Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 127

Rebecca’s War Dog of the Week: U.K.’s bomb-sniffing dog, Jake, retires home with soldier

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

Andy
Hawkett was a career military man who had retired from service after tours
in Kosovo and Bosnia in 2002. But seven years later, he rejoined as part of the
British Army's volunteer force, the Territorial Defense, in 2009. And when Hawkett
was asked to join a bomb disposal team operating out of Camp Bastion in
Afghanistan, he went willingly.

Once in country, he was attached to a unit of seven other
men -- including a handler and his bomb-sniffing dog, a springer spaniel named
Jake. Over the next several months their job was to patrol for IEDs, and during
that time Hawkett became very fond of Jake. The days were long and hot for the
soldiers and the dog. And as Hawkett told
the Express, the tempo of their work
varied greatly, "sometimes [it would] be so monotonously
boring that the thought of finding a device or being shot at by the Taliban is
pretty exhilarating."

And then one day their team had one
traumatic find -- one of the members stepped on an IED during a patrol. The
blast knocked everyone off their feet, and the man who set off the explosives
lost both his legs. Jake happened not to be with them on that particular patrol
but was back at their base. The horror of what Hawkett saw overwhelmed him and
when they returned, he broke down. It was Jake who comforted him. "Jake came to
me and put his paws on my shoulders and I guess that was when the bond between
us really felt rock solid."

We've had a lot of stories here about handlers -- many, many
handlers -- who've stood in long lines to adopt the dogs with whom they've gone
to war or spent years with working stateside. Less common, rare even, is to
hear of a soldier who went to the same lengths to adopt a MWD who was just on
his or her tour. But it certainly reinforces how much these dogs affect all the
people who work closely with them. When Hawkett discovered that Jake's career
as a military dog would end after that tour in Afghanistan in 2010, he put in a
request to adopt him. After 18 months of silence, the Defence Animal Centre
contacted him asking if Hawkett and his family still wanted to take Jake. The
answer, of course, was, "yes."

The Hawkett family says that Jake is a
fully retired war dog who "may be good at sniffing out bombs but he's
definitely not so handy at finding lost socks or toys. He loves his walks
although he can't go as far as he used to."

Rebecca Frankel's book about
military working dogs will be published by Atria Books in August 2013.

Gen. George C. Marshall on the need for planning 'economical' defense spending

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Words for our
time?

I have felt that
the military departments of the Government did not devote sufficient time,
investigation and effort to the evolution or development of a system which
would provide the necessary security with the minimum of financial output. We
were forced into stringent economies by drastic cuts in appropriations, but
there is a decided difference between effecting economies by cuts, particularly
under pressure, and deliberately concentrating on the search for a system that
permits a more economical set up and operation of an adequate military force.

I think we have
erred at times on the side of a too dogmatic statement of requirements without
regard to whether or not there was a reasonably practical possibility of
obtaining the necessary funds through the years.

--George Marshall
to the graduates of the National War College, June 20, 1947

(P. 157, The
Papers of George Catlett Marshall, Vol. 6: ‘The Whole World Hangs in the
Balance.'
Edited by Larry Bland, Mark Stoler, Sharon Stevens, and Daniel Holt. Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2013.)

Another Duffel Blog scoop: The blog takes us to the Air Force’s 'Top Drone' school

The
groundbreaking blog visits
the Air Force's school for its elite
drone pilots. An excerpt:

"I knew right away that I was
facing some stiff competition," Ghostbuster said. "As soon as I walked in the
building, there were all these pilots who were overweight and soft and pale,
and their faces were covered in acne. You don't get that kind of body without
hours and hours in the cockpit [sic], away from the light of the day. These
guys were the real deal."

More questions about COIN (V): Are the historical precedents we cite any good?

By Major Tom Mcilwaine,
Queen's Royal Hussars

Best Defense guest columnist

Question Set Five -- Historical case studies suggest that
minimum force, civil primacy, and acting within the law are vital. But those
historical case studies -- are we sure about them? Now I know all about the
wide and varied research that could be used to back up the principles
articulated in FM 3-24; I have read Christopher Paul's and Colin Clarke's
skillful deconstruction of Gentile's argument that FM 3-24 is "evidence free". The
supplementary questions that underpin this question relate to how many of these
campaigns were actually used by the authors of FM 3-24? Was the insurgency in
Tajikistan really at the forefront of the authors' minds? Or were they in fact
relying more on a narrow spectrum of British and French experiences? I suspect
they probably were. Are Malaya, Kenya and Algeria ringing any bells?

So we are in fact
drawing some pretty big conclusions from a pretty narrow sample size. And as
the next question will suggest, some of those historical case studies might not
actually stand up to scrutiny.

