Review: Your Government Failed You

Richard Clarke, Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters

So said Richard Clarke to the American people during the 9/11 Commission hearings a few years back. Clarke's resume of over 30 years in the foreign policy arena speaks for itself and adds weight to his point of view. At times, his tales of frustration infuriate because they show just how much government did fail leading up to 9/11.

But, as reaction to his first book Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror made evident, he can also be frustrating to those who are familiar with events he describes. And this familiarity with acute events can lead, ultimately, to a wholesale--albeit unwarranted--distrust of Clarke.

If I know that he's not being completely forthcoming on Event "A" for which I know a lot about, then how can I be sure he's not doing the same for Events "B, C and D" for which I'm not as familiar? And to the degree that his diagnoses and prescriptions rely upon his experience and expertise, as supported by his explanation of various events, then how seriously am I to take his ideas? In other words, are Clarke's ideas well-informed and worthwhile or just part of an exercise in legacy-protection? The answer, unsurprisingly, is all of the above.

When reading and analyzing a first-hand account of events, a reader should always be on the look out for bias; on the part of both the source and the reader. Ultimately, each of us have to rely on our sense of what seems like good, sound reasoning and argumentation. So, despite these reservations, there are still some things that even those most predisposed to distrust him can learn from Clarke.

Throughout Your Government Failed You, Clarke clearly names names and assesses blame. His reasoning seems sound and his grasp of the nuances of foreign affairs and diplomacy is worth noting as is his recognition of the role that contingency can play in outcomes. And while he doesn't let himself off the hook for some of the errors made, his phraseology can be passive/aggressive. For instance, the phrasing of his "apology" that gave title to this book leaves the impression that he's apologizing more for others than himself. In his opening to Chapter 5, Clarke explains that on the morning of 9/11

I knew that I had failed. In the days and years leading up to that awful moment I had failed to persuade two administrations to do enough to prevent the attacks that were now happening around me.

You see, the decision makers in government didn't listen to Clarke, which is why they failed. And he only failed because they didn't listen. That's a fairly obtuse way of taking blame. The question is then: should we listen to him? Based on my reading and analysis of the events that Clarke describes, I certainly am wary of accepting Clarke's version of events prima facia.

For instance, he notes "the refusal of the Bush administration to ratify the [Kyoto] protocol...(p.277)" and makes no mention of the Clinton administrations similar "refusal." Elsewhere, he explains how he thinks partisanship is bad for national security, something for which many would agree. But the examples of partisanship he provides are markedly one-sided.

I think the record is fairly indisputable that national security issues have been used for partisan electoral advantage in recent years: terrorism threats have been overhyped near elections, predictions have been made about terrorist attacks occurring if the other party wins, people's patriotism has been questioned. (p.340-41)

Common charges levied against the Republicans, all. No mention of the political rhetoric flying from the Democratic side--immediate withdrawal, illegal war, the Bush fascist state, etc.--which helped them sweep to Congressional power in 2006. I suppose if you believe one set of arguments, then they aren't partisan?

Much of the first part of the book is devoted to Clarke's restatement of many of the same charges he made in Against All Enemies. He still thinks Iraq is a distraction away from Afghanistan, which is an arguable point, especially with Osama bin Laden still loose. He also puts much blame for Iraq at the feet of the generals charged with preparing our forces for the invasion:

1) "Neither the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff [General Richard Myers] nor the regional commander at CENTCOM [General Tommy Franks] dissented from the initial war plan..."
2) The generals didn't implement proper counter-insurgency activities though they were aware of analysis from the CIA and State department that predicted insurgent activity in post-invasion Iraq.
3) Related to #2, once it became clear that the President intended to invade Iraq, the Generals did not advise the President and Congress that they did not have enough troops to deal with an insurgency.
4) "Inadequate training and...equipment" for American troops in Iraq.
5) Generals tacitly condoned torture, such as at Abu Grahib.
6) Generals didn't ensure that wounded troops were treated adequately (Walter Reed).

