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Special Abu Muqawama Q&A with Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Rajiv Chandrasekaran's excellent if depressing new book Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan
I read the book in two sittings on Friday and Sunday afternoons. Rajiv's first book depressed me because I was close enough to the shenanigans up the road in the Green Zone to be angered by them. This book depresses me because I was even closer to many of the shenanigans in question and know some of the protagonists. I was also forced, in reading this book, to go back and think through my own assumptions in 2009, many of which I got wrong. Rajiv's third book, presumably, will be about how I myself incompetently managed the occupation of Syria and hosted wild parties at the embassy in Damascus while Marines fought mightily in Homs.
A friend of mine has never forgiven me for saying he was a "loser" in Tom's narrative of the Surge in Iraq. (He insists I called him a loser in life, which I didn't do -- I just wrote that he was a "loser" in the narrative Tom presented.) This book has very few winners and very many losers. The winners? A few intrepid U.S. military officers and diplomats. The losers? Pretty much everyone else -- and especially the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Agency for International Development. I really hope those two organizations in particular take the lessons from this book and remember them going forward but suspect they will instead go into a defensive crouch.
Anyway ... on to the questions.
1. You argue, in this book, that the United States essentially lost the first year of the Surge in Afghanistan because of the way in which it allocated its troops — sending thousands of Marines to Helmand Province instead of, say, Kandahar City. Who was responsible for that decision?
The responsibility rests with several senior U.S. and NATO officers. When commanders at the NATO regional headquarters in southern Afghanistan were asked by their superiors in 2008 to identify how they would use an additional combat brigade, they picked Helmand over Kandahar. Those officers — Dutch Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif and his deputies, among them U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson — identified four reasons to send the forces to Helmand instead of Kandahar.
First, that the Canadian forces who had responsibility for Kandahar province didn’t want to cede more territory to the United States. Some Canadian officials were convinced security in Kandahar was improving; others didn’t want to risk the embarrassment. Either way, U.S. commanders didn’t want to push the Canadians to shrink their battlespace.
Second, Helmand was the epicenter of poppy production.
Third, there were more Taliban attacks in Helmand than any other province.
And fourth, foreign troops needed to stay out of Kandahar city, given its cultural and religious significance.
Our own Abu Muqawama (then a member of General McChrystal’s initial assessment team) was among those to question all four points. As I write in the book, “If the mission were to protect the people, Exum thought, the new troops should be closer to the largest population center in the south, not where violence was worst. The drug argument similarly made no sense to him, since Richard Holbrooke had just announced that to avoid antagonizing farmers the United States would no longer participate in the eradication of poppy fields; a CIA study also claimed that the Taliban got most of its money from illegal taxation and contributions from Pakistan and Persian Gulf nations, not from drugs. And even if the Afghans were right about the psychological impact of foreign forces inside the city—some on the assessment team questioned that logic—the surrounding districts seemed like the best home for the Marines. The Taliban’s surge in Helmand was ‘a feint,’ Exum wrote in his notebook. ‘It draws our attention and resources away from Kandahar.’”
The ultimate decision on where to place the first wave of new troops authorized by President Obama in February 2009 rested with the top U.S. and NATO commander in Kabul at the time, Gen. David McKiernan.
When McChrystal arrived in Afghanistan in June 2009, he gave thought to moving the Marines. By then, however, it was too late. But even if it hadn’t been, his hands would have been tied, because of a conditions set forth by the Marine Commandant at the time, General James Conway. He insisted that the Marines operate in a contiguous area where they could be supported by their own aviation. That effectively ruled out Kandahar. Conway also insisted that a three-star Marine general at CENTCOM have overall operational control of the Marine brigade. That meant McChrystal couldn’t have moved the Marines to Kandahar without the approval of the Marine high command.
2. And people wonder why I love U.S. Marines but have very little patience for the U.S. Marine Corps. (I really need to burn those notebooks, by the way.) But is it really possible to hold the Obama Administration even partially responsible for a decision related to the order of battle on the ground? Sam Huntington argued that politicians should set the policy and agree on a set of strategic objectives and resources with their commanders but that it was up to the commanders themselves to figure out how to operationalize the strategy. Is it then reasonable to criticize the administration for errors made by field commanders?
I agree that it doesn’t make sense for the White House to manage operational or tactical decisions, but the president and his national security team should be fully aware of how the troops are being used. It’s just a brigade, you might say, so what’s the big deal? Perhaps in the context of World War II or Vietnam, it’s a rounding error, but in the context of Afghanistan, the rationale for the placement of 10,672 Marines out of an initial deployment of 17,000 troops should have been clearer to the White House. A new president, signing off on his first troop deployment, should at least have known — or been told — that a majority of those forces were being sent to a part of Afghanistan that is home to about one percent of the country’s population.
3. You displayed a lot of admiration for the U.S. Marine Corps in your reporting for the Washington Post and again in this book. But you also have some very sharp criticisms toward the way the U.S. Marine Corps protected its own parochial interests at the expense of what you see as the greater mission in Afghanistan. Describe for us why you admire the Marines who fought in Afghanistan but fault the Marine Corps as an institution.
