Center for a New American Security

I made only my second trip to the Pentagon today to have lunch with General George Casey and about seven other defense policy wonks and a few journalists. I was probably the youngest guy in the room by 10 years, and I'm guessing the mean age was around 58. But true to form, that didn't stop me from asking my usual array of pesky questions.

The entire lunch was on the record, so I will write down what I wrote in my notes. A lot of the discussion had to do with force structure and the QDR -- as one would expect, given that Gen. Casey's role these days is running the U.S. Army as an institution. So my notes are not all-inclusive because I did not write down every question and answer. And apologies in advance to Gen. Casey's PAO team -- if I wrote something down incorrectly, write in and correct me.

Gen. Casey said his single biggest concern was the long-term health of the commissioned officer and non-commissioned officer corps.

He said his mission was four-fold:

1. Sustain soldiers and their families.
2. Prepare them for combat.
3. Reset the force upon return.
4. Transform the force.

He said the Army's challenge is also four-fold:

1. Win the wars we're in.
2. Train and support other nations and their militaries.
3. Embrace the full spectrum of combat.
4. Deter and defeat hybrid threats.

Gen. Casey said he is trying to move the U.S. Army toward a rotational force which -- by 2011 -- deploys its active duty units for one year and then brings them back for two years of dwell time.

That said, Gen. Casey said repeatedly -- and stressed repeatedly that this was his own estimate and not policy -- that he thought the U.S. Army would be engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan for at least the next decade.

Opening the floor to questions, people smarter than me asked about the budget and the QDR. I was more interested in current operations, so my ears perked up when Ralph Peters asked whether or not counterinsurgency warfare is causing younger officers to "lose their killer instinct." Gen. Casey responded by talking a little bit about how he has seen the pendulum swing from too kinetic to too non-kinetic and then back again but that he does not worry about the younger officers not knowing how to kill. He said he is "not worried about the long-term impact because it is a combat-seasoned force." Not unreasonably, he explained that his generation learned to "fight" at NTC and JRTC. This generation, by contrast, has learned to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I then asked him about Afghanistan. It is obviously difficult to carry out the same tactics in Afghanistan as we did in Iraq. Those urban patrol bases we used in Iraq, for example, do not translate into Dari. So we're left with a strategy that looks a lot like the one Gen. Casey tried to implement in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. Does he look at Afghanistan and have worries about that theater based on his experiences in Iraq?

Gen. Casey responded that the similarities between Iraq and Afghanistan are two-fold:

1. They need a government that will be broadly representative of the population.
2. They need credible and effective security forces.

Gen. Casey worries, though, that we do not have nearly enough trainers on the ground in Afghanistan and that the police are falling way behind the Afghan Army in terms of its development. He also noted that he thought Afghanistan had no organization comparable to MNSTC-I. We have, simply, invested more in training Iraqi security forces than we have doing the same in Afghanistan.

I then asked if Gen. Casey was worried that his goal of 2:1 by 2011 might be endangered by events on the ground in Iraq. (What happens if Arab-Kurd relations flare up, I asked?) He said contingencies worried him, so I asked at what phase do U.S. forces in Iraq cease to be a decisive factor? Gen. Casey said he thought the residual force would be between 35,000-50,000 but that he honestly did not know if such a force would continue to be decisive. He said it would be a factor on the ground but did not know if it would be the decisive factor. (Obviously, this is Gen. Odierno's problem more than it is Gen. Casey's. I was just curious to hear his thoughts given his time in Iraq.)

Toward the end, someone asked about DADT and what the soldiers thought about gays in the military. He said it was a "mixed bag" but that all his evidence was anecdotal since the U.S. Army has not formally surveyed soldiers on the issue. I then asked what he thought about the State Department extending benefits toward same-sex partners and whether or not it was only a matter of time before the U.S. military followed suit. Gen. Casey responded that it was clearly the policy of the president to end DADT and that he and the U.S. Army would become engaged when and if the Congress and the president took action. (I don't know, maybe it's just me, but if I were the Chief of Staff, I would probably commission a study and surveys in advance of a request considered to be inevitable -- rather than wait to hear from Congress and then irk the president by taking my time on study and implementation.)

Finally, Gen. Casey talked a little about the strides made by Military Intelligence during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said, first of all, that the fusion cells had really had an impact. He then said that in contrast to before the war, commanders now understood how to train and use their S-2s and G-2s. A month in Kosovo, he said, had taught him more about intelligence than all his rotations to the NTC.

And then the lunch ended and we all shook hands with the general. And that's about it. Overall, Gen. Casey was candid and forthright. And the chicken caesar salad was nice as well.

The Washington Post:

The Army last month stopped accepting felons and recent drug abusers into its ranks as the nation's economic downturn helped its recruiting, allowing it to reverse a decline in recruiting standards that had alarmed some officers.

While shunning those with criminal backgrounds, the Army is also attracting better-educated recruits. It is on track this year to meet, for the first time since 2004, the Pentagon's goal of ensuring that 90 percent of recruits have high school diplomas.

