Center for a New American Security

Thanks for recommending Fred

Thanks for recommending Fred Kaplan's article.

But the problems in

But the problems in Afghanistan aren't actually COIN are they? At least not in the military sense. It's all about the politics side...

DCIS, Army CID or DoD

DCIS, Army CID or DoD Pentagon Police should pull General McCrystal's Security Clearance, DoD Access ID's, but allow him to keep his Official DoD ID Card for Commissary privileges and identification. I'm guessing he may have already had this done, perhaps he's been confined to quarters while they process his retirement papers, but this guy could get very angry / McCrystal has access to tons of TS/SCI Information, firearms and many other dangerous things. Security / safety measures should be taken now to protect DoD personnel, classified information and civilians.

Let's hope McCrystal keeps a level head during these hard times in his life. We don't need some loon rogue General trying to perform a coup d'état in Washington D.C..

My contempt is so deep I've

My contempt is so deep I've moved past rage into calm.

I've figured out the secret of Ranger School. It's the ability to talk yourself into anything.

Which is why I say close Ranger School. It's a Leadership School. Well close it and burn it to the ground.

Don't take it personally. It's not you. It's all of you.

Ex: What shifts can he

Ex:

What shifts can he really recommend or change? Under McChrystal the US had been conducting a Coin campaign by the book. Oh sure there were warts here and there, but it was a classic pop coin campaign to be sure. Other than tweaking and trying to make the execution better what other changes can General Petraeus make?

Perhaps the Coin triumph narrative which is premised on armies when they do coin being screwed up but then are rescued by better generals has reached the end of its rope. McChrystal was the better general, only to be proven not so much. What character does General Petraeus now play in the theater of Coin, especially since the curtain has already come down.

We are at the edge, staring into the abyss.

safe travels

gian

That's It? That's all you

That's It?

That's all you have to say about the forced retirement of a remarkable officer? Your mentor? The man who brought you into his inner circle to provide input and counsel?

I'm really disappointed to see how quickly you can just "turn the page" on someone who had so much faith in you and your potential. This is all the reflection you have on this? Seriously. Hell, I've never even met the man, but I can pen a send off post with more emotion and feeling.

As I've said elsewhere, I was agnostic about keeping GEN McChrystal in Afghanistan. But his forced retirement from the Army is a devastating blow to our officer corps. Take a good, hard, look at our current roster of Four Stars. This loss is incalculable for the Army when its bench of inspirational senior leaders is really, really thin.

I'm so sorry that you've become beholden to an adminsitartion and its appointees. From my vantage, the firing of GEN McChrystal was anything but "classy". A few boilerplate lines thanking him for his service. Big. F--king. Deal.

To paraphrase Glenn Greenwald, I guess that this post is what "partisan tribalism" looks like. It ain't pretty.

"Needless to say, I had to

"Needless to say, I had to explain why Afghanistan is tougher than Iraq in just 300 words. I could have used 3000."

one reason is the drone strikes....pretty much unused in Iraq....i know you feel forced by the terrain, but the Dragon's Teeth Axion means drones create more enemy trusted networks than you de-node.
if you have any influence with Petraeus, id say stop the drones.
They simply are not cost-viable.

The Obama administration is

The Obama administration is in crisis mode...........polls are sinking.

First you realize you have a problem...Health Care (bomb-ooo as Johny use to say), BP (Obama's Deepwater Horizon, very deep with no horizon in sight), Bagovich goes on trial (all the Chicago bad memories), Failing policy in Afghanistan (what do we do...shoot the piano player?)............

and most important......Economic stimulus package with did not vibrate or had no batteries (that will teach you to buy cheap Chinese products).

****** Polls drop.....

****** Fire who you can and reorganize......

****** Then your stuck with a bunch of yes men and advisors who agree with you (good post AM).......

****** Then the rats start to jump ship (any resignations yet......YUP!... )

McChrystal did not have to happen. It was his aids that sang to Rolling Stone.
Obama made this resignation happen......his henchmen wanted an example. A failure in Afghanistan before the elections will sink his party.