I think the Marines — particularly the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (the first tranche, which was sent in 2009) under the command of then Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson — did an amazing job under very challenging circumstances. The work they did in Nawa and Garmser, in particular, was standout COIN (putting aside questions of whether we should have been engaged in a full-on COIN mission there). Did Nicholson push into some places that USG and NATO civilian advisers -- and his NATO bosses in Kandahar and Kabul -- thought were unnecessary? Yes. But the fault, as I write, did not rest with him. He was given the troops, and he was doing what any good field commander would. He wasn't going to let them cool their heels at Camp Leatherneck.
The problem was tribalism — among the Americans, not the Afghans. Marine leaders did not really want to be joint and interoperable. They wanted their own turf, even to the detriment of the overall war effort.
This is what I write in the book:
"[Political adviser Kael] Weston didn’t think Nicholson was being insubordinate in moving into Taghaz. Taking Kamchatka was a rational act if you had the troops. Weston believed the surge had put too many pieces on the Risk board. The problem had been compounded by the decision to send the Marine brigade to Helmand instead of Kandahar. The blame for those choices lay not with Nicholson but in Washington. To Weston, Nicholson was an aggressive commander who was using the resources at his disposal to secure his entire area of operations. Weston disagreed with some of Nicholson’s moves, but the political adviser understood that the general was playing the generous hand he had been dealt. He wasn’t going to keep his Marines sitting on bases.
"There was no doubt in Weston’s mind — or in mine — that Nicholson had used his forces to transform the central Helmand River Valley, evicting the Taliban from its sanctuaries and giving the Afghans another chance to make something of Little America. By the time they departed in mid-2010, Nawa had grown so quiet that Marines regularly walked around without their flak vests. Much of Garmser was safe enough for American civilians to commence reconstruction projects. Hundreds of families were returning to Now Zad. Even the bleeding ulcer of Marja was starting to heal. Nicholson’s year in Helmand felt like the most dynamic and entrepreneurial period of the Afghan War. After years of drift, momentum was finally starting to swing America’s way."
And this from the last chapter:
“Over drinks with a Marine general in a still gentrifying Washington neighborhood, I compared Afghanistan to a run-down urban street. It seemed, I said, as if the United States were devoting a large share of its community redevelopment funds to transform one tenement at the end of the block into a swanky mansion. What happens, I asked the general, if we win Helmand but lose Afghanistan? ‘That would be just fine for the Corps,”’ he said.”
The 2nd MEB has been awarded the prestigious Presidential Unit Citation. I'm no judge of awards, but their work sounds PUC worthy to me. But what if they had done all of that good work closer to the country's second-largest population center?
4. You're also unforgiving in your description of the civilian effort in Afghanistan (in a chapter bluntly titled "Deadwood"). You've now been witness to incompetent U.S. civilian efforts in two wars. Is there any hope for the U.S. government in this regard? What does observing the U.S. civilian efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan make you think as a taxpayer?
I believe that our nation has the talent to engage in war-zone nation building, if that’s something we decide to do again. (Any policymaker or military leader who thinks that’s a good idea needs to have his or her head examined.) The problem is that those doing the hiring for the civilian component don’t look in the right places. Instead of scouring the United States for top talent to fill the crucial, well-paying jobs that were a key element of President Obama’s national security agenda — they should have brought in top-level headhunters. Those responsible for hiring (often bureaucrats in D.C. with no great sense of urgency or creativity) first turned to State Department and USAID officers in other parts of the world. But the best of them had already served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of those who signed up were too new to have done a tour in a war zone or too lackluster to have better career options. Then they turned to retirees and to contractors who had served in Iraq. The right people do exist. We just have to find them, and then convince them to serve their nation.
5. Despite the criticisms, there are some real heroes in this book. Kael Weston and Carter Malkasian stand out in particular. What makes guys like that special, and who are some other heroes?
Kael spent seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan. Carter spent two years in a hot and dusty forward operating base in Garmser. They built trust with the Marines they served with, and the Afghans. I really respect Kael and Carter, and I wish I could say they are two-of-a-kind, but the truth is that many civilians working for the government could be just like them. If they agreed to spend real time on the ground. If they took the time to build relationships, and, in Carter’s case, learn the language. If they were willing to flout stupid rules set down by the embassy’s security officer.
Most importantly, they were willing to define their jobs in ways to give them maximum influence. Kael called himself a political commissar, not a political adviser. He constantly reminded the Marines that they had been deployed in support of the Afghan people — and as an extension of civilian diplomatic policy, not the other way around. Carter also saw his role as more a proconsul than an adviser. He single-handedly cajoled influential tribal leaders and mullahs to return to Garmser district, correctly betting that their presence would lead others to follow. He won the trust of skeptical residents through countless meetings and roadside conversations, convincing them to reject the insurgency and support their government. He also shaped the Marine campaign in Garmser in a way no civilian had in other parts of the country. He served as a counselor to five successive battalion commanders, influencing decisions about when to use force and helping them calibrate it with a political engagement strategy. He built such credibility with the Marines that if he urged a different course of action than the one they were planning, they almost always complied. Larry Nicholson was among his biggest fans. He thought the Americans needed a Carter Malkasian in every district of Afghanistan.