The developments mark a welcome turnaround for the Army, which has the military's biggest annual recruiting quota and had in recent years issued more waivers for recruits with criminal records. That, coupled with unprecedented strains from repeated deployments, led some senior officers to voice concerns that wartime pressures threatened to break the all-volunteer force.

Now, though, rising unemployment, security gains in Iraq and other factors have helped make military service more attractive and have allowed recruiters to be more choosy, according to military officials and Pentagon data.

I bid farewell to Lady Muqawama this evening, who returns to the West Coast to go be smart and stuff. (Those of you who know L.M. know how ridiculously out-of-my-league I am.) Tonight I am catching up on my reading and writing. These two articles from the weekend caught my eye. The first is the article on Chinese hacking that I am sure you have already read. Rafal Rohozinski is a friend of mine, and I participated in a workshop with Ron Deibert, who is pretty much the world's leading expert in "getting around firewalls."

The second article is by another friend, Yochi Dreazen (C '99), who describes this piece as near and dear to his heart. All the same, this was a tough article to read.

Maj. Gen. Mark Graham is on the frontlines of the Army's struggle to stop its soldiers from killing themselves. Through a series of novel experiments, the 32-year military veteran has turned his sprawling base here into a suicide-prevention laboratory.

One reason: Fort Carson has seen nine suicides in the past 15 months. Another: Six years ago, a 21-year-old ROTC cadet at the University of Kentucky killed himself in the apartment he shared with his brother and sister. He was Kevin Graham, Gen. Graham's youngest son.

After Kevin's suicide in 2003, Gen. Graham says he showed few outward signs of mourning and refused all invitations to speak about the death. It was a familiar response within a military still uncomfortable discussing suicide and its repercussions. It wasn't until another tragedy struck the family that Gen. Graham decided to tackle the issue head on.

"I will blame myself for the rest of my life for not doing more to help my son," Gen. Graham says quietly, sitting in his living room at Fort Carson, an array of family photographs on a table in front of him. "It never goes away."

An article in Maariv is claiming Israeli soldiers went into Gaza encouraged by IDF rabbis to think of their mission as a holy one.

"The military rabbinate brought many magazines and articles with a very clear message: 'We are the Jewish people, a miracle brought us to the land of Israel, God returned us to the land, and now we have to struggle so as to get rid of the gentiles who disturb us from conquering the holy land.' All the feeling throughout all this operation of many of the soldiers was of a war of religions," he said. "As a commander, I tried to explain that the war is not a war of Kiddush Hashem [the sanctification of God's name, including through martyrdom] but over the stopping of the launching of the Qassam rockets."

This post is not about Israel, so let's not go down that road again (although the gang did an admirable job in keeping the comments more or less sober in this post). I want to use this post as a "jumping off" point to discuss the role chaplains should or should not play in the military. Anyone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan knows soldiers or officers -- almost always evangelical Protestants -- who thought they were there on a holy mission. Others -- even those otherwise religious, such as myself -- chose to put a big fat line in between what we were doing as soldiers in the service of our nation and that which we were called to do as believers serving God. Honest to goodness, the biggest crisis of faith I have ever had was in part precipitated by a chaplain telling me that I was in Afghanistan on a mission from God and that I had just killed a man because God wanted me to do so. At the time, I wanted to quit the Army and Christianity both. And I had a dim view of chaplains for a long time afterward.

Here's a question for the readership. What role should chaplains play in the U.S. military, and how strict should the separating line be between church and state in an army at war? Personally, I think chaplains should exist to a) perform religious services for professing believers, b) counsel soldiers of faith and c) do little to nothing else. I always hated those pre-mission prayer circles, for example. But am I too extreme? Not extreme enough? Just to throw another consideration in the mix counter to my arguments, bear in mine that chaplains often fill in the gaps left by a military struggling to provide counseling to soldiers (of all faiths, or of none) struggling with PTSD.

Okay, discuss.

Update: Until you guys descending into debating the world of finance, this post generated some fantastic comments. Thanks much, and sorry I could not respond to all of them.

Several things in today's Post caught my eye this morning:

1. We should all applaud Phillip Bennett for his excellent observation that in all the books written on America's war in Iraq, the main characters are invariably American and not Iraqi. War may be the way Americans have traditionally learned geography, but six years on in Iraq, the average American still knows little of the people with whom our fates have been intertwined for the past two decades. It's so very bizarre. (Although a similar phenomenon occurred in reporting from Vietnam, Bennett notes.) There has been a wealth of good books written on the Iraq War, but very few of them -- such as Anthony's Shadid's Night Draws Near -- really tell the stories of Iraqis themselves.

2. Walter Pincus surveys some of the Arab media -- though not so much the Arabic-language media (most of his sources were in English) -- and discovers the Arab World thinks the Israel Lobby was behind the downfall of Chas Freeman. Charles Lane of the Post's editorial staff thinks Obama needs to respond to this charge. I'm not going to get knee-deep into that tar pit, but touching it with a ten-foot pole, allow me to note that Aaron David Miller probably had the wisest words on L'Affair Freeman. Whether or not Freeman's downfall was due to the "Israel Lobby" in the end -- rather than, say, his statements on China or ties to Saudi Arabia -- is unclear. What is clear is that at a time when the Obama Administration is contemplating major diplomatic and military moves in the Middle East that directly affect Israel's interests -- engagement with Syria, negotiations with Iran, etc. -- some of Israel's biggest supporters in the United States elected to spend their energy on ... a position that really isn't all that important. Talk about taking one's eyes off the ball.

