The Illinois Lawyer-President and the General

In November of 1861, Abraham Lincoln and his young Secretary, John Hay (who became his biographer, told this story, and later was Teddy Roosevelt's Secretary of State) ventured across Lafayette Square to the quarters of General George B. McClellan, Commander of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan was no admirer of Lincoln ("baboon" was one his descriptives), but this would be a particularly memorable evening, as Hay told it. The general was out, but the President agreed to wait in the parlor for his return. As they sat there, they heard the general arrive home, the servant speak to him, and then the general ascend the stairs. A half hour or so later, the servant informed them that he was sorry, but the general had gone to bed.

Certainly General McChrystal's confrontation with another lawyer-President from Illinois tomorrow is not going to be as hostile as that one. Lincoln swallowed it at the time — McClellan was popular and as yet, barely tested — and only sacked him a year later after more provocations. But Lincoln faced an issue Obama faces as well: when someone (Horace Greeley, maybe?) told Lincoln he should replace McClellan with just about anyone, Lincoln quipped that while his critics had the luxury of replacing McClellan with anyone, the Commander-in-Chief must replace him with someone. It's the summer campaigning season in Afghanistan, and there's no time for a rudderless ship.

That said, all sides need to remember that Obama has supported counterinsurgency — he replaced Gen. McKiernan with McChrystal last year for that reason — and this isn't a difference over policy.

McChrystal on the Carpet

What to say about General Stanley McChrystal's encounter with Rolling Stone? The article is here. Assuming the article quotes McChrystal accurately and no ground rules were violated, it's hard to understand what led McChrystal and his handlers to agree to such a wide-ranging interview with a reporter who opposes counter-insurgency doctrine. Abu Muqawama, an admirer of McChrystal's, looks at the pros and cons of firing him.

For my singularly non-expert take on this matter, it would go something like this I think: given the recent wave of expressions of concern about the direction of US policy in Afghanistan, a debate is in order and quite appropriate. That includes the suitability of debating counter-insurgency doctrine and its appropriateness as a response in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, McChrystal is so identified personally with COIN doctrine that the doctrine itself is likely to be confused with his individual personality, and this sort of story has personalized the matter. It's no longer a question of how to approach Afghanistan, but an issue over the personal liks among McChrystal, Ambassador Eikenberry, Richard Holbrooke, etc. McChrystal clearly ovrstepped proper bounds in this article, but if he's relieved, does that also doom COIN in Afghanistan? And if so, is that a good thing, or sacrificing a key US interest over a personality conflict?

This doesn't look like the classic military/civilian conflicts in US history — Lincoln/McClellan, Truman/MacArthur — but more like a case of really bad media judgment at a delicate time. Did the reporter, Michael Hastings, set up McChrystal? I don't know, but a skilled combat general ought to have been watching his flank more carefully. Is the aim of the article to bring down COIN, and not merely its prophet?

McChrystal has rubbed Washington the wrong way before — here are my comments on his IISS speech last fall, which raised hackles though he was really restating his previously released Strategic Assesment — and it's clear that there are still some rough spots. Now the Rolling Stone article raises all sorts of questions. If McChrystal was trying to send a signal, he chose an odd medium, and a reporter who questions his on counterinsurgency beliefs. Maybe this whole thing will become clearer soon; in the meantime, let's at least hope that long-term decisions about Afghanistan, which need to be made with due deliberation, not be confused with the controversies of the moment.

Questioning Afghanistan

Whenever pessimism builds on Afghanistan, such as back when George Will advocated getting out last fall, I figure its time to resurrect once again Lady Butler's painting, Remnants of an Army, showing Dr. Brydon arriving at Jalalabad. It's a reminder of the dangers of imperial hubris. (In January 1842, during the First Afghan War, 4,500 British troops and another 12,ooo camp followers began withdrawing the 90 miles from Kabul to Jalalabad. Only Dr. Brydon made it, the rest being killed or captured. The print was very popular in the Victorian era.)

Two rather well-informed folks are expressing serious doubts about the Afghan war. Anthony Cordesman at CSIS weighed in yesterday with "Realism in Afghanistan: Rethinking an Uncertain Case for the War," and Andrew Exum at CNAS urges humility in "Afghanistan: Graveyard of Assumptions."

These are not dovish advocates for bugging out; they've been among the think tankers advising the Administration and McChrystal's command, and in the preparation of the McChrystal Report. They're not saying the war is lost; they are saying it may need some serious rethinking. I'm not going to try to summarize their points; read what they have to say.

Exum, in true blogger style, also links to rebuttals by Michael Cohen, Max Boot, and Spencer Ackerman.

When the military experts start to question assumptions, though, it's a sign that we are likely to see much more debate. We're a long way from Dr. Brydon, but it's still a reminder that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.

One Comment on the Eikenberry Leak

I haven't posted much lately about Afghanistan because it gets pretty well covered everywhere else, it's a country I don't know personally, and Abu Muqawama covers the ground pretty thoroughly in the blog world.