They weren’t the only ones. State Department officer Marlin Hardinger spent three years working at the provincial reconstruction team office in Helmand. He’s just finished a year of Pashto study and will be heading back for another year or two. That’s dedication. There are/were others like them. But the problem is they are the exception, not the rule.
6. I always end with a question about food or drink. What are the top three most memorable meals you have enjoyed in Iraq or Afghanistan -- and why?
a. Eating chicken enrobed in an inch-deep layer of oil on the roof of the police station in Garmser with district governor Abdul Manaf. We spent a while joking about his deputy’s virility — the man had two wives and more than twenty children. But then the conversation moved onto the future of Afghanistan. It was then I wondered whether men like him — in whom the U.S. military and diplomatic corps had invested so much — would be able to survive once the Americans leave.
b. The First Strike MRE I cracked open after spending nine hours walking, kneeling, crawling and worming on my belly on the first day of the Marine operation to clear the Taliban from Marja. I was cold, wet, tired and miserable. Food never tasted better, even if it was processed junk with a ten-year-long shelf life.
c. The lunch that never was. I was on my way to have lunch with Ahmed Wali Karzai when I received word that he had been killed.
Ha. I sometimes test intelligence officers by asking them about local power brokers and who they had lunch with yesterday. It turns out a safe answer is "Rajiv Chandrasekaran." Buy his book here
I am really looking forward
I am really looking forward to reading this book, but I will take issue with one prominent argument he makes here and in a recent WAPO article. I am as frustrated with USMC tribalism as anyone, but I doubt sending the Marine's to Kandahar would have resulted in a better strategic outcome. The assumptions underlying the campaign were flawed to begin with. Troop allocations are secondary (also important, but secondary to strategy and first principle assumptions). But I will withold judgment until I read Raj's book. I am sure he gets at these other issues as well.
excerpt from June 15, 2010
excerpt from June 15, 2010 letter to N. Fick of CNAS:
Some thoughts on the situation in Afghanistan ...
As long as the U.S. government (CIA and agencies, "General McChrystal: Kandahar Operation Will Take Longer", Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post, 10 June 2010; "Ahmed Wali Karzai, an ally and obstacle to the U.S. military in Afghanistan", Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post, 13 June 2010) may be in a position of support of Ahmed Wali Karzai, and other like-minded individuals, as assets, then the U.S. military seems to have been handed and accepted a Sisyphean task. The military will try hard and heroically and forever, they will drink endless cups of tea with all the ardor, skill, goodwill, and sincerity of Greg Mortenson, but they will not achieve their objective, we will not win – because, as an agent of the United States, they will essentially be fighting another agent of the United States and will thereby essentially be fighting themselves.
A clarification of whether the CIA and other U.S. agencies have been funding Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps for human intelligence to support the covert CIA war fought by drones (Jane Meyer, “The Predator War”, The New Yorker, 26 October 2009), and whether any of that funding goes to the Taliban, could perhaps be helpful.
Michèle Flournoy says the U.S. government does not fund the Taliban. I asked on Thursday, June 10 entering the CNAS reception after the conference and she so replied. With all due respect, I think further research and, if need be, a refinement and coordination of policy, is in order if a counter-insurgency is to have a chance of success.
(See, for instance, “U.S. Military Intelligence Puts Focus on Afghan Graft”, Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, 12 June 2010: “The military is focused on battling corruption at the local and provincial levels in ways that illustrate a commitment to good governance for the population in their day-to-day lives. Yet, Pentagon officials acknowledge that this localized effort must be supported by a more senior-level, political decision by the Obama administration on how to deal with corruption at the uppermost echelons of the Afghan government…..”) .....
From the WP article (page
From the WP article (page 5):
Hillary Clinton, by contrast, celebrated the very traits that Jones, Lute and others had derided: “There are many of us in this audience who’ve had the experience of Richard calling 10 times a day if he had to say something urgent, and of course, he believed everything he had to say was urgent. And if he couldn’t reach you, he would call your staff. He’d wait outside your office. He’d walk into meetings to which he was not invited, act like he was meant to be there, and just start talking.”
.
But it wasn’t until the following month, at a memorial event for Holbrooke in New York, that Clinton said what he really would have wanted to hear: “The security and governance gains produced by the military and civilian surges have created an opportunity to get serious about a responsible reconciliation process.” The United States finally had indicated a clear desire to negotiate with the Taliban.
Rare moments in history, one of the few things that Hillary Clinton and myself can agree on.
Never really knew Holbrookes story, but reading through the article he is from a different time when people were interviewed for their knowledge and experience. Today that that interview is relational and more about behavior and response, but you better arrive running and be "no drama".