All of these points are worth debating. But elsewhere, Clarke essentially accuses General David Petraeus, architect of the proving-successful surge implemented in 2007, of moving the goalposts himself when his own counter-insurgency efforts were initially exhibiting slow returns. "It began to seem as if the reason for the surge, in Petraeus's mind, was to prove that his new counterinsurgency strategy could work."

The recent success in Iraq is making Clarke a victim of the time line. For he claims that Petraeus

[b]y defending a policy that in the larger sense was injurious to the United States and the Army, by arguing for staying on when he admitted that his own condition for the U.S. presence (real progress toward Iraqi unity) was not being met...raised new questions about what makes a general political.

When Clarke wrote these words, the effectiveness of the surge was still in doubt. But no matter the expertise that lay on the side of the predictor, reality has a way of ruining predictions.

Clarke has much else to say about a plethora of items related to national security and, not as impressively, global warming. As to the last, he essentially toes the Al Gore line. Nothing earth shattering (or warming?).

Further, it becomes clear that Clarke is a supporter of the Powell doctrine, though redefined for the times, which is entirely defensible. On the other hand, he also channels Thomas Franks (the academic, not the general) by basically asking "what's the matter with the military," because he can't understand why they have become so overwhelmingly Republican (though he notes that Democrats are gaining support).

All in all, this is a "thick" book. There is a lot to digest and a lot to think about. Clarke's writing isn't florid or light. Instead, he hits you time and again with anecdotes and antidotes that spring from the mind of the man who apologized to the American people on behalf of the U.S. Government. In the end, his is a voice that warrants a listen. Perhaps the best way to get a balanced view of some of the events is to read Clarke's book in combination with Douglas Feith's War and Decision. To quote Ronald Reagan, "Trust, but verify."
Cross-posted at Spinning Clio.

Whitehouse Support FISA, More Liberal Philosophical Gymnastics To Follow

According to John Mulligan at the ProJo, it looks like Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse will follow the lead of fellow Democrats Jim Langevin, Barack Obama and Jack Reed and vote to approve the FISA bill (Andrew had more details and analysis of the bill here and here).

As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has condemned the Bush administration in the harshest terms because, in his view, it has damaged civil liberties in the name of counterterrorism.

But Whitehouse is now considering backing President Bush on an overhaul of the nation’s intelligence rules that critics say would undercut the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches. Partly because his seat on the Intelligence Committee has shown him the value of warrantless wiretaps on suspected terrorists, Whitehouse says, he has already joined bipartisan majorities behind Mr. Bush on key surveillance questions.

“The more we know about what terrorists are saying to one another overseas, the better positioned we are to anticipate and defend against what they’re planning,” said Whitehouse, echoing the president’s argument that the law “will help our intelligence professionals learn our enemies’ plans for new attacks.”

Yeah, imagine that, the more you learn the facts and the actual dangers posed, the more inclined you are to support the programs best able to thwart an attack. The local progressi-sphere were all over Rep. Langevin (and still are) for his informed support of the new FISA bill. Meanwhile they continue to give Obama a pass for being politically astute and "moving to the center" and have stayed mum on Reed. Wonder what's in store for Whitehouse? We'll see. One final note: as far as I can tell, Rep. Langevin is pretty much right in line with the rest of the Rhode Island Congressional delegation on issue after issue. Except he's pro-life. Perhaps, in the eyes of many on the left, that's his unforgivable sin?

Langevin Takes the Progressive Heat over FISA, will Obama?

Apparently Congressman Langevin has voted in favor of FISA. Local progressives are apoplectic, throwing around the DINO label (what kind of Democrat is pro-life!). It also seems that the fact that Congressman Langevin is Chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee (Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats) is not so much indicative of his familiarity with the issue but rather leads to the suspicion that he is some sort of sleeper neocon Bushitlerian. Good times. However, I wonder if they are falling victim to partisan shortsightedness. What would the reaction be if it was a President Obama, not Bush, in office? Would the hysteria be quite as palpable...or would it be OK because, well, it would be Obama?

Then again, do they even know that Obama supports the same FISA compromise bill that Congressman Langevin just voted for?