Today's big Washington Post leak of Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's memos opposing a buildup so long as the Karzai government is so corrupt has of course been DC's topic of the day. Abu Muqawama has a well-written post noting that some critics of the Pentagon in the Democratic Party still seem to be stuck in the Vietnam era and to assume a monolithic Pentagon advocating constant buildups. He links to a Laura Rozen column at Politico that includes these kinds of observations:

They also seem to demonstrate continued Obama White House resistance to getting railroaded by the generals to choosing from a set of options that all reportedly include increasing the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, from an outlier additional 10,000 troops to the additional 40,000 troops requested by McChrystal. In this "menu" presented to the White House, the Pentagon and its influential chief Robert Gates, have backed a "hybrid" option that would add an additional 30,000 to 35,000 troops to Afghanistan with an additional 10,000 kicked in by other NATO countries.

I've never met Ambassador Eikenberry, but since he seems to be portrayed as opposed to "the generals" in the debate over Afghanistan, perhaps I should remind everyone of one thing that many seem to be missing (though Rozen mentions it elsewhere in her article): Karl Eikenberry was a Lieutenant General in the United States Army and Commander in Afghanistan before he became Ambassador. It's not exactly the penstriped suits versus the brass hats here, folks.

Earlier, Exum had posted on "Throwing Karl Under the Bus," noting that the leak of the Eikenberry memos is going to neutralize Eikenberry's effectiveness as Ambassador to the Karzai Government, which raises questions of whether whoever leaked it realized the effect on his effectiveness as a diplomat. But I think the main point I want to make is that this isn't a dispute between the diplomats and the generals: there really are divisions in the military itself over this, and Eikenberry was a three-star not long ago himself.

Exum on the Afghanistan Decision Delay

Abu Muqawama has a useful thought this afternoon on using the extended debate over Afghanistan to put pressure on Karzai. That's an oversimplification, so read the whole thing.

Thoughts on McChrystal, Afghanistan, and the IISS Speech

Sometimes a really serious debate gets politicized to the point where politics starts to dominate over the genuine issues in the debate. That has probably already happened on health care, but that's a domestic US issue. Afghanistan is another matter, and it shouldn't be filtered too much through a domestic political lens. There are serious questions about where we go from here: a counterinsurgency strategy (as urged in the McChrystal report), or a more limited counter-terrorist strategy, said to be favored by VP Biden and others, or some kind of all-in commitment, or disengagement? These are real, and serious, issues.

First off, General McChrystal (having already had his say in a 66-page report that I've already recommmended everybody read) gave a presentation at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. (Video, non-embeddable apparently, is available from IISS here, and a PDF transcript here.) The actual presentation is not much different from the McChrystal report, which is fuller and of course more nuanced. But apparently the presentation, combined with response to some Q and A, has set some folks off, screaming that this is a violation of civilian control of the military. Bruce Ackerman in the Washington Post went so far as to draw a parallel to Douglas MacArthur and Harry Truman. Really? It seems to me McChrystal restated the opinions he stated in his report to the Secretary of Defense, which the Pentagon declassified, and merely answered a few questions giving his own opinions. And also found himself involved in British domestic politics.

A few folks who have actually worn the uniform and know whereof they speak seem to agree: Mark Grimsley, for example. McChrystal's prescriptions and recommendations may be wrong, but they've been made public by persons above his pay grade, and he has a right to defend them publicly. Policy decisions remain with the civilian political leadership. I'm sure he didn't speak at IISS without full approval from his own chain of command. (Which is Petraeus and the JCS.)

Let's not get overheated here. Afghanistan is a very serious issue. But MacArthur/Truman? Come on. MacArthur was writing published letters to political figures directly criticizing the civilian leadership. This isn't even McClellan/Lincoln in the Civil War, when McClellan famously returned to his home and ignored the fact that the President was waiting for him in his parlor, and went upstairs to bed instead. This is simply defending a position which has been published by his own superiors in a public, and highly professional, forum. It should be debated. The New York Times ran a selection of 10 expert recommendations, of varying approach. That's what we need here: debate on the merits, not inflamed rhetoric.

I'm far from sure I agree with McChrystal, but I know I've never worn a uniform other than that of the Boy Scouts of America, and while I enjoy military history I also recognize the dangers of being what the pros like to call the "82nd Chairborne," all those Barcolounger generals who know more than folks like McChrystal (two masters' degrees, Ranger Badge, Special Ops Badge, commanded Joint Special Operations Command, headed the Joint Staff, division commander in the 82nd Airborne, etc. etc.)

I hope the reports that he's in the doghouse with the President are sensationalized. I just don't see that the IISS speech went much beyond what he said in the report, which his superriors, not he, declassified.