Petreaus got demoted cause he was in the chain of command for the COIN policy.

and.....i'd like to apolo

and.....i'd like to apolo for my snark about a presidential run.
McC is a noble decent guy.
He got frustrated because currently we are losing in the Graveyard of Empires.
There was no way for him to meet his goals, and the fall review would expose that.

Just a thought: Basically

Just a thought:

Basically the mission of the armed forces is to shut up and do what the government tells them to do (within legal limits). So far, so intelligible. But now enters the whole COIN stuff: Suddenly they are not just soldiers, but negotiators, nation builders - and on the highest level, the modern eqivalent of colonial viceroys, i.e. politicians.
Small wonder they get confused - Mc Arthur had the same problem ...

Solution? Selecting generals who resemble statesmen rather than politicians ...? But how does one know beforehand what one will get? Or establishing a real viceroy (c.f. the Bosnian High Representative), with the military in a subordinate role?

Oh well, nobody said COIN was easy ...

(Douglas MacArthur that is

(Douglas MacArthur that is ...)

McChrystal failed. Of

McChrystal failed. Of course he sould be replaced.
He told his CinC this would work.
Mini-surge doctrine–>
McC + COIN + required troops + 3 years + X kajillion = stable Afghanistan with functional gov’t & nat’l defense

McChrystal's on-the-ground strategy was constantly undermined by drone useage.
The Dragon’s Teeth Axiom postulates that drones create exponentially more terrorist networks than they de-node.
Petraeus is coming in to do what he did in Iraq — lay down enough cover for us to start getting out in July 2011.
As far as Obama is concerned, Afghanistan is a failed experiment at this point…..Mullen, Petraeus, McChrystal et al told him McC + COIN + required troops + 3 years + X kajillion dollars would result in a stable defense force and gov’t for Afghanistan.
McC knows at this timepoint, one year out, that is impossible....Sir Sherard walked, the Taliban have "momentum".
He was basically trying for an extension. Obama refused.
So I believe Petraeus will stick to the timeline.
From last week.......
“Moreover, my agreement with the president’s decisions was based on projections of conditions in July 2011. Needless to say, we’ll do all that is humanly possible to achieve those conditions.”

@Waynez & Various

@Waynez & Various Sulkers:

You mentioned the lance corporal with questions for McChrystal. There's a difference between criticism and contempt, which is one of the lines McChrystal's people crossed. I'm no expert at having superiors, but I'm guessing that there's a fair difference between criticism and insubordination as well. The lance corporal is a straw man in the argument, because nobody except maybe a lieutenant really gives a shit what he says, so long as he does his job. By contrast, in the case of a four star general, what he says is part of his job.

Ultimately, McChrystal wasn't fired for military reasons, and whether or not it was 'fair' or 'justified' is as beside the point as if his chopper had gone down in the mountains. He wasn't even fired for insubordination, although the perception of insubordination was a political problem that needed to be handled somehow. McChrystal was fired for organization reasons. Administrative reasons. McChrystal was fired because (a) people and organizations that really, really needed to be communicating and working together for us to have any sort of chance in Afghanistan weren't doing that very well, and (b) the best solution that the President could see involved Stan McChrystal handing in his resignation.

Hopefully, if the people we generally love to hate (Eikenberry, Holbrooke) are as problematic as we assume, they won't be long in following.

I think McC was trying to

I think McC was trying to force the issue about the incoherence between Eikenberry, Holbroke and the military, probably with increasing frustration because every time the left hand makes a turn the right hand undo's it. Been there, done that, in a situation like that I'd rather listen to the man that needs to force some action than to a politician, but then I'm not Obama.

So Peteaeus is in, he will face the same problem. Obama could save face if he yanks Eikenberry and Holbroke out as well and packages the whole episode a failure to cooperate on a mission.

Everything else looks like a headless chicken dance - crashing what is left of America.

Visitor, the Dragon's Teeth

Visitor, the Dragon's Teeth Axiom is an example of a self-evident proposition in Informtion theory.
Drones create exponentially more adversary trusted networks than they destroy by de-noding.
Don't you think that is obvious?

I thought everyone knew what dragon's teeth are. heres the wiki.