Have little patience for the "wasn't me" defense. POTUS is Commander in Chief and is responsible for his watch. True that responsibility is delegated outward, but that staff is selected by the administration in charge. When the responsibility transfers into the Pentagon, staff selection sometimes comes with the territory, tweaking is possible the command changes in Iraq and Afghanistan are an example. There is interaction, questions can be made at planning, and this is where POTUS can interact to shape ground response. Administration Doctrine is the guiding philosophy. The planning is agreed to by all. There is a lot of protecting of the "office" usually someone else is the whipping post. That holds true in the services. Still at the end of the day, POTUS is commander in chief. As far as the GWBush done it argument goes, Obama doesn't have to keep doing it.
Gee Exum, more doom and gloom. Learn from the experience and more on. Your comments about emotions just means you have a conscience. That is a good thing for a person doing policy that determines conflict. First being able to see an error, then admitting that error, and finally being able to learn from that error should be the happiest time of a person's life. I know people that have no conscience what so ever that are still thinking they are doing the best business practice just because they were successful! No Presidential candidates intended.
Latest events in Syria mark a milestone. Turkey's jet was shot down and that has implications for NATO. Just hope someone doesn't use the incident as a "Gulf of Tonkin" event. US has too much experience in acting too quickly to suddenly get involved.
We all get a litttle Holbrooke at times.
Plenty of money, food and
Plenty of money, food and supplies all provided by USAID has slipped into the hands of the Taliban.
If the OIG did a full honest and full disclosure of funds, food, supplies and money that was lost or misappropriated in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan the organization would have been shut down over a decade ago. Fu$king wa$te.
As for McChrystal and you bashing of the Marine Corps. Pot calling the kettle black there Exum? When Tony Zinni was in charge of CENTCOM I never heard of any US Army field commanders lining up to cooperate with and do the bidding of the Marine Corps. McChrystal = over-rated and over-paid ego maniac. Why else would he have pulled that Rolling Stone Shit-Show? Don't try and put a self-rightous dumbass on a pedestal, only makes you look like an idiot.
Stop living in the past bro. Move on.
I doubt I'll read this new
I doubt I'll read this new book considering how disappointed I was in his book on Iraq. First off, no one used the term "emerald city" except perhaps Rajiv. I got to the center of Baghdad before it was even the Green Zone and was there for the entire first year and then some additional years afterwards and never did I hear that term out of anyone's mouth until his book came out. I've asked others from that time period and they had never heard it before either. I'm guessing he made it up.
Then he twisted the narrative and put things in a worse light than they were in reality. I wish I had my copy of his book in front of me because it's highlighted with his mistakes. The one I remember off the top of my head that bothered me a lot was his criticism of DFACs where he chastises the system for providing soldiers in the field good meals because our lives (I was infantry) weren't hard enough for him. This from a guy who can leave at any time, drink booze, buy what he wants off the economy, go to restaurants, and eat in our DFACs. God forbid that the solider who just watched his friend die have an ice cream cone. Or that the one who dies the next day had a last meal that he enjoyed instead of some puke looking T-rat omelet or the same old MRE. The fact was those DFACs helped with morale, which probably helped with guys on the line treating Iraqis better and maybe not offing themselves. The thing we talked about most after banging chicks was food. But then, Rajiv, as coddled and spoiled as he was, might not realize the importance of stomachs to military success.
Sorry, but he just came across an arrogant punk in the first book, creating a false narrative that failed to show the complexity of the environment or the true reasoning behind certain policies, so I'm going to pass on this one unless I'm at a port-a-potty and someone left the book in it and there is no TP to wipe my ass.
Bottom line is he's half a journalist.
The problem was tribalism —
The problem was tribalism — among the Americans, not the Afghans. Marine leaders did not really want to be joint and interoperable. They wanted their own turf, even to the detriment of the overall war effort.
But they were actually quite a bidable bunch until they picked up those bad habits from Black Jack. Used to be, they'd just pin a note on the door, "Gone to fight..." and lived simply and well.
(I write this only to tweak AM's nose, he's such a historian of the Corps -- Edson who? Served with with the 8th Route Army? It sounds like it could be a French army but there's not a cite to be found!)
Like the OIF vet Visitor, I
Like the OIF vet Visitor, I had never heard anyone refer to the Green Zone as the "Emerald City" until I heard about the title of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's other famous book. Then again, I have never worked in the Middle East, the military or any branch of the government that deals with Iraq policy, so my observation merely suggests that regardless of its usage in the inner-circles, the term--catchy as it is--was not used by the mainstream media or the public until after Rajiv's book apparently made it famous to the outside world.
As it happens, I haven't read "The Emerald City", for two reasons. First, I remember hearing and watching several interviews that Rajiv gave both on radio and TV to promote the book, and each time I was struck by how aggressively critical he was of the war-effort, such as it was. Having opposed the war in Iraq from the start, I could certainly sympathize with his argument that the reconstruction of Iraq was grossly, maybe even criminally mismanaged, by political appointees who had no business rebuilding a state from the ground up. But it was hard for me to take him seriously given the way he promoted the work as an "I-told-you-so" and the way he seemed to point out trivial matters first. One point I heard him make each time, for instance, was that the Bush administration's vetting process for members of the reconstruction effort included asking people whether they were Republicans or Democrats. Poor HR process, for sure (and, as Rajiv pointed out, probably illegal)--but ought this really to be a selling point of a deeply insightful book about what was causing us to lose touch with reality in Iraq? My sense, which was reinforced by conversations with friends who *did* read "Emerald City", was that the book became a best-seller in large measure because it appeard at an opportune time, when the American people were beginning to turn against the war, and it exposed lots of very embarrassing details about the Bush administration's management of the conflict that folks then used to justify their anger.
