What if the good General simply made a mistake? I mean, maybe he shouldn't have answered a particular question about what should be done and say 'no comment', but, on the other hand, as a member of the general (no pun intended) public, I would like him to be honest in public forums. I really would. So, maybe less speech giving. Still, international audiences in a coalition may wish it!
7. The fact that so many people of good faith are making contradictory arguments makes me think this is not a clear cut issue.
8. When a White House is rudderless, I bet you will se a lot of this stuff. Okay, I'm being kind of biased and unfair with this and putting in my own .02, because you all know my feelings about said politicos.
9. What have I missed?
It is not silly at all and reasonable folks have made this criticism.
How is it silly when a general officer says here is my plan, give me the resources because if you dont we will fail, and then (implicitly) it will be your fault becaue you didnt give me the resources? Did you Ex have a hand in the writing of his leaked assessment? If so did you not see the civil military implications of the way that the assessment was cast?
Are the alternatives to the present pop centric coin approach really "shortshighted"? And in saying such things isnt one precluding any substantial consideration of such alternatives and therefore ditching strategy in the process?
gentile
It's rare that I say this, but I mostly agree with COL Gentile here. The fact of the matter is that it is not the responsibility of the in-theater military commander to determine desired endstates, or to balance strategic priorities, or to synthesize foreign and security policy with other competing governance (and resource) concerns. It is his responsibility to come up with the best plan to win given the objectives and constraints set out by his leadership, or to resign if he thinks winning is impossible.
It is the president's job to determine why we're in Afghanistan and what we want to get done. It's also his right to determine what resources will be made available. Having done those two things, it's only proper that he should let his theater commander execute whatever plan (within reason) he thinks is most likely to accomplish those goals under the guidelines set out. To go beyond that and mandate a certain tactical or operational method is to erode the authority of the commander, to ignore or make irrelevant his specific expertise, and to turn a four-star into an action officer.
Everyone's got a role to play here. GEN McChrystal's role is not to determine how best to end transnational terrorism, or whether or not defeating the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan should be an American national priority. His job is to figure out how to accomplish the theater objectives assigned to him by the president, the SecDef, and NATO.
In unrelated news -- COL Gentile, your input requested here.
I cannot write a comment without going off into a livid rant. So in brief, I have lost all faith in the military commanders who fled the Afghan battlefield to lose another battle in Iraq and who now demand the current POTUS to explain how he is going to win the WAR to them. Total bullshit.
Honestly, I listened to the speech too. And within the context of the entire speech i didn't think he was out of line. As a civilians it said things i needed to hear. I thought he was honest, and frank. I also thought he was thoughtful and clearly aware of larger strategic concerns and political landscape.
That is about all we can ask for i would think.
If Gen. McChrystal had said that the war in Afghanistan was an immoral war and troops should be withdrawn
immediately would every Democrat lawmaker, journalist and blogger be screaming about the chain of command?
The fact of the matter is that it is not the responsibility of the in-theater military commander to determine desired endstates, or to balance strategic priorities, or to synthesize foreign and security policy with other competing governance (and resource) concerns. It is his responsibility to come up with the best plan to win given the objectives and constraints set out by his leadership, or to resign if he thinks winning is impossible.
I think, but do not know that a lot of the confusion here stems from a belief on the part of of Gen. McChrystal and the other authors of the recent assessment that they were doing the latter thing (come up with the best plan given the objectives) and not the former thing (balance strategic priorities).
That is, the strategic goals and priorities, such as the are, were outlined in the AfPak whitepaper published back in March. The recently leaked assessment is consistent with that report and seems to me to be an attempt to lay out a "best plan given the objectives".
The consternation we're seeing appears, to me, to be a result of those objectives being questioned, not from the bottom up, but from the top down.
MikeDC -- I completely agree, but I think it's been made clear by this point that our strategic objectives are being reconsidered, and GEN McChrystal should probably adjust his public pronouncements accordingly.
I agree with your agreement and your additional point. I suppose it sort of blows my mind that we're reconsidering a strategy we spent time coming up with but haven't even really attempted.
What a surprise. I would never have expected this argument from you, Ex. What is wonderful about reading AM nowadays is how original and unpredictable your arguments have become. Bravo again!