Iraq and the Return of the "Winter Soldier"

On Easter Sunday morning, I appeared on WJAR 10's News Conference. The topic was the Iraq War after five years and I was paired with a nice young Iraq War veteran, now a Brown student, who opposes the war. I appreciated the work of Jim Taricani and Bill Rappley. The conversation was quite civil.

The other fellow identified himself as a member of an organization called "Iraq Veterans Against the War" (IVAW). Two weeks ago, IVAW convened a conference in Silver Spring, Maryland, entitled Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan — Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. Modeling itself on the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation (WSI), which of course provided the text for John Kerry’s infamous testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee later that year, the Silver Spring event claimed to “feature testimony from U.S. veterans who served in [the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan], giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.” But as I argue in today’s National Review Online, the event was, in the immortal words of Yogi Berra, like déjà vu all over again.

The good news is that WSI II seems to have had the impact of a wet firecracker. Despite the predisposition on the part of many in the press and politics to believe the worst about U.S. troops in Iraq, viz. John Murtha and the Marines in Hadithah, this event has not garnered much press attention. I try to explain why in my NRO piece.

The biggest difference between now and 1971 is that today’s soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan can rely on those who suffered through the post-Vietnam War era—-assisted by the internet and the blogosphere—-to give them the benefit of the doubt and to hold accountable those who make outrageous claims about them. Thus anyone who is really interested will discover that IVAW has about 800 members, which represents a miniscule percentage of those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile reenlistment rates for the Army and the Marine Corps have been in excess of 100 percent for many months now.

Interested parties will also discover that despite the organization’s name, a large percentage of its members have not deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. And finally they will discover that several prominent IVAW have severe credibility problems, including the infamous Jesse MacBeth. The lack of coverage of this event gives me hope that today’s reporters are less credulous than were there predecessors. We shall see.

America's Long War(s)

This past year I had the opportunity to serve as a member of the "Future War" panel of the Defense Science Board 2007 Summer Study. I have distilled my contribution to the final report in this piece for the Foreign Policy Research Insitute (FPRI). In it, I try to lay out some of the challenges that US defense planners will face in the future, including the continuing war against Islamic extremism, nuclear weapons proliferation, the rise of China, and a possibly resurgent--and hostile--Russia. I'm not looking for trouble, but it is alway prudent to consider all the possibilities and examine the risks. As a former Army chief of staff once observed, hope is not a very good strategy.

For those Anchor Rising readers who follow security affairs, you might be interested to know that I am the new editor of FPRI’s quarterly journal, Orbis.

The New Navy, Marine, and Coast Guard Strategy: A Turning Point in World History?

Don't miss what could be a huge story for the future of the world. Here's the short version from the Associated Press…

It's being called the first major revision of American naval strategy in 25 years.

Maritime officials say they plan to focus more on humanitarian missions and improving international cooperation as a way to prevent conflicts....

The new strategy reflects a broader effort to use aid, training and other cooperative efforts to encourage stability in fledgling democracies and create relationships around the globe that can be leveraged if a crisis does break out in a region.

The U.S has faired so poorly in rebuilding Iraq, in large measure, because of a lack of forces and training specifically dedicated to reconstruction operations. The announcement of this new strategy means that the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard intend to do their part to remedy this deficiency. It also means that the leaders of the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard expect the U.S. military to be involved in more nation-building type operations in the near future, despite any isolationist sentiment that may seem to be growing in the country right now.

But what really makes the new maritime strategy significant is the shift within the military bureaucracy that it suggests. Almost certainly, a key reason that the U.S. has lacked forces tailored for humanitarian and democracy-stabilization missions has been a reluctance on the part of high-level military leadership to endorse their creation, reasoning that the existence of forces proficient in nation-building operations would overly tempt America's leaders to undertake nation-building projects. Better not to have such forces at all and prevent the U.S. from being able to even think about joining certain classes of conflicts.

The new strategy means that a significant number of military strategists and policy makers, at least within the Navy, the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard, have rejected this view. They've decided that safeguarding U.S. security means more than preparing for conventional threats and that American security now requires an ability to deal with and defuse violence and instability spawned by the many weak, backward states that populate the globe.