The second reason I didn't read "Emerald City" is the same reason why I don't think I will pick up "Little America" anytime soon--and Exum, this relates to your comment about being "wrong" about a number of lessons. 2006 just seems *WAY* too early to draw any strategic lessons from a conflict begun in 2003, and likewise 2012 seems *WAY* too early to draw anything of significance from an Afghan surge begun in 2009.
I do not mean to belittle or otherwise downplay the value and importance of some of the tactical, cultural, managerial or operational lessons that one may draw from what we've seen in Afghanistan in the last 36 months. But is it really accurate to call anyone or anything a "loser" when truthfully nobody even knows when or how the entire adventure will end, even if many think it will end badly? Do we yet know how much of the deterioriation since the surge began would have been preventable if we had, say, allocated more trooops to Kandahar rather than Helmand? Would one Malkasian in every district of Afghanistan really have made any difference overall? I would argue that until these questions become answerable in a *quantifiable*, analytical way, it's a stretch to assign blame to specific individuals, doctrines or cultural insensitivities (not to mention the mentality of an entire arm of the military). Rajiv's work surely has merit as an account of what goes on now--the journalistic work is probably excellent, full of detail that you couldn't get any way other than lots of interviews with people on the ground and in the halls of power. But the problem is that much of that perspective has been given without the correcting influence of reflection, distance and time. So I wouldn't count yourself wrong on anything, Exum; it's early days yet.
kylem556 on June 27, 2012 -
kylem556 on June 27, 2012 - 2:58am
Been reading the comments above, including yours, how long does a person have to wait to determine the result?
The Pakistan relationship is fractured. Paks really don't have that much to offer in the first place, but the ground transportation routes to Afghanistan are strategic. Afghanistan is going to be a money sink hole for years to come. Comparing the size of the embassy campus http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/langewiesche200711 the US of A built in Iraq to the force agreements that ended military/contractor participation do not equate. The US economy is seriously in debt not all because of the wars. I would say that AQ got a piece of our butts. The heavy footprint of the end of the Ottoman Empire is being released and the power shift is releasing a tectonic pressure. In the ME you lose by winning and the argument continues for another 1000 years.
I see the score card being 3:3. Libya, Egypt, and Iraq got rid of dictatorships with an equal level of Western commitment to sustain the score. In other words today it is a wash. The wild card is the Muslim Brotherhood and how they perceive Western involvement and that history has not been good.
Listened to interviews with Rajiv Chandrasekaran about the resources given to the US troops. I agree with the commenter up thread about DFACs, armies do live on what is in their stomachs. US of A always tries to provide troops with the best in trade for the lives risked. Rajiv Chandrasekaran does have a point, that chow line comes with a logistics chain that requires feeding too. Logistics is the Achilles Heel of a modern army half way across the world from its homeland. When COIN is the choice of strategy the US tends to set up home keeping and maybe it is a good idea not to get so comfortable so far from home.
USofA says it gives the best to its military, I wish that included the best Foreign Policy to avoid wars too. That would keep PTSD and other combat related cost (mental, physical, and budget) issues to a minimum.
Obama gets three hots and a cot plus $400,000 and medical to forever. No mater what happens he wins. The troops get a DFAC and the people making the decisions to end the conflict get a hospitality sweet complete with servants at their beck and call.
Saw him on PBS interview last
Saw him on PBS interview last nite. The book looks very interesting, Ill be picking it up.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran does a
Rajiv Chandrasekaran does a great disservice to the State Department employees and contractors working in Afghanistan. Like any organization, the State Department has its share of good and bad employees, but Mr Chandresekaran seems to have thrown many of them under the bus without conducting a fair, impartial critique.
For example, take his criticism of Andrew Haviland, the Senior Civilian for RC-South, in the chapter "Deadwood" (also an article on ForeignPolicy.com). Mr Chandresekaran cites two anecdotes as proof that Mr Haviland is incompetent. One involves a bad initial meeting with the Governor of Kandahar Province, while the other involves a security fence built built around the civilians' living area on base. Both instances do not cite any sources and appear to have been given off the record. Mr Chandresekaran provides no context or opposing accounts. He simply takes two stories, which for all we know were given by a disgruntled employee, and shapes the narrative to fit his thesis. This hardly seems like a fair account of Mr Haviland's performance in Afghanistan.