Kaplan's article is a pretty good summation, but this part is patently ridiculous:
Most Army officers have read Dereliction of Duty, a 1997 book by then-Maj. (now-Brig. Gen.) H.R. McMaster
Bernard -- All due respect, and Ex doesn't need anyone else fighting his battles for him, but are you offering anything to the debate here? Do your several "ha ha, I was right, and look at all the people who agree with me!" posts on your own blog represent originality of thought or creativity in analysis?
We can disagree without being needlessly snide.
President Obama strategic objectives are being reconsidered. It is the prerogative of the Commander in Chief to to so. Gen. McChrystal was not on the same page as the President for good reason, the President did not share this information with the General. When you do not have communication with with your 4 Star General whom you gave responsibility for the Afghan Theater this will happen. General McChrystal was still working off the March 27th Interagency Policy Group's Report. General McChrystal will get on the same page with our President, when President Obama finds out what page he is looking at.
"Is McCrystal the new Shinseki?" is the best article header I've seen on this subject.
Fact is, your president SACKED the previous commanding general with much fanfare and replaced him with McCrystal. Then a ordered a "tell me like it is" assessment of a "necessary" war.
All this barely 5 months ago.
Now what is being suggested is that your President will sack his own appointee because he doesn't like the assessment. Again, within MONTHS?
From here on in every advance the Taliban makes in Afghanistan and every casualty will be viewed in the prism of of this decision Obama is going to make as CoC.
The politics of this are striking. Obama has made himself a trap and has now walked himself into it. Inexperience writ large.
I appreciate your owning up to his error. Attackerman has overcompensated, trying for the unanimous not-guilty verdict based on a close reading of the text, and, I think, falling short. This has been blown out of proportion for sure, but it was not nothing, and I'd rather have my Bruce Ackermans on a hair trigger for weighing in to right the civil-military balance if they see a need than for them to be sluggish or even not exist at all.
You don't offer thoughts on Kaplan. He's very nuanced, but at one point he does refer unambiguously and without challenging the concept to "this breech [sic] in the chain of command," and states flat-out that Gate's "privately" was directed straight at McChrystal. (I'm not sure how he thinks he can be so sure, but he seems to regardless.)
I suppose it sort of blows my mind that we're reconsidering a strategy we spent time coming up with but haven't even really attempted.
That's a perfectly appropriate reaction for you, a citizen, sovereign and not disenfranchised from this decision, to have to the course of your president's thinking on the topic. It is, however, quintessentially above Gen. McChrystal's paygrade, we can agree on that, right? In that sense he is perhaps less empowered to directly seek to determine this decision than we are here.
As far as your mind being blown, though. Are you sure that makes sense? COIN was ascendant when the previous strategy was drawn up; the president was inaugurated in January, the strategy signed off on in March. It's fair to say his campaign rhetoric may have greased the skids slightly for a particular outcome. By all means ding him for letting politically charged positioning too much determine real-time war policy, and ding him again for wavering subsequently, because if you're POTUS and you waver, you get dinged, it's just part of the scoring. But should it really blow you mind that he's committing now to the serious rethink that was not allowed time to come to a head in the harried post-inaugural days? You're familiar with the concept of sunk costs. If this would be the wrong path to take, there's no time like the present to figure that sh*t out, ya know? Now's the time. Before you put lots more Americans in-country. It would be a bummer to come to that conclusion in a year.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28007.html
"“From a political perspective, I think having a widely respected retired Marine four star general in your administration makes things a lot easier to disagree with the uniformed services than it would if [Obama’s] national security adviser were a Washington lawyer,” said Andrew Exum, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who served as an adviser to McChrystal’s initial assessment team.
While acknowledging that Jones is not from the same counter-insurgency oriented, "all star" officers personified by McChrystal and his boss, Gen. David Petraeus, Exum said it would be a mistake to underestimate the respect a retired four star such as Jones commands.
"There may be disagreements within the current uniformed military and with Gen. Jones, but those are strategic disagreements," Exum said."
I continue to be astonished at the disapprobium knowlegeable people heap on the general about this whole tempest in a teapot. Everything M4 said was consonant with the CURRENT "strategy" (as it constantly referred to; personally it seems to me to be merely the ends piece of a strategy) approved by POTUS. Until POTUS says different, what would be "MacArthurian" would be to challenge its validity. And M4 did the opposite of that, supporting the POTUS decision and saying that other choices--in his opinion, and he is authorized to have one--would not work. And I not only personally have no dog in this fight, except being in Kabul, but I am with Sen. Levin about the whole mess.