Cadmus was the bringer of literacy and civilization, killed the sacred dragon that guarded the spring of Ares. The goddess Athena told him to sow the teeth, from which sprang a group of ferocious warriors called the spartoi. He threw a precious jewel into the midst of the warriors, who turned on each other in an attempt to seize the stone for themselves. The five survivors joined with Cadmus to found the city of Thebes.
Jason obtained the remaining dragon's teeth with the aid of Aeetes of Colchis. He offered the Golden Fleece to Jason if Jason would sow them into the ground. Jason did this and successfully overcame the warriors with the aid of Medea, who gave him the means to resist fire and steel.
The classical legends of Cadmus and Jason have given rise to the phrase "to sow dragon's teeth." This is used as a metaphor to refer to doing something that has the effect of fomenting disputes, rather akin to the law of unintended consequences.

Abu Muqawama......you are, as i recall, antidrone.
Can COIN work in Afghanistan if Obama ends drone strikes?

refined: Drones create

refined:
Drones create exponentially more adversary trusted networks than they destroy by de-noding, because of social network influence propagating along connections, either social or consanguinous.

Ahem. I'm warming up my "I

Ahem. I'm warming up my "I told you so".

COL Giap brings up some great questions. I read Gen P's statement about what he thinks are the three primary ways to achieve success and the very first point, getting Pakistan to attack or neutralize the Taliban, is going to be his Waterloo. We haven't been able to get them to do that yet. Why would they start now when victory for the Taliban is just around the corner? I have one nitpick with COL Giap. One of the fundamentals of COIN is to not allow the enemy to have an "unassailable base of operations". we have failed in that task and it isn't a small task. it's critical task and failure to do it correctly compounds the risks for failure.

what we need to "win" this war we won't be able to implement before our draw down deadline. More troops, less ROE, more artillery, corral the journalist and lock them away from the battlefield, don't be afraid to broaden the war into Pakistan or Iran. that's the short list but I bet none of them will happen.

in keeping with always being

in keeping with always being controversial, after we move past afghanistan, we need to take a hard look at our officer corps. how and why do we select so many liberal internationalist to the upper ranks. i know it partly has to do with the McNamara era changes to the promotion system. i think the other part has to do with the regimes belief in liberal international principles. since the regime gets to pick our GOs and both Democrats and Republicans are liberal internationalist these days, we end up with a liberal internationalist regime in the military. Therefore, the military regime uses "command messages" to frame their belief system. get off message, get marginalized. stay on message, get promoted. we have a generation of officer that don't dare speak the truth for fear of clashing with the regime and ruining their chances at promotion. do you think Gen Patton would have made it past Captain these days? of course not, he took too many risks and was far too bold and brash.

the time has come to end this. we need to replace the regime with one that uses common sense and not groupthink. we will continue to lose wars if we can't fix the current regime.

Major Scarlet: A thought:

Major Scarlet:

A thought: perhaps one can account for the internationalist impulse of the military's upper ranks as the resultant of forty five years of a bipolar world, a resultant which has yet to - but may - diminish over some span of time to be determined. As for the liberalism component, that is harder to explain, and I shall not try (at least this second).

ADTS

ADTS, liberal

ADTS,
liberal internationalist philosophers Nye, Barnett, Fukuyama, etc. here is some background. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_internationalism

how do i know the liberal internationalist have taken over our officer corps? easy. i'm a major, on active duty. i'm a graduate of the CGSC Strategy program. all we studied were the before mentioned authors. it was disgusting. Gen Caldwell (who is following Petraeus' footsteps) was in charge of the program when i was there. anyone that thinks we can hold hands and sing kumbaya with our enemies falls in that category. our civilian regime is run by these folks (republicans and democrats). I've worked with many of the GOs that survived the Clinton draw down. he hand picked these types. these are the people that use our military as a social experience with PC hogwash programs.

as Mencius Moldbug pointed out.. woodrow wilson was probably the first liberal internationalist president. he had his 14 points and the "right to self determination" which during his time was considered political and social dynamite. we have to push these people aside, withdraw from the Geneva Conventions, and put anyone that wants to attack us on alert that there will be hell to pay for doing so. people aren't scared of us and they rightly see us as a paper tiger because we won't use our power. not using our power only makes things worse for us and invites more attacks. this pansy foo foo Pop COIN needs to be put to rest.