However, I personally know Andrew Haviland and here are the facts: He has spent about 20 years in the State Department, including 6 years in South Asia before being assigned to Afghanistan. He was posted in Islamabad, Pakistan, on 9/11 and spent the year helping to negotiate foreign aid and establish the strategic relationship with President Musharraf's government. He spent a year studying Pashto in Washington before being sent to Jalalabad as head of of the Nangahar PRT. Six months into the assignment, he was reassigned to be the Senior Civilian in Kandahar, a position that was two pay-grades above his rank, and voluntarily extended his tour for a second year. Throughout his career, he has also served in Haiti, Bangladesh, and Pakistan (three states on the Failed States Index), so Mr Chandresekaran's assertion that he has no experience in war zones is absurd. Finally, his younger brother was killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He believes fervently and passionately that we have to establish some measure of stability in Afghanistan before we can leave. The idea that Mr Haviland is a bureaucrat who only went to Afghanistan for lack of career options is not only patently false, it is also insulting.
Abu Muqawama has expressed his displeasure with journalists like Michael Hastings who throw career public servants under the bus with their writing. Why does Rajiv Chandresekaran get praised for doing the same thing? This book strikes me as a piece of sensationalist journalism written by a man who made up his mind long before he started gathering evidence. I normally have a great deal of respect for CNAS and the work that they put out, but I think that they made a mistake by lending so much credibility to Mr Chandresekaran.
Nerd Citizen on June 27, 2012
Nerd Citizen on June 27, 2012 - 9:27pm
Just might be a case of guilt by association.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/troops-have-withdr...
F*ck $700M to build and they didn't get it right the first time?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/troops-have-withdr...
Clinton, who was traveling in Finland before going to Russia, said everyone needs to agree before arriving in Geneva that Annan’s plan “will be the document we are endorsing by our presence.”
What BS is that. Presence??? She doesn't have the balls to get them to agree in writing?
More like last tour as a falling star, another fossil for the tar pit.
Link for the
Link for the above
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syria-crisis-hilla...
Clinton, who was traveling in Finland before going to Russia, said everyone needs to agree before arriving in Geneva that Annan’s plan “will be the document we are endorsing by our presence.”
That is not the government that I pay six-figure salaries and benefits out the Kazoo for.
Sounds like the BS that Lute pulled on Holbrooke.
The United Nations, other
The United Nations, other Middle Eastern Allied Powers (including Jordan) and NATO are about to enter into conflict with Syria....give it one or two more months....(lines are being drawn) and Dr. Exum has nothing to comment on or contribute to the blood-bath that's occuring?
Andrew, are you now treating the Syrian's like you already treat the Isreali Government, refusing to comment on occurances within their boarders or Isreali Government Policy?
Is Syria your new Isreal?
If you're going to add Syria to the list of "no comment" countries, then pretty soon....you'll have nothing to say.... might as well close down the blog now!
إنك لست جباناً.
Some observations to frame my
Some observations to frame my thoughts on Chandrasekaran
Sending in additional troops is not a strategy, it is a tactic. Now making a determination that achieving Task X (Task X can be eradicating poppy fields, building local governance, building Afghan security forces or whatnot) will impede the Taliban from regaining control is a strategy.
The strategy should be evaluated on it own terms: does Task X impede the Taliban? If that is answered in the affirmative, then the tactics, such as surging, can be evaluated as to whether or not they further the goals of Task X.
On to Chandrasekaran's observations about the Marines going to Helmand. I can think of one possible justification for doing so which may or may not fall flat. If operations in Helmand were to have served as a dry run for Kandahar, then diverting the Marines to Helmand could have helped with subsequent operations in Kandahar by providing opportunities for lessons learned in a less contentious province provided directives were given in order to do so. This likely was not the case, which makes Chandrasikarans criticisms of the Marines as valid with this proviso as the are without.
The other item has to do with Chandrasekaran's evaluation of the White House's role. While the Marines were free from ISAF influence on how they deployed within Afghanistan, they were not free from Pentagon or White House influence on their deployments. If Obama decided that the Marine surge would have gone in whole or in part to Kandahar, the Marine generals at CENTCOM would have had to salute and obey. Obama can not be completely absolved of this.
Exum, I'd be fascinated to
Exum, I'd be fascinated to hear your opinion on the exert of Mr. Chandrasekaran's book published at slate concerning the actions of Col. Harry Tunnell and his battalion. I've still yet to make up my mind about whether Col. Tunnell deserved this hit piece or not, but im sure you could spread some light on the situation.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2012/06/the_w...
kylem556: "One point I heard
kylem556: "One point I heard him make each time, for instance, was that the Bush administration's vetting process for members of the reconstruction effort included asking people whether they were Republicans or Democrats. Poor HR process, for sure (and, as Rajiv pointed out, probably illegal)--but ought this really to be a selling point of a deeply insightful book about what was causing us to lose touch with reality in Iraq?"
I think points like this are meant to show that political loyalty was more important than a demonstration of competence with the task at hand. Contrast that with the Keane team, the one that designed the "surge" in Iraq. With Keane, relevant expertise was the key, even when a potential contributor to the efforts described the process from the start as potentially "more of the same s***."