I hope this doesn't become a military-versus-civilian control issue, since this isn't MacArthur versus Truman. It's a debate over strategic approach, and that needs to be decided according to defined objectives (by definition, a civilian decision) and the means to achieve them (where military expertise is essential) and how to best apply available resources (political again) to achieve a tactical result (the domain of the military). False dichotomies (left/right conflicts; civilian/military conflicts; partisan rivalries or electoral concerns) rarely illuminate. Human lives are at stake, both allied and Afghan. It's too important to let ideological quarreling and bickering distract us. This needs close study, clear thought, and realistic assessment, not ideological knee-jerk reaction. War may indeed be to important to be left to the generals, as Clemenceau noted. But it's also to important to be left to pollsters and political spinners. Civilian leaders need to take it seriously. They need the best military advice from their military practitioners. So far I've seen no sign that McChrystal is doing anything other than offering that advice, and will salute and obey when the decision is made.

The Think Tankers Behind the McChrystal Report

An interesting point in relation to my earlier remarks on the McChrystal report: via a link on Marc Lynch's critique, the list of the think tankers who participated in and, apparently in effect, wrote the report. As Spencer Ackerman notes in the post, all are national security types, none are particularly Afghanistan experts, though local expertise is usually the first principle of counterinsurgency theory. Some of them are good, some know the region well — Exum, Cordesman, Biddle — they are all first and foremost security types, some of them (the two Kagans) with well-known leanings. I think as the debate proceeds, it's fair game to discuss the choice of the think tankers who apparently did much of the work for McChrystal's report. It doesn't change my thinking that the report is rather nuanced and sophisticated and not just a more-troops-now call, but it does raise some methodological issues.

How to Read McChrystal's Strategic Assessment

The big news of the day, of course, is the leak by The Washington Post of General McChrystal's Strategic Assessment. Most of the gist of the report had already leaked over the past couple of weeks, but the publication of it in detail is news. [I call it a leak because the Post was prepared to published a leaked, classified version, but instead agreed to publish a redacted version the Pentagon cleared last night for the purpose.]

I'm hardly the first to comment. Of the Middle East bloggers, Lynch and Cole already have their early takes up, while Exum actually worked on the report itself. Virtually all the policy bloggers outside the area studies realm have also been commenting, and since I took a sick day today working at home, I was also able to watch the various shouting heads on the news channels. So I'm hardly eager to just rehash what everybody else is saying.

Instead, it seems to me, it might be useful to make a few points as to how to read and think about this report. It has already become a political football, inevitably, but some of the simplistic narratives that are emerging are not, I think, what's important about the assessment itself. So my first strong suggestion on how to read and think about the report is pretty basic:

• Read the report, not the headlines on a newspaper story or a website. Although the two main stories in today's Washington Post, one by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung and the other by Bob Woodward, are a good place to start, they are no substitute for reading the whole nuanced report (minus a few redactions). It's an unusually candid report, sort of a think tank report channelled through General McChrystal's prism. It is not just a call for more troops, as some headlines would seem to imply, nor is it a Vietnam-style "just some more troops and the light at the end of the tunnel will be reachable" either. As the "Commander's Summary" puts it:

  Success is achievable, but it will not be attained simply by trying harder or "doubling down" on the previous strategy. Additional resources are required, but focusing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely. The key take away from this assessment is the urgent need for a significant change to our strategy and the way that we think and operate.

• This is a nuanced report. It deserves a nuanced debate, though it probably won't get one. There's a danger here that the debate is becoming much more polarized than anything the authors of the report have said. It's not just a "more troops" versus "out now" choice. An attempt to win would require much more than more troops: it would require a new strategy (essentially a counterinsurgency one), and there are difficulties in achieving this. Again, the report itself is 66 pages with all the appendices, and doesn't lend itself to easy summary. I'm still reading the later parts, but it's clear there are no guarantees. For one thing, the nature of the Karzai regime and the quality of the Afghan forces are not necessarily well suited to classic counterinsurgency theory. This isn't going to be easy, and the report acknowledges that. This isn't your father's Vietnam: there are no rose colored glasses here, no gung-ho brass hats urging unlimited commitment. It's a brutally realistic assessment, along with conclusions of what is necessary if the political leadership decides it is worth the investment.
  

• Try to avoid the "Obama versus the professional military" narrative. I think it's pretty clear what McChrystal is actually saying: the professional military has plenty of doubts about Afghanistan, too. But if our assignment is to assess what is needed to win it, this is our assessment. Whether that is a practical policy, whether the investments outweigh the potential risks, is a political decision; they've spelled out the military realities.

• Don't trust the "failure is not an option" argument. No military man makes such arguments, at least not since the fall of Imperial Japanese militarism. Suicide in the name of a cause is not rational strategy. Some of the supporters of the war come close to that argument: we can't afford to lose. But if you also can't afford to win, you bleed unendingly, as we did in Vietnam and the Soviets did in Afghanistan. That's not what McChrystal is saying, and those who make such arguments are not supporting the careful analyses of the generals. They've watched the opening of Patton too many times. Patton really did give that speech, but he was being a cheerleader, not a strategist (and he was at least as good an actor as George C. Scott).

The report itself makes me think that the military is seriously analyzing the difficult questions posed by a war like Afghanistan. The initial responses, unfortunately, make me think that the public policy debate is nowhere near as sophisticated as McChrystal and his panel. Do read the report carefully before you join the debate. It's acronym-heavy, but worth it.