Hopefully, the Army and the Air Force are on their way to a similar realization. The coup-de-grace will come when the State Department recognizes that engaging people in retrograde states is part of its mission too!

9/11 Six Years Later

I had a piece in NRO this morning about 9/11 and the meaning of victory. It is here. It's always important to remember that the war is over when the loser says its over, not the winner.

Petraeus and Crocker

No Such Thing as A Stupid Question? Not So Fast, My Friend!

As I watched Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker field questions during the House hearing yesterday, I was reminded of a personal experience. As a young Marine captain, I was assigned to the US Army Field Artillery School to teach artillery tactics. My mentor there was an Army captain who remains the best teacher I have ever known. Before I actually got to teach, I observed my mentor as he took a class of brand new lieutenants through the course. During one session, a student asked him a question. I'll never forget Howard's reply. "Lieutenant, we all know that there's no such thing as a stupid question, but I want you to know that yours is the closest to one I have ever heard."

So it was with the ambassador and the general. I don't believe I have ever heard so many inane and repetitive questions in my life. It's one thing to push the Democratic story line, but couldn't these guys come up with some decent questions? How Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker kept straight faces is beyond me. One thing is apparent. There has been a precipitous drop in congressional military experience. This applies to staff as well. God help the Republic.

Petraeus and Crocker

No Such Thing as A Stupid Question? Not So Fast, My Friend!

As I watched Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker field questions during the House hearing yesterday, I was reminded of a personal experience. As a young Marine captain, I was assigned to the US Army Field Artillery School to teach artillery tactics. My mentor there was an Army captain who remains the best teacher I have ever known. Before I actually got to teach, I observed my mentor as he took a class of brand new lieutenants through the course. During one session, a student asked him a question. I'll never forget Howard's reply. "Lieutenant, we all know that there's no such thing as a stupid question, but I want you to know that yours is the closest to one I have ever heard."

So it was with the ambassador and the general. I don't believe I have ever heard so many inane and repetitive questions in my life. It's one thing to push the Democratic story line, but couldn't these guys come up with some decent questions? How Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker kept straight faces is beyond me. One thing is apparent. There has been a precipitous drop in congressional military experience. This applies to staff as well. God help the Republic.

Surprise! President Clinton Lied!

According to Newsweek:

In September 2006, during a famous encounter with Fox News anchor Wallace, Clinton erupted in anger and waived his finger when asked about whether his administration had done enough to get bin Laden. “What did I do? What did I do?” Clinton said at one point. “I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.”

Clinton appeared to have been referring to a December 1999 Memorandum of Notification (MON) he signed that authorized the CIA to use lethal force to capture, not kill, bin Laden. But the [CIA] inspector general’s report made it clear that the agency never viewed the order as a license to “kill” bin Laden—one reason it never mounted more effective operations against him. “The restrictions in the authorities given the CIA with respect to bin Laden, while arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed for a period of time in late 1998 and early 1999, limited the range of permissible operations,” the report stated. (Scheuer agreed with the inspector general’s findings on this issue, but said if anything the report was overly diplomatic. “There was never any ambiguity,” he said. “None of those authorities ever allowed us to kill anyone. At least that’s what the CIA lawyers told us.” A spokesman for the former president had no immediate comment.)

Remember, when Bill was President, we were told that having Hillary as First Lady meant we were really getting a Presidential two-fer, right? Keep that in mind...(more here, h/t).

The Press' Predisposition to Believe the Worst about the Troops

The New Republic has come under fire by bloggers for a series of recent articles purportedly written by an active duty soldier in Iraq. The picture he draws of US soldiers is not a pretty one. Many commentators, including a number of folks who are serving, or have served, in Iraq, believe the articles, written under the pseudonym of "Scott Thomas," are bogus. So do I.

Here's my take on the issue in today's National Review Online.

The Hadithah Prosecution Unravels

In May of 2006, Time magazine reported that several Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division had killed more than 20 Iraqi civilians in the town of Hadithah in al-Anbar Province, in retaliation for the death of one of their comrades by a roadside bomb in November 2005. Almost immediately, opponents of the war seized on the allegations to criticize the war in Iraq. Despite the fact that an investigation of the alleged incident was just getting under way, the Marines were convicted in the press, especially Time magazine and, of course, the New York Times.