That's a perfectly appropriate reaction for you, a citizen, sovereign and not disenfranchised from this decision, to have to the course of your president's thinking on the topic. It is, however, quintessentially above Gen. McChrystal's paygrade, we can agree on that, right? In that sense he is perhaps less empowered to directly seek to determine this decision than we are here.
I believe I already said as much :)
But should it really blow you mind that he's committing now to the serious rethink that was not allowed time to come to a head in the harried post-inaugural days? You're familiar with the concept of sunk costs. If this would be the wrong path to take, there's no time like the present to figure that sh*t out, ya know? Now's the time. Before you put lots more Americans in-country. It would be a bummer to come to that conclusion in a year.
I'd "ding him" more because the President gets to (or rather, must) set the agenda and chose to what projects to allocate his time. The President wasn't prevented from making the war an area of focus at any point prior. He's not a victim of circumstance and he rightly gets dinged if he ends up promulgating a policy that's not his own.
And obviously you're right as to the question of sunk costs. If the President truly believes this to be the wrong strategy, he needs to review things.
Every step along the way makes sense, but yes, when it all ads up, it sort of blows my mind that the resulting facts end up as "the President committed to strategy he paid no mind to but now that he's paying attention, via sticker shock, he wants to reevaluate everything".
You said it's a ding. I said it blows my mind. In either case, it's done. For me, it gives me less confidence going forward. To put it simply, what's the evaluation process and why's it happening?
Is it because the President really didn't buy into his first strategy and/or thinks things have changed, and now wants to get it right? Or is it because perhaps everyone is on board with the strategy but they don't like the solution it requires?
Had Exum posted this argument in the minutes after McChrystal's gaffe, I would not have posted a snide response... but would have instead debated him. Instead, here is comes, late to the game AFTER both Jones and Gates have publicly slapped McChrystal down -- and anyone who doesn't understand that is what happened does not understand the "ways of Washington" well enough -- and instead of actually making an argument, just dismisses concerns as "silly." Jones is silly? Gates is silly? Really?
"Fact is, your president SACKED the previous commanding general with much fanfare and replaced him with McCrystal. Then a ordered a "tell me like it is" assessment of a "necessary" war.
All this barely 5 months ago"
The above strikes a cord with me, watching form the far antipodes it does seem that this has happened very fast, and certainly that's the case in real time war making decisions, but it strikes me that not enough time has passed to actually give the strategy a fair go.
However the larger question for me is this - is a dissenting voice the worst thing, certainly McCrystal sits at a level far above those who can squawk and remain unheard, but surely we want out all star 4 stars to have the ability to speak their minds.
In the end I think it may be just what libertariansoldier has suggested; a tempest in a tea cup and much ado about nothing.
I believe I already said as much :) Glad we're on the same page there.
You said it's a ding. I said it blows my mind. In either case, it's done. For me, it gives me less confidence going forward. To put it simply, what's the evaluation process and why's it happening?
To me, we "ding" political leaders all the time for reasons sometimes personal and idiosyncratic, other times widely shared and reasonable. All I'm saying is that I think Obama has to expect some dings for equivocating, because it's not decisive, and that's appropriate, but that ultimately making the right decision is far more important. I think the fact that he's evidently willing to take the hit on decisiveness is clearly evidence that he regards this decisions as worth taking those hits. And considering where I've been on the question myself, I think he's got that prioritization lined up just right. So while I understand making a mental note of the fact that this process hasn't conformed to our ideal of a decisive wartime, leader I personally am struck when I hear people say that it blows their mind, especially when the commanding general says he finds it appropriate.
Is it because the President really didn't buy into his first strategy and/or thinks things have changed, and now wants to get it right? Or is it because perhaps everyone is on board with the strategy but they don't like the solution it requires?