3. Okay, this was in yesterday's Post, but there was an article on the most recent GAO report into cost overruns on the Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS). The lead contractors on FCS are Boeing and SAIC. SAIC's executive vice president for government affairs, Arnold Punaro, is rumored to be the next Army Secretary. It is my understanding that Punaro is a great American, but frankly, I do not see how his potential nomination overcomes this conflict of interests. Which, combined with the fact that I am a southerner and the Obama Administration needs more of those, should be enough to ensure that I am the next Secretary of the Army. (It's mostly a ceremonial title, yes?)

[Via SWJ] This is kinda cool. Check out the class pictures from each graduating class of Ranger School through the years. (Your author is on the top row, underneath the "N", in Class 5-01.*)

*"N is for Knowledge."

So with the economy in the dumps, more and more people are electing to serve in uniform. One would think that standards would now rise as well. Instead, I read in yesterday's Washington Post that we are now apparently setting up some kind of fat camp for recruits. Is this a good thing?

Shinseki, as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supported the war plan. The head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, and his planning staff presented their approach to the Joint Chiefs and their staffs during the development of the plan. There was ample opportunity for the chiefs to express concerns and propose alternatives. There is no record of Shinseki having objected.

Shinseki also met with the commander in chief himself to discuss the plan. On at least one occasion at the White House, President Bush asked each member of the Joint Chiefs, including Shinseki, whether he believed the Iraq war plan was adequate to the objectives. Each said it was.

On the one hand, there is a lot of truth in this op-ed. I am sure Gen. Shinseki would agree that he did not protest the Iraq War plans as vigorously as his admirers on the Left imagine him to have protested. On the other hand, the author of this op-ed -- the loyal mouthpiece for a man most can agree was a horrible failure as Secretary of Defense (the second time around, it should be noted) -- cannot be trusted to provide a reliable narrative of Gen. Shinseki's retirement (announced early by Sec. Rumsfeld, which effectively made Shinseki a lame duck). He is also not likely to endorse the idea that Sec. Rumsfeld's Pentagon was a working environment in which all protests from the uniformed officer corps were squashed and within which dissent was not tolerated.

I might bite my tongue if the author of this op-ed was currently working in a PRT in Afghanistan and not in a cushy job at Bank of America. And, I'll admit, that's probably unfair of me.

Lieutenant General Ann E Dunwoody has been nominated to head the Army's Materiel Command. If confirmed by Congress, she will be the first woman to wear four stars.

In wars where our most important weapons don't fire bullets, it is vital to have the very best in positions determining how we equip and fund not only our troops but the troops of foreign security forces. That the Army has decided to nominate its most qualified candidate in spite of her sex is a testament to her tenacity as well as to a slowly evolving military culture.

Slowly is probably the key phrase. As a NY Times article point out, women comprise 14% of the military services but only 5% of the general officers (and none of its four stars until Dunwoody is confirmed). And when Kip graduated from the South Hudson Vocational School, a General's wife told his spouse-to-be that a woman's job was to maintain the house while her husband was deployed and then relinquish control upon his return.

Let us say generously that Lady Kip with her post-graduate education doesn't really participate in the spouse club.

General Dunwoody has chosen recently to speak of the opportunities for women in the military rather than the challenges they face. Kip believes women continue to face major challenges and believes further that the exclusion of women from some combat MOSs, particularly within the Special Operations community, hurts our capability to fight the Long War (we desperately need women who can kill the enemy on one hand and glean intelligence from the hidden women of the Muslim world on the other).

But in a year where Hilary Clinton broke new ground by losing an election, it is a shame that General Dunwoody will not receive the same plaudits for shattering (or perhaps just poking a small hole in) the brass ceiling.

Do you ever wonder why the U.S. Marine Corps consistently out-performs the U.S. Army -- not to mention the other two services -- with respect to recruiting? Abu Muqawama doesn't. Because although the Army has a lot of high-speed units whose pedigree and exclusivity outshine anything the U.S. Marine Corps has to offer, just being a Marine carries with it a cache of its own. And even if you're a member of the 75th Ranger Regiment or the Special Forces or the Units Whose Names We Dare Not Speak, you still belong to the same tribe as a bunch of overweight service support soldiers held to a lower standard than most high school athletes. This is why a certain retired Marine colonel has been known to introduce Abu Muqawama with "This is _______. He used to be in one of the Army's high-speed units. Which is a lot like coming in first at the Special Olympics."

At least we don't sew our names onto our asses. (Who is meant to read that?) But the big difference between the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marines is that just being a Marine is to be a member of an elite group. How can soldiers feel the same way when they see such low standards all around them? Maybe we should give them all black berets. Oh...

Update: It gets worse. They are now, apparently, allowing Fobbits to breed.