Soon thereafter, Rep. John Murtha, (D-PA), a vociferous critic of the war, jumped on the bandwagon, claiming that the Marines in Hadithah had "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." This incident, said Murtha, "shows the tremendous pressure that these guys are under every day when they’re out in combat." Appearing Sunday on This Week on ABC, Murtha went farther, claiming that the shootings in Haditha had been covered up. "Who covered it up, why did they cover it up, why did they wait so long? We don’t know how far it goes. It goes right up the chain of command."

Shortly after the story broke, I wrote on this event in National Review Online, making the point that in Iraq, our opponents have chosen to deny us the ability to fight the sort of conventional war we would prefer and forced us to fight the one they want—an insurgency. Insurgents blend with the people making it hard to distinguish between combatant and noncombatant. A counterinsurgency always has to negotiate a fine line between too much and too little force. Indeed, it suits the insurgents’ goal when too much force is applied indiscriminately.

For insurgents, there is no more powerful propaganda tool than the claim that their adversaries are employing force in an indiscriminate manner. It is even better for the insurgents’ cause if they can credibly charge the forces of the counterinsurgency with the targeted killing of noncombatants. For many people even today, the entire Americans enterprise in Vietnam is discredited by the belief that the U.S. military committed atrocities and war crimes on a regular basis and as a matter of official policy [Thanks a lot, John Kerry]. But as Jim Webb has noted, stories of atrocious conduct, e.g. My Lai, "represented not the typical experience of the American soldier, but its ugly extreme."

Now it turns out that the officer who has presided over a hearing into the charges against one of the Marines allegedly involved in the Hadithah incident, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, has recommended that the charges be dismissed and that there be no court martial.

During an Article 32 investigation—the military equivalent of a grand jury that determines whether a case should be referred to courts-martial--the the prosecution alleged that Sharratt and other members of his battalion carried out a revenge-motivated assault on Iraqi civilians that left 24 dead after a roadside bomb killed a fellow Marine nearby. Sharratt contended that the Iraqi men he confronted were insurgents and at least one was holding an AK-47 rifle when he fired at them.

As reported by breitbart.com.

The hearing officer, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, wrote in a report released by the defense Tuesday that those charges were based on unreliable witness accounts, insupportable forensic evidence and questionable legal theories. He also wrote that the case could have dangerous consequences on the battlefield, where soldiers might hesitate during critical moments when facing an enemy.

"The government version is unsupported by independent evidence," Ware wrote in the 18-page report. "To believe the government version of facts is to disregard clear and convincing evidence to the contrary."

"Whether this was a brave act of combat against the enemy or tragedy of misperception born out of conducting combat with an enemy that hides among innocents, Lance Corporal Sharratt's actions were in accord with the rules of engagement and use of force," Ware wrote.

He said further prosecution of Sharratt could set a "dangerous precedent that ... may encourage others to bear false witness against Marines as a tactic to erode public support of the Marine Corps and its mission in Iraq."

"Even more dangerous is the potential that a Marine may hesitate at the critical moment when facing the enemy," he said.

The final decision still lies with the commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), Lt. Gen. Jim Mattis, so Sharratt is not quite out of the woods. In addition, the case against the other Marines charged with murder might be stronger than the one against Sharratt—but I doubt it.

But the turn of events makes it clear that Murtha and the members of the press who are predisposed to believe such charges should be ashamed of themselves. Will they apologize if the charges are dropped? Don’t hold your breath. But at least the Hadithah Marines can be thankful that they didn’t play lacrosse.

The Iraq War

My recent post excerpting a part of John McCain’s Senate speech on the consequences of withdrawing precipitously from Iraq elicited a number of thoughtful comments (in addition to a couple questioning the quality of my education. But as Tony Soprano would say, “whaddaya gonna do?”). The following comment to my earlier post raises what I believe to be the central questions in the debate about Iraq and the greater war against radical Islam:

I accept much of Mac's assessment, specifically that Iraq's neighbors will
become more involved if the US left, that a bloodbath might occur and that
al-Qaeda's aim is to create a caliphate, starting in Iraq.