Here is Professor Schuman on

Here is Professor Schuman on Katyn. Frederick Schuman, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Government, 1936-1968, Williams. A mainstream liberal internationalist. And a free agent, not a Comintern agent - at least, so far as I can discern.

From Soviet Politics, 1945, p. 506:

It was in this context that Goebbels perpetrated the most clever and gruesome propaganda fraud of the war. On April 15, 1943, the Nazi press and radio announced the "accidental" discovery at Kraznygor, in Katyn Forest near Smolensk, of a camouflaged mass-grave containing the bodies of 10-12,000 Polish officers, said to have been murdered by the "Jewish executioners of the GPU" in April of 1940. Within a few days Goebbels' entire staff, which had prepared the drama with meticulous care, was engaged in an all-out extravaganza on the "horror of Katyn" beamed to all audiences and replete with names, circumstantial details, "expert testimony," and all possible devices to lend credibility to this Grand Guignol performance featuring the "Bolshevik assassins."

What actually took place was disclosed, after the liberation of the Smolensk area, by a Special Commission of the Soviet Extraordinary State Committee on German-Fascist crimes. Its members included Academician Dr. Burdenko (Chairman), Alexei Tolstoi, the Metropolitan Nikolai, and sundry medical authorities. Their report of January 24, 1944, supplemented by eye-witness testimony and documents found on the bodies, revealed that the officers had fallen into German hands during the invasion and were systematically massacred in the autumn of 1941 by a Nazi murder-organization disguised as "HQ of the 537th Engineering Battalion." Some 500 Russian prisoners who were compelled early in 1943 to prepare the graves for Goebbels' "sensational revelation" were shot by the invaders after the completion of the work.

To return to 1943, Goebbels promptly announced that Polish and German Red Cross Organizations had appealed to the International Red Cross in Geneva for aid in the "investigation" and in identification of the bodies. On April 16, Lt. Gen. Marjan Kukiel, Polish Minister of War in London, revealed that his Government had also asked the International Red Cross for an "impartial investigation," thus registering prima facie acceptance of Goebbels' story and joining Berlin in its atrocity propaganda against Moscow. On Easter Sunday, April 25, Molotov informed Ambassador Tadeuz Romer of the severance of Soviet diplomatic relations with the Sikorski government, which he denounced for its "slanderous campaign," its connivance with the common enemy, and its designs on the territories of the Soviet Ukraine, Soviet Byelo-Russia and Soviet Lithuania.

Don't it just take your breath away? Again, this is not a translation from Vyshinsky. This is an American textbook by a leading American expert in the field. In this style Professor Schuman explains and justifies the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the purges, everything. The man is just hardcore. He never lies but he pours. He is the Michael Jordan of lies. There is really not one honest sentence in this entire book. If you want to learn how to lie with style, find yourself a copy of Soviet Politics.

Which, despite the temporary rip in the Popular Front that was the Pakt, is best classified as OWI propaganda of a very high grade (although note that it was written after the war). I have read a lot of this kind of material. It is usually much cruder than this. But Schuman's prose is good enough that he could write for the New Republic today.

Well! As it so happens, Professor Schuman published a great number of essays in... the New Republic. You can read all about it in a book that is very difficult to find, James J. Martin's 1200-page American Liberalism and World Politics, 1931-41 - Professor Martin, one of the last competent isolationist historians, read just about every issue of TNR and the Nation for that decade. And quotes liberally.

Anyone who reads both these books - Martin's and Schuman's - will, I'm sure, appreciate the irony of taking precious moral advice from the school of professors who first brought us Vasily Blokhin, then lent him their entire credibility as demonstrated above. Or, of course, their students and grand-students, ie, the entire field of "IR." There really is no shame in this world. At least, not on anyone's grant application.

(And I note that "realist" and "idealist" scholars are all in the internationalist clade, ie, the guild of as are even "neoconservatives." Historically, these labels are more or less equivalent to "Stalinist," "Maoist" and "Trotskyist" - different flavors of the same bad ice cream. "Realist" can also be translated as "opportunist" and "idealist" as "fanatical," a duality that appears in all leftist movements since the Jacobins - all have their Robespierres and their Fouches, sometimes even in the same person.)