(To be continued)

Where are the poems that could help us grasp the meaning of our post-9/11 wars?

By Jason Dempsey

Best Defense office of the literature
of combat

As we approach the
end of our time in Afghanistan it would serve us well to reflect on the
poets of World War I, not only for their messages
but for what we have lost with the absence of an art form that was so
well-suited to provide a window into war. On the question of who writes of war
and how is it portrayed, World War I was unique for two main reasons: 1) almost
everyone fought, including those who saw themselves as artists first and
soldiers second, and 2) poetry was a widespread vehicle for artistic outlet and
social commentary, not yet pushed aside by radio, movies, and television. The
result of that ubiquity of poetry as an artistic medium, along with the ease
with which one could write it, even in a combat zone, is that we are inundated
with art from the Great War that was created by those who experienced it. From
Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Robert Graves, we get a tactile feel for
the war paired with examinations of what it means for life writ large -- the
purpose of art, as it were.

Today, unfortunately,
those conditions don't hold. Artists and soldiers are, by and large, two
separate communities, and poetry is essentially dead as a medium for
mass-communication, supplanted by movies and music which are beyond the
technical capacity of soldiers in the field to create. The result is that
artistic interpretations of modern wars lag well behind their occurrence and
are, for the most part, derivative. Since the end of mass wars and the
dissolution of the draft, the record of "art" on war has been fairly dismal. From
the medium that most touches mass audiences we are presented with Top Gun, Navy SEALs, and The Hurt
Locker. Interpreting armed conflict in the 80s, 90s, and 00s, respectively,
each follows the same tired tropes, merely placing old stereotypes in new
settings. The gadgets, sets, and cinematography evolve but the story remains
the same. Even Saving Private Ryan,
for all its brilliance, could not, in its final moments, avoid the cinematic
safety blanket provided by a valiant last stand and a noble speech delivered in
a dying breath.

I've often wondered
what we would have learned if Owen had lived, or if T.S. Eliot had gone to war.
Owen, able to distill the horror of World War I and place it in the mundane
context of its execution, made a dramatic statement about the failures of
nation-states to achieve the patriotic ideals for which soldiers ostensibly
fight, and die. Had he lived through the war and had more time to contemplate
what had happened, one can only imagine the journey he might have taken us on. And
Eliot, of course, represents opportunity lost. Eliot could turn the experience
of a mere "house-agent's clerk" into blinding statements on love and faith, and
his musings on the aftermath of the Great War inform "The Waste Land," one of the masterpieces of the 20th
century. One can only imagine what he might have done with direct experience.

While many other
poets survived and made great contributions to our understanding of war, both
during and after the conflict, the gap left by Owen's death and Eliot's lack of
experience has only grown wider in the intervening century. Today, art on war
is stuck in a proverbial no-man's land. On one side are the soldiers, a
self-selected class with a corresponding lack of interest in questioning the
assumptions upon which we build our rationale for fighting, and often without
the tools to readily contribute on the rare chance they do. On the other side
of the trenches are the professional artists. Relying on field phones and
distant observation, their resulting interpretations of war are best understood
as personal introspection, or navel-gazing through the barrel of a gun.

Art has a role to
play in addressing fundamental questions, and few questions are more
fundamental than the choice of states to kill. On that question the poets of
World War I stood like lightning rods in attracting attention to the horrors
and stupidity of that conflict, and mankind is better for it. But in the years
since, as the soldier and artist have diverged, our understanding of organized
violence has become much more shallow. For today's artists war, if they go out
of their way to address it, merely presents an opportunity to recast old
narratives and put new faces on tired clichés. The result is a nearly static
discussion and an understanding of war that lags decades behind execution.

We entered the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan awash in nostalgia for World War II and devoid of the
ability to move beyond a superficial understanding of modern conflict, and we
have paid for it. Good books and memoirs have begun to emerge from these recent
conflicts but their release meets waning interest and a public that has already
moved on. One can't help but think of the opportunities missed with the
disappearance of poetry as a tool with which the soldier-poets of World War I
could immediately engage the public. Reading through those old poems, one feels
a sense of great loss, both for their disappearance and for the larger absence
of art from our conversations about war.

Jason Dempsey is the author of Our Army: Soldiers, Politics and American Civil-Military
Relations and is serving as a combat advisor in Afghanistan. The views
presented here are his own.

Soldier poets of the Great War (IV): Robert Graves is over-rated as a poet

I
am a fan of Robert Graves'
autobiography,
but his poetry leaves me cold. For example, these lines just strike me as
awkward:

Down pressed the sky,
and we, oppressed, thrust out

Boastful tongue,
clenched fist and valiant yard.