But I question the civil war versus Jihadi "strategy of chaos" point. In a
Shiite majority country like Iraq, a US pullout will almost certainly mean
civil war and I don't know if a Sunni al-Qaeda type movement could succeed
in implementing its vision in Iraq given that there is a Shiite majority.
Also, there is an existing reluctance of many tribal Sunnis to support
al-Qaeda.

So my question to Mac is: is it possible that a US withdrawal might lead
to the decimation of al-Qaeda in Iraq by the Shiite majority or at least a
civil war that occupies al-Qaeda fighters?

Withdrawing from Iraq will not "solve" any problems. The US is going to
have to deal with Islamofascism for decades to come.

But perhaps it would allow the US to focus its resources on defeating
al-Qaeda in environments more suitable to the American way of war
(symmetrical conflicts with overwhelming force) without allowing the enemy
to define the battlefield?

The assumption here is that the alleged civil war between Sunni and Shia is independent of al Qaeda’s “strategy of chaos” and that insurgencies can be handled “at a distance.”

Before his death, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), made clear his intention to spawn a civil war by attacking the Shia “apostates,’ who to a Sunni Salafist like Zarqawi are as deserving of death as Crusaders and Jews. But beginning in late 2004, the US effort against AQI in al Anbar Province kept Zarqawi off balance.

In late 2004 and continuing well into 2005, the Coalition conducted a campaign—a series of coordinated movements, battles and supporting operations designed to achieve strategic or operational objectives within a military theater—intended to deprive the insurgency of its base in the Sunni Triangle and its "ratlines"—the infiltration routes that run from the Syrian border into the heart of Iraq. The operational concept was "clear and hold."

There were two parts to the operational strategy. On the one hand, no force, conventional or guerrilla, can continue to fight if it is deprived of sanctuary and logistics support. Accordingly, the central goal of the U.S. strategy during this period was to destroy the ratlines following the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. On the other hand, the key to defeating an insurgency is to provide security to the population. The first element of the strategy met with success. But because of insufficient forces, the second part failed.

This campaign began in November 2004 with the takedown of Fallujah. Wresting Fallujah from the jihadis was critically important: Control of the town had given them the infrastructure—human and physical—necessary to maintain a high tempo of attacks against the Iraqi government and coalition forces, especially in Baghdad.

In and of itself, the loss of Fallujah didn’t cause the insurgency to collapse, but it did deprive the rebels of an indispensable sanctuary. Absent such a sanctuary, large terrorist networks cannot easily survive, being reduced to small, hunted bands.

With Fallujah captured, the Coalition continued a high tempo of offensive operations designed to destroy the insurgent infrastructure west and northwest of Fallujah, and so shut down those ratlines. Although successful in many respects, these operations seemed like the "whack-a-mole" arcade game: towns were cleared of insurgents but because of limited manpower, the towns were not held. Insurgents returned as soon as Coalition forces moved on.

But then the offensive stopped as training the Iraqis took center stage in the Coalition’s Iraq strategy. Of course, a well-trained Iraqi force is critical to ultimate success in Iraq. Indeed, as more Iraqi troops became available in 2005, they were able to hold some of the insurgent strongholds in Anbar Province. But this shift was accompanied by the consolidation of American forces in large "megabases" in an attempt to reduce the American "footprint" and move US troops to the "periphery" of the fight.

But the shift to a defensive posture enabled AQI to regain the initiative that had been wrested from them during the al Anbar offensive. One result of AQI’s regained initiative was the bombing of the Grand Mosque in Sammarah, which ignited the sectarian violence that swept Baghdad and environs until the surge began. Unfortunately, the disposition of American forces made it impossible for them to provide the necessary security to the Iraqi population as sectarian violence exploded in Baghdad and elsewhere. That has changed with the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as “surge.” More US troops and improved Iraqi security forces have permitted the coalition to regain the initiative and “hold” areas that have been cleared.