Major Scarlet: I'd

Major Scarlet:

I'd (honestly) be curious if you'd enlighten me as to the nature of the CGSC Strategy program - no readings by *comparatively* "isolationist realists" such as JJ Mearsheimer (a West Pointer, for whatever much or little that may be worth)? Did you read any of (or at least, "the one") "International Security" readers from the Cold War on what American foreign policy should be? (I actually haven't, I must admit, but imagine they would be apropos.) Dare I ask, who teaches international relations at at the CGSC Strategy program, and of what does their syllabus consist?

Perhaps apropos IRR Soldier's comment, Colin Powell's stance ('doctrine," or corollary to the Weinberger Doctrine) makes me a tad skeptical as to how far liberal internationalism (as opposed to, say, liberal isolationism or realist isolationism) has taken, or took hold, of the military's upper ranks. I suppose the same could apply to Brent Scowcroft. I honestly wasn't (nor am I) intending to "take you on" - I found your perspective quite interesting; otherwise I wouldn't have commented, and would have returned to my usual lurking - but was prompted by your comment to proceed by asking what seemed like the logical follow-up questions.

At the same time, I could certainly sense one's frustration at being force-fed a canon (no pun intended) of literature that highlights only one aspect of the realist-liberal debate in international relations. As a side query, did you read Fukuyama *after* his turn from the neoconservative pack?

Thanks
ADTS

Well Maj Scarlet, GEN

Well Maj Scarlet, GEN Casey's political affiliations are he's very idiocratically political. Has been at least since Bosnia.

The Ft Hood remark? You should have seen him at a MACV-I press conference late 06: "I think the Iraqi Army will be ready to take over in a year."

I think that's when I started blogging.

As far as me tropsing off to the Comoro's to found my own country, why such a long trip, Visitor? I can stick around and maybe just grab a piece of the former USA. Home field, comfort level and all that.

You are correct that the

You are correct that the "realists" are not isolationists. They supported the first Gulf War, for example, It is only relatively speaking that they are isolationists, so until another Gulf War comes along isolationists will line up with realists. Because they are not actually isolationists, Walt & Mearsheimer don't advocate simply cutting off aid to Israel. Their view is that like any client state, they should receive aid insofar as that ensures they act so as to ensure our own national interest. If Israel makes clear that they don't want to go that way, the U.S should simply abandon them to their own devices. I don't know how that coheres with their statement that the U.S should stay committed to the existence of Israel, perhaps because they assume Israel can preserve its own existence just fine without our help. They haven't said anything about ensuring it doesn't kick Arab ass, though I assume they wouldn't sit by and let Arab client states (aka "moderate Arab regimes") be attacked.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/14/a_response_to_richard_cohen
As they put it, they want to treat Israel like any other country. And since Israel has long been the biggest aid recipient (with second place being a bribe to Egypt to stay at peace with Israel), it should be obvious that our current policy is abnormally "pro-Israel" in the conventionally defined (which is not their view) sense.

I don't know if you read old threads, but recently here you denied that emancipation improved the lives of slaves. That's incorrect, see my comment on the second page of that discussion.

I'm surprised you have such respect for Beard. Wasn't he a lefty? "Progressive" even! Anyway, Beard is popular with the radical "Wisconsin school" rather than realists. Realists tend to associate themselves with Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, Machiavelli, Hobbes & Thucydides.

As in, they want to cut off

As in, they want to cut off American aid to Israel, as I do. But they don't want to let Israel kick the ass of every Arab from Fez to Gardez, as I do. The technical term for this is "special pleading."

Well that's because unlike you they're not ectomorphic computer nerds with "tuff Jew" fantasies. They realize that Israel left to its own devices would not be able to "kick the ass of every Arab from Fez to Gardez" since Israel going on such a rampage would likely result in the Arabs cutting a deal with the Russians or Chinese or something to stop and crush Israel. And in such a scenario, the US would inevitably get sucked back into the fray, with serious costs to American interests, blood, and treasure.