It's hard to say, right? I personally think that the belief that the president fully embraced a COIN strategy in March was premature. I mean, it's fairly clear that's the case, right? Given that, the speech he gave at the time, and the white paper, should have reflected his thinking, and it's entirely his responsibility that they reflected a policy consensus that he plainly was not fully committed to. As is mentioned above, the president ordered the new general to provide an assessment -- not to commence a full COIN campaign and offer a blank check on resources. What is the point of an assessment if there is to be only one appropriate response to it? Exum wants the WH to be clear about whose assumptions are being questioned, and that's fair. But it's also somewhat ego-centric and small-minded -- not on behalf his own ego, but with regard to the 'sides' of the larger policy debate . And therefore it lacks perspective. Is this discussion about which Washington intellectuals are going to win the argument and taking notes on what level of influence was had by the various sides at times past? Or is it about crafting the right policy for the American people? The fact that the president is expending his dwindling political capital by extending the debate about the fundamental policy to me shows where he is on that question.
So I guess I'd say it's the former, but what if it's the latter? That is, what if the March statement was essentially, 'Here's what we'd ideally like to do in AfPak -- we're putting a new commander in place and asking him what it'll take to make it happen,' and now the question of resources -- and, paramount above all, their sustainability -- is asserting itself. Well, obviously he gets 'dinged' (or blows minds) for not being acutely enough aware of resources when putting together the blue-sky vision -- totally fair. But that doesn't change anything in the here-and-now. In the here-and-now we are dealing, first and foremost, with a political situation in Afghanistan that is essentially a worst-case scenario (or worse) in terms of what was envisioned in the pre-March planning. I realize that's not directly a resource question, but it directly affects domestic support for the effort. See for example Wednesday's Hardball "Politics Fix" section where Chris Matthews directly attacks our moral basis in, to say nothing of the practical wisdom of, putting down an insurgency against a government that the population with good reason regards as illegitimate. Domestic political support bears directly on what the president U.S. political calculus that determines resource continuity.) In the here-and-now, we have a party in control of Congress (it matters not a whit that the president happens to be a member of the same party) that will certainly demand progress if it is to continue to approve funding for the effort. And in the here-and-now the new political realities in Afghanistan may render the likelihood that such progress can be shown on a timeline that can sustain funding politically here for as long as is needed for the effort to succeed. These facts may very well render the desired solution unachievable, and then, even if the president would otherwise be willing to commit to the strategy, it is the prudent course to reduce our expenditure of blood and treasure on the conflict now rather than increasing it for an interval, only to have it forceably reduced later by inevitable political realities back home, having little to show for the temporary increase in losses.
Last "Visitor"= me. ;)
All I'm saying is that I think Obama has to expect some dings for equivocating, because it's not decisive, and that's appropriate, but that ultimately making the right decision is far more important. I think the fact that he's evidently willing to take the hit on decisiveness is clearly evidence that he regards this decisions as worth taking those hits.
I wouldn't say my concern to "decisiveness" per se. I applaud deliberation. I don't applaud waiting around and then deliberating. A skeptical eye might even seen the administration making a sudden (heh, decisive!) effort to appear deliberate after conspicuously not considering the matter when it should have been. Which seems to me to be an obvious reason for the Mc-natives getting restless while the Big O was touting health care and nuclear disarmament.
I want deliberation, and I don't want a knee-jerk yes/no. But foot-dragging isn't deliberation either
A couple more comments on the hear and now. It's not just a matter of the March report being OBE, I think. A couple things I'd note:
1. The McChrystal report was received August 30. The first substantial deliberative strategy meeting we heard about took over a month.
2. Something pretty much unsaid in the whole debate is that our original strategy, as best I can tell, called for significant involvement from our political and diplomatic corps in the non-military aspects of the problem. As best I can tell, they've been completely absent in this effort and it's received little to no attention. Nor is anyone talking about what to do about it.
I don't imagine the political situation is quite at the worst case scenario yet (simply because I tend to think vigorous intervention that leads to brokering some sort of deal amongst the government claimants is possible... they're all calling for this and seem to recognize the need for it), but you're certainly right that it's part of the problem. But part of the problem is we've been sitting there and letting it stew all summer. I can't remember anyone of any import - the President, Sec State, whatever we call Holbrooke... say or be noted as doing anything regarding the political situation. That's part of the strategy too, and I can't tell that we even have one.
OK... I'm just venting at this point, but you're right. The larger policy debate doesn't occur in a vacuum, but that works both ways. We can't blindly follow through on a bad plan when events prove it flawed, but we can't expect to have much of a debate if we sit around and wait for the pot to boil.
The White House re
Very thoughtful ruminations. Here's hoping we get this one right.
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