One consequence of the new approach by Gen. Petraeus is that many of the Sunni insurgents, who used to target US troops, have become disgusted with AQI’s brutality and have allied with the Americans and the Iraqi government. The process began in al Anbar but has now spread to other areas. But this did not happen in a vacuum. The Sunni tribes in al Anbar didn’t band together and cooperate with the U.S. and Iraqi forces in the region to fight AQI because the sheiks were strong, but because AQI was strong. But now that the Americans are holding in addition to clearing, the Sunni sheiks in al Anbar and elsewhere have concluded that the Americans are the strongest “tribe.” The Sunni tribes have been and still are too weak to dislodge AQI on their own.

The key to stability in Iraq is security. This is why the current approach has the potential to work if Congress gives it time.

Which brings us to the second issue: trying to fight an insurgency at a distance. In his classic study of the Korean Conflict, "This Kind of War," T.R. Fehrenbach expressed the conventional wisdom on land power’s importance:

You can fly over a land forever; you may bomb it and wipe it clean of life… but if you desire to defend it; protect it; and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did… by putting your young men into the mud.

Of course, this view was called into question in 1991, after the U.S.-led coalition crushed Saddam Hussein’s forces in Desert Storm with what seemed a combination of air power and information technology. Influential observers argued that this proved that a "revolution in military affairs" was underway, with information technology diminishing the importance of land power. Some went so far as to suggest that traditional ground combat had become a thing of the past, that future U.S. military power would be based on precision strikes delivered by air or space assets, perhaps coordinated and directed by a handful of special operations soldiers.

When Donald Rumsfeld became secretary of defense in 2001, the Pentagon embraced a radical understanding of "transformation," aiming at an "information-age military force" that "will be less platform-centric and more network-centric." Unfortunately, as military historian Fred Kagan has observed, Rumsfeld’s understanding of transformation is vague and confused. It is based on false premises and lies at the heart of our problems in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s attitude toward land power illustrates this. Early on, the Secretary actually sought to go far beyond the Army’s plan and reduce the Army’s force structure from a mix of 10 heavy and light active-duty divisions to eight or fewer light divisions. He wanted to move all the Army’s heavy forces—armored and mechanized infantry—to the National Guard. As thinly stretched as our forces are today in Iraq and Afghanistan, imagine how things would be if the Army were 20 percent smaller and lacking in regular heavy forces.

Iraq has revealed several important things:

• Land power remains as crucially important as it was in Fehrenbach’s time. Indeed, for the kinds of war we’re most likely to face in the future, we need a larger Army. A key assumption behind today’s Army force structure is that, when any conventional war ends, U.S. forces will execute an "exit strategy." But Iraq and Afghanistan show otherwise: The United States requires a land force that can not only win conventional wars but also carry out stability operations afterward, engaging in complex, irregular warfare. Realistically, this requires the equivalent of at least two more combat divisions (plus support).

• The "revolution in military affairs" wasn’t as revolutionary as once believed. As Stephen Biddle of the Army War College has argued, today’s battlefield is not qualitatively different from those of the last century but merely far more lethal. To achieve objectives, a military force must reduce its exposure to long-range lethal fire via the use of coordinated fires and maneuver, cover and concealment. This system, which the U.S. military has mastered, damps the effect of technological change and insulates soldiers from the full lethality of their opponents’ weapons. It depends more on leadership, training, morale, and unit cohesion than on technology per se.

• The equation of "transformation" and "technology" in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon has harmed U.S. security. Military transformation has been shorn of its political and geostrategic context, reduced to nothing more than hitting the right military target independent of any political goal. This approach has some strengths; the U.S. military can identify crucial targets and destroy them with unprecedented accuracy and phenomenally low levels of collateral damage. But it has obscured the real challenge: to design military operations to achieve particular political objectives. After all, wars are not fought for their own purposes but to achieve a desired political outcomes. This blindness to the political objectives of war largely explains the amazing failure to take obvious postwar dangers and problems into account in the development of the Afghan and Iraq military campaigns.

Rumsfel's astrategic understanding of transformation reflected a "business" approach to military affairs. It stressed an economic concept of efficiency at the expense of military and political effectiveness. But war is far more than a mere targeting drill. As Iraq has demonstrated, military success in destroying the "target set" does not translate automatically into achieving the political goals for which the war was fought in the first place.