That
said, I did like these other lines of his:

It's hard to know if
you're alive or dead

When steel and fire go
roaring through your head.

Gambling on the defense budget’s "double whammy": How to avoid strip poker

By David Forman

Best Defense guest columnist

Though smaller defense budgets are now as certain as death
and taxes, the real question is "just how bad is it going to be?" According to
Clark Murdock, who spoke at a recent panel hosted at CSIS, fewer dollars is
only half the issue. The more significant, though less discussed, problem is
how "weak" defense dollars have become due to internal cost growth. This
"double whammy" of fewer and weaker dollars will make cuts feel twice as bad as they look on paper.

Current Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs are
projected to consume 80 percent of the budget by 2021, and the entire budget by
2039. Even though total force size increased only 3 percent over the last decade,
personnel costs increased 90 percent. These projections are clearly
unsustainable, but since the Defense Department can't do without people or
operations, what should it do?

Mr. Murdock recommends re-conceptualizing the defense
budgeting structure and sticking to it by asking "how much is affordable"
instead of "how much is enough." The budget should have two major categories. The
first category, "Institutional Support," should not exceed 30 percent of the
total budget and would cover training, recruiting, facilities, and
administration of the force. The other 70 percent should be allotted to the
"Operational Force" that would directly support military operations for
combatant commanders. Within the Operational Force allotment, 35-50 percent
should be spent on common core capabilities (considered the musts), and the other 20-35 percent should
be spent on strategic investment (considered the coulds).

Time will tell if the upcoming Quadrennial Defense Review
adopts these recommendations, but the panel at CSIS brought to light two
excellent points that can help minimize the gamble on this double whammy.

First, strategy development needs to become an iterative
process. As it stands now, combatant commanders take strategic guidance and
establish force requirements based on cost assumptions, but when their
assumptions price out too high, we do not adjust strategy to make it affordable
and determine where to accept more risk.

Second, military personnel compensation reform can't garner
congressional support because the focus is mainly on cuts to current
compensation. Todd Harrison of CSBA provided the freshest perspective I've seen
by referring to his report
on maximizing value from the entire
military compensation system. Instead of just cutting, we need to adjust compensation to areas of
cost-effective value to service members. Military personnel value certain
benefits more than others, but not all benefits have the same relative
government cost for perceived value. By measuring value and cost (as he did in
his report) and spending accordingly, the Defense Department can still attract
high quality personnel without consuming the entire budget.

As the next defense secretary confronts a lower top-line
budget, with or without sequestration, internal cost growth must be addressed. Now
may be the best time to re-conceptualize how defense dollars are allocated. Success
in this process will create a sustainable budgeting structure that supports an
affordable national security strategy executed by a high quality and
well-compensated military force of all-volunteer Americans.

LCDR David Forman, USN , is
a senior military fellow at the Center for a New American Security . The views presented here are his own
and do not represent those of the Navy or the Department of Defense.

Where is the garrison Army going? I worry it is heading back to spit and polish, while ignoring hard lessons of the last decade

By "58 Scout"

Best Defense guest columnist

The more we draw down from our current conflicts
the more of a push from the top I am seeing to become a more disciplined force.
Got it -- "always be better" -- but a lot of the comments that myself and many
of my peers keep hearing are quite disturbing and, to be honest, generally
insulting. 

During my redeployment briefings we received a
video message from the U.S. Army Pacific Commander. In it was the typical "good
job, you are the country's finest, etc. etc.," but what really burned me, and
most of the men and women who watched the video, was one of the CG's comments. I
am paraphrasing, but it was something to the effect that "this is the best Army
I have seen in 30 years of service...but we need to take it back to pre-war Army."
Really?

The
final straw for me was this piece I found in the Army Times about SMA Chandler and his changes for the force. That article
is about sending CSMs to legal courses to do their jobs better, but again, the
intent is the same and getting louder.

Chandler
told the senior enlisted leaders to institute programs at their posts, camps,
and stations to apply lessons learned to the Profession of Arms
Campaign. The Profession of Arms has become a lost art, especially among
junior officers and NCOs. The deployment cycle of the past decade eroded
everything from common military courtesies to fitness standards. Of great concern
is the lack of counseling, leadership, and decision-making skills needed by
midgrade NCOs and junior officers. 

