General Petraeus, the CENTCOM commander with the Roman god-warrior name might encounter tight reins, I don't know. When he testified before Congress in 2008, he didn't seem to have any shortage of angry congressmen and media outlets breathing down his neck. More, and more catch-22s will be revealed after the turnover, mark my words.
I really wonder how much analysis the White House did of the actual Rolling Stone article, which purportedly is incompatible with anything the administration has ever heard about the military. Other than following the herd, I would love to see some more airing of grievances. Part of what perpetuates this mess is that probably fewer than 1% of the people opining on the article or the debate - have actually read the damned article! - Oh, and it is a magazine primarily for counter-culturists. Serious news? I do concede it was a very well-written article. And if it creates pangs of disappointment of Obama for his core of voters (the hip sophists, maaaaaaaan), this poses a problem for the politics of control.
- OH, and where is the part where Gen. McChrystal criticized the White House? The only thing I infer from the article is that the staff behaves like men fighting a war. These men have their hands tied behind their backs due to restrictive ROE, and counter-insurgency, when it succeeds, takes a long time.
- And what is the end-state? The questions Obama asked two years ago as Senator actually seem to make sense (Washington Post), and I don't get the feeling that he was overcritical of Gen. Petraeus at the time despite contrary assertions; everything made sense with the exception of his outrageous statement that he felt that Iraq was a "massive strategic blunder." That there leaves me asking who the hell is the home team?
- What priority does Afghanistan hold? We need a new key speech - but it has to be meaningful: something that will last longer than 5 minutes in the news cycle.
- Did the squirrelly little aides with chips on their shoulder queue up and relish using their slings and arrows on our General?
- What would be expected by allowing a Rolling Stone journalist this kind of access, and how seriously should criticisms be taken? Well, I'll pre-empt us both and stab at an answer: It probably worries our chiefs to a great degree, in a political environment that feels a need to formulate its own media messages.
- I have a friend, a Marine, who tells me Obama came away smelling like a rose today. So what do you expect the prevailing sentiment "over there" would be? (I can only speculate.) As my favorite Marine author says, "When you try to be their friend, you've already lost." So the staff wasn't trying to make friends. Blame them?
- Two more quotes: "One thing worse than confidence in their weapons is lack of confidence in their leaders." This applies to everyone, so bear in mind the historical difficulty with running counterinsurgencies. Malaya (The Brits say that one was a success), The French in Algeria, the U.S. in Vietnam.
- How do you promote unpopular policy? As the Rolling Stone article reveals, the general had the thankless job of trying to provide the rationale for this kind of protracted war, and the restrictive operating environment. By reading how the general set up his command center (a huge "open briefing"), joining in field operations (extremely rare, in fact unheard of), and by seeing that he didn't sugar-coat, the casual reader should get the sense that this man cared about what he did and he did it well. "A lot of Marines from the 'old school' disdain telling their troops the 'why' of an order by saying they have no right to know why. That's hogwash! If that youngster is going to willingly go die by your order, he damned surely has a right to know why. Get into the habit with the little things." - Gene Duncan, USMC (Ret.) The general did his best to explain the "why" and never went around saying, "Those guys in Washington surely are messed up."
As Newsweek tells us yesterday, "What's essential is a public atmosphere of mutual respect between the civilian and military leaderships. Generals demand that political leaders respect their professional expertise. In return, it's expected that generals understand the multiple pressures weighing on their civilian leaders, and respect—even if they don't agree with—whatever compromises these pressures dictate. The system can cope with almost anything, so long as both sides understand the role and responsibilities of the other."
It's true this is the foundation of the relationship between civilians and the military (the missing dynamic is national will). I remember a senior lieutenant-grade DoS civilian taking early leave from his post in-country as a sign of protest when the new administration left a very pregnant pause before beginning to reveal its mission objectives for the Afghan coalition. Does the allegedly neutered new National Security Strategy offer insight how we get there? And, is this Rolling Stone article a protest of the administration, or its strategy, or either? I think it's reality. If I were president, I might eke out a WTF, but c'mon.
I did think it was hilarious that the article implied McChrystal cringed upon receiving an e-mail from the head State Dept. rep for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke. "Try not to get any of that on your leg," a staff member joked to the journalist. Noteworthy is the paragraph on small DoS resources vs. immense DoD resources, I can only imagine the friction between the entities. I don't have a fix on the civilians, but I feel that you don't find much decisive leadership in their
Gen. McChrystal is a balls-out leader of warriors and the event of his early departure is a shame, unless new blood truly effects the conceptualization and execution of game-changing strategy. Whether pragmatist, idealist, there is a long road ahead.
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