Accordingly, our strategy requires ground forces oriented not only toward winning wars but also to carrying out "constabulary" missions. Yet the Pentagon’s emphasis on buying high-tech weapons often under-funds the ground forces needed for such missions. Of course, some elements of military transformation will permit ground forces to do more with less, but the kind of war we’re fighting in Iraq today requires larger rather than smaller ground forces. If we’re unwilling to fight these kinds of war, our strategy will fail. But if we fight them without the necessary forces—especially land forces—it will fail as well.

Thinking about Iraq: McCain vs. RI's Senators

I have my disagreements with John McCain regarding immigration and campaign finance, but when it comes to understanding the Iraq War, he—unlike our RI senators—is a real mensch. Here are some excerpts from his speech the other day.

Let us keep in the front of our minds the likely consequences of premature withdrawal from Iraq. Many of my colleagues would like to believe that, should any of the various amendments forcing a withdrawal become law, it would mark the end of this long effort. They are wrong. Should the Congress force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, it would mark a new beginning, the start of a new, more dangerous, and more arduous effort to contain the forces unleashed by our disengagement.

No matter where my colleagues came down in 2003 about the centrality of Iraq to the war on terror, there can simply be no debate that our efforts in Iraq today are critical to the wider struggle against violent Islamic extremism. Already, the terrorists are emboldened, excited that America is talking not about winning in Iraq, but is rather debating when we should lose. Last week, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy chief, said that the United States is merely delaying our “inevitable” defeat in Iraq, and that ‘the Mujahideen of Islam in Iraq of the caliphate and jihad are advancing with steady steps towards victory.’

If we leave Iraq prematurely, jihadists around the world will interpret the withdrawal as their great victory against our great power. Their movement thrives in an atmosphere of perceived victory; we saw this in the surge of men and money flowing to al Qaeda following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. If they defeat the United States in Iraq, they will believe that anything is possible, that history is on their side, that they really can bring their terrible rule to lands the world over. Recall the plan laid out in a letter from Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before his death. That plan is to take shape in four stages: establish a caliphate in Iraq, extend the “jihad wave” to the secular countries neighboring Iraq, clash with Israel — none of which shall commence until the completion of stage one: expel the Americans from Iraq. Mr. President, the terrorists are in this war to win it. The question is: Are we?
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As my friend Brent Scowcroft has said recently, "The costs of staying are visible; the costs of getting out are almost never discussed. . . If we get out before Iraq is stable, the entire Middle East region might start to resemble Iraq today. Getting out is not a solution." Natan Sharansky has recently written, “A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison." Should we leave Iraq before there is a basic level of stability, we will invite further Iranian influence at a time when Iranian operatives are already moving weapons, training fighters, providing resources, and helping plan operations to kill American soldiers and damage our efforts to bring stability to Iraq. Iran will comfortably step into the power vacuum left by a U.S. withdrawal, and such an aggrandizement of fundamentalist power has great potential to spark greater Sunni-Shia conflict across the region.

Leaving prematurely would induce Iraq’s neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and Jordan, Egypt to Israel, Turkey and others, to feel their own security eroding, and may well induce them to act in ways that prompt wider instability. The potential for genocide, wider war, spiraling oil prices, and the perception of strategic American defeat is real, Mr. President, and no vote on this floor will change that. This fight is about Iraq but not about Iraq alone. It is greater than that and more important still, about whether America still has the political courage to fight for victory or whether we will settle for defeat, with all of the terrible things that accompany it. We cannot walk away gracefully from defeat in this war.

Unlike McCain, our senators cannot distinguish between a civil war and a jihadi “strategy of chaos” that targets the will of the American people. They live in a fantasy world in which we can fight an al Qaeda from a distance, much as President Clinton conducted military operations in Bosnia. But there is no immaculate form of warfare, especially when it comes to counterinsurgency. Sen. Whitehouse may have an excuse for advocating such nonsense, since he has no military experience, but Sen. Reed, a graduate of the US Military Academy, doesn’t. He apparently slept through his classes—both at West Point and while on active duty—on counterinsurgency.