It is possible that the question about political affiliation was not indicative of valuing partisan loyalty over competence, in which case your criticism would be valid. However, just pointing out that Chandarasekaran pointed out that question, even that he highlighted it, does not make the point that it's not indicative.
Scott nailed the essential
Scott nailed the essential problem with RC's new book: a fascination with tweaking the tactics of a war and adjusting the troop strength a bit and shifting them where needed would have won the war. Come on, that is like saying that if the German Army had just shifted the Panzer Lehr and 21st Panzer Divisions to different parts of the battlefield during the Normandy campaign the German's could have won the war.
The other deep flaw in this book is RC's absolutely sad and depressing acceptance of the theory of pop centric coin: that just because it says when you put troops on the ground that you therefore in fact "provide security." What a bunch of pop theoretical hooey. He should know better, but alas he is still trapped by the myth that coin either works or can work. I wonder if his stationing at CNAS--at one point coin central--has anything to do with it.
And to you Andrew, your problem is that you believed Ricks's book to be right and truthful and therefore bought into his line that i was a “loser.” Ricks’s book is so wrong it isn’t even funny, it is better war version 2 for Iraq, and now RC’s book is counterfactual better war version 3 for Afghanistan. For sure RC’s book is based on a hypothetical, or counterfactual, that if folks would have just listened to coin expert Exum and put the marines in the right place then voila the war would have been won. How does a serious writer, analyst, or scholar, base his entire argument on something that didn’t happen. How do you prove something that doesn’t exist?
Lastly look at yourself and how you are presented in this new book by RC: the whiz kid who gets it while all the others don’t, and the whiz kid who has the chutzpah for allowing a reporter looking to sell copy to look at his notes where he wrote in Greek that a serving two star general is a "jackass." Even "loser" Gentile wouldn’t do something like that.
Scott on June 28, 2012 -
Scott on June 28, 2012 - 2:26pm
How many Republicans are hired to run Obama's campaign?
For all the interviewing of candidates that I did in my career HR never advised me on not talking politics with applicants (US Corporation). The taboo subjects are Health, Age, Race, and Disabilities.
Really can not see a problem with asking about Political Party affiliation. It would make for an interesting question for a relational interview. I know people that ask odd ball questions just to through candidates off guard.
Bad blogging day. Had to
Bad blogging day. Had to think through throwing off job candidates.
I have heard of all types of screwy interview questions. One person I know use to interview people in a room with the lights turned off. I know cause he did it to me.
After working with the guy professionally for years, I got around to asking why he interviewed me in a pitch black room.
Response: I just wanted to mess with your brain.
I ignored the conditions, focused on the interview questions, and was hired in.
@Scott: You're technically
@Scott:
You're technically correct that the policy of asking people their political allegiance does not in itself prove anything about the effectiveness or not of the reconstruction effort. I did not intend to suggest that this was Rajiv's argument, nor do I believe that he was citing this as anything more than yet another trivial detail to illustrate just how dysfunctionally the process was run. In other words: I see what you're saying, and I agree.
But as I suggested in my previous post, the big problem I had with "Emerald City" was that it was promoted as a book focusing lots of negative attention on lots of small details. In discussing the book, Rajiv never really got anywhere close to a central thesis about why he thought the reconstruction effort was doomed to lead us into the disastrous insurgency of 2004-08--which was, by press time, at its most violent.
Now there's nothing wrong with this, mind you: books like these stand on their own two feet, as pieces of aggressive, brave and effective journalism. Bob Woodward can write this kind of stuff in his sleep. But I am skeptical of its value as a case study over which policymakers can iterate scenarios at length, and from which they may eventually draw lessons on how to do things better next time. With a few exceptions--Sebastian Junger's "War", for instance, or David Finkel's "The Good Soldiers", or even Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle's spectacularly entertaining "American Sniper"--I've avoided most book-bound writing about OEF and OIF precisely because I'm not as interested in knowing every single granular detail and perspective about a conflict(s) of which I have no firsthand experience to begin with, either as a policymaker, spy or soldier.
If I had to guess, I'd say that the true histories--the American equivalent of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War--are a long way off still and Rajiv's "Emerald City" and "Little America" are for the time being just well-written, well-thought-out political journalism.
--
Separately, someone mentioned on here that in their professional experience, politics is not among the several well-known interview taboos, which apparently include health, age, disability, etc. As it happens, my professional experience is in the finance industry and I am very comfortable speaking for virtually every financial institution that you've ever heard of in saying that asking someone their political party is both VERY taboo and VERY likely to lead to trouble. And yes, it turns out that that exact question is illegal in the United States:
http://www.askmen.com/money/professional_150/173b_professional_life.html
kylem556 on June 29, 2012 -
kylem556 on June 29, 2012 - 4:07am
As it happens, my professional experience is in the finance industry and I am very comfortable speaking for virtually every financial institution that you've ever heard of in saying that asking someone their political party is both VERY taboo and VERY likely to lead to trouble. And yes, it turns out that that exact question is illegal in the United States:
If you are in the financial industry go talk to your legal department and ask why. Federal equal employment law usually governs what a person can do and cannot do in a hiring situation. Then there is business "best practices".
Consider this: http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/index.cfm
Although state and federal equal opportunity laws do not clearly forbid employers from making pre-employment inquiries that relate to, or disproportionately screen out members based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, such inquiries may be used as evidence of an employer's intent to discriminate unless the questions asked can be justified by some business purpose.
.
Therefore, inquiries about organizations, clubs, societies, and lodges of which an applicant may be a member or any other questions, which may indicate the applicant's race, sex, national origin, disability status, age, religion, color or ancestry if answered, should generally be avoided.
Asking an applicant if they are Republican, Democrat, or Independent is such a broad spectrum of people that it would be hard to win a court case that a person was discriminated against on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age.
As a best practice, when I interviewed candidates my only interest was (1) if they would fit in the organization and (2) how their knowledge matched the need of the function.
Asking political party affiliation, in my mind, would not be a best practice. I do think it would be a interesting relational interview question because it would indicate how a person reacted in a social environment. If a group was writing policy and wanted that policy to be bipartisan "the political party question" would bring forth visibility into how a candidate would react after employment. There are a lot of ways to ask the question without being direct.
Then there is what really happens in the real world. There are sooooo many ways to game the equal opportunity laws to benefit the employer. I know for a fact that even the Federal Government skirts their own law.
Members of Congress exempted themselves from equal opportunity employment law just as they excluded themselves from ObamaCare and many other laws.
kylem556, I agree with you that asking political party affiliation is something that would be dangerous to ask a job candidate. Can also think of situations where it could be appropriate ex: like if Carl Rove applied for Obama's campaign manager.
Only way to really know is to ask the question WHY the interview questions in Iraq included party affiliation. Where the rubber hits the road is HOW that information was used.
Times and laws change, stuff we did over thirty years ago would make people cry today.
Lot of hocus pocus happens in a hiring decision that will never survive sunshine.
Wouldn't be suprised if this
Wouldn't be suprised if this young journalist find himself being checking into a psychiatric ward sometime in the near future.....aginst his will. People in the highest ranks within our military and government have gotten in pattern of destroying people's lives who speak out against the US Military and/or US Government.... how do I know....? Being a victim of this abuse of power myself... it's hard to look the other way when people write books exposing our military and government of waste, fraud and abuse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZzOjFichRE
Best words of advice to Rajiv Chandrasekaran ....be careful....they will be looking for you and protect yourself when they come for you.... because they will.
Good luck Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
Agree with Ryan E as to
Agree with Ryan E as to prior, to troop allocations, importance of strategy and first principle assumptions. Marine troop allocations may have followed a strategy of counterinsurgency according to first principle assumptions that the insurgents - in Afghanistan - are/were the adversary. (And my personal opinion is that the Marines are far more effective, in the short and long term, than are drones in that regard. Marines can actually inspire trust well as fight effectively.)
A very relevant question is just what are the first principle assumptions (and concomitant strategy) in Afghanistan. For instance, are we fighting to secure Afghanistan from an insurgency? Or are we fighting to secure Afghanistan as a platform from which to conduct a (covert, CIA) war in/against Pakistan (for a whole nexus of reasons including, for instance, instability and insecurity of nuclear armaments) that may have something to do with but is not identical to and may have actually very little to do with the insurgency in Afghanistan.
http://blackwatergame.com/ Wi
http://blackwatergame.com/
Within the campaign Intro, your character goes through a divorce, takes weekend trips to Virginia Beach to purchase steroids and lastly basic training.......get your "swell-on" maneuvering through boot camp and pumping iron at the Moyock Training Facility on the VA/NC border.
You too can learn to be a wanna-be Spec-Op Merc's....focusing on how to keep your edge in an increasingly dangerous world.
* Only glitch with the game is that, it doesn't have a Berserker Mode....to shoot anything within a 200 meter radius.
Gentile is technically
Gentile is technically correct that just deploying the Marines to Kandahar instead of to Helmand would not, in and of itself, have altered the course of the war. However, his response misses the point of my comment.
A more concrete description of my point would be: which task would do more to further the goal of making Afghanistan overall less susceptible to Taliban incursions, making Helmand province less hospitable to the Taliban or making Kandahar province less hospitable to the Taliban? Chandrasekaran's argument is that the latter would have done more, backed up by the fact that the population is substantially greater in Kandahar than it is in Helmand and other information. Is there any reason to suppose otherwise?
Based on the greater strategic importance of Kandahar, Chandrasekaran apparently argues that achieving in Kandahar what the Marines achieved in Helmand would have altered the course of the war. However, given the greater operational complexity in Kandahar, it is not certain that sending the added Marine units to Kandahar would have achieved what the Marines actually did achieve in Helmand. However, what is clear is sending the Marines to Helmand would have no chance to improve things in Kandahar other than as a training ground for subsequent operations in Kandahar.
To go back to generalities, with unsound tactics, you will lose your battles. With unsound strategy, you may win your battles, but doing so will do nothing to advance your war efforts. The Marines won the battle in Helmand, but did not seem to advance the war effort by doing so, consistent with my description of unsound strategy.
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