I
am deeply concerned about just what he is trying to address. Yes, the garrison
Army will have more saluting, parade rest, clean uniforms, haircuts, etc., but
he has cut deeper. I'm confused -- what decision-making skills should the
combat proven SSG need to work on? And let's be honest: I don't think that the
SMA and most of the senior officers and NCOs have ever really walked in those
shoes. During these wars the decisions made by junior officers and NCOs, at the
company and platoon level, have been some of the most important. It makes me
angry because I know what I have done and what so many others like me have done
and more. The entire intent of being a professional soldier is going to war and
destroying the enemy. What most of us in the military have trained for -- and
done -- several times. Yes, there were a lot of growing pains over the
last decade, especially learning what was most important to accomplish this
task. We learned: Shooting, first aid, cultural lessons -- important! Haircuts,
hands in pockets, pressing uniforms? Not that important. 

The
senior leaders of today's Army want to go back to the Army that they grew up in -- the Army of
the 80s and 90s, with the spit-polished boots, starched uniforms, skin-tight
haircuts. To them, these are the signs of a disciplined force. To the senior
leaders of the Army I say this: Bring back the tough and realistic training
standards that made us a focused and disciplined force. Those are the things that
will prepare the force for challenges that lie ahead in the decades to come. Incorporate
this training with the volumes of lessons learned in leadership and
decision-making, while under fire, by our junior officers and NCOs. The success
and failures of the next decade will be based on your leadership and decision-making
skills and how we cultivate our junior officers and NCOs. 

I'm
not sure where this Army is going but I am deeply concerned. Maybe I'm
missing something that can only be seen from the top. Or maybe the SMA thinks
doing circles around the parade field will draw attention away from the fact
that we don't have any money for real combat training. 

"58 Scout" is an active-duty
soldier.

'No way there's a God,' a Marine home from Iraq said before killing himself

Chris McDonald, a
Marine reservist who came home a mess from Iraq, told his father that the
things he had seen there were so bad, "There's no way there's a God." He
eventually shot himself dead.

Sometimes there is
so much pain.

Todd South of the Chattanooga Times Free Press did the
heartbreaking story. South is a former Marine, by the way.

An unusual exhibit about our invasion of Iraq, ten years later

By Peter Maass

Best Defense guest columnist

Ten years ago, I rolled into Baghdad's Firdos
Square with photographer Gary Knight and the Marine battalion that famously draped
a flag atop a statue of Saddam Hussein before tearing it down in front of the
world's television cameras. As we all know, this moment of promise was followed
by a lot of pain. The last American troops have been withdrawn from Iraq, and
our attention has turned away, but the invasion's 10th anniversary falls next
month, offering a chance to remember and explore the still-painful aftermath.

How can we best do this?

A few years ago, I began working on a story
that reconstructed the statue's toppling; it was published by the New Yorker in 2011 but the most important thing is that while reporting it I
met Lt. Tim McLaughlin, whose flag was placed on the statue. Tim had left the
Marines, gone to law school and was a lawyer in Boston. He shared his war
diaries with me, and I realized, when I thumbed through the first pages and
sand fell from them (Tim had not touched them since Iraq) that I was holding an
amazing document. I had been a foreign correspondent for many years, and had
seen lots of documentation about war, but this was the most original and
emotional -- war as seen by the combatant, in the combatant's handwriting,
written in his downtime between battles. It wasn't filtered by the media, by
politicians or generals, and it didn't even suffer the visual flattening of a
computer font.

The content stunned me. Tim was at the Pentagon
on 9/11 and was a tank platoon commander in his tip-of-the-spear battalion in
2003. His diaries contain raw descriptions of everything from the smoke-filled
corridors of the Pentagon on that tragic September day to the violence of the
Iraq invasion and the craziness of the toppling of the iconic statue. The agony
of firing too soon and shooting civilians, and firing too late and losing a
fellow Marine to enemy bullets, as well as the boredom and humor and exhaustion
of the invasion--these searing things are in the diaries, in addition to Tim's
evocative maps and pictures. While the diaries are remarkably personal, they
reflect multiple facets of the combatant experience of war.

To cut a long story short, Gary and I discussed
the idea of an exhibit centering around the diaries, and Tim readily agreed.
The exhibit is called "Invasion: Diaries and Memories of War in
Iraq," and it will open in New York City at the Bronx Documentary Center on March
15, just a few days before the invasion's 10th anniversary. The exhibit will
feature large-format reprints of pages from Tim's diary, and on some days it
will display his American flag, which has not been on public view since its
Baghdad cameo. The exhibit will also feature invasion photographs by Gary, who
like me was a "unilateral" journalist driving from Kuwait into Iraq
in a rented SUV (mine came from Hertz). There will be a few texts by me, as
well as videos that feature Tim and news footage from the time. Tim, who is president
of a non-profit that provides free legal advice to veterans and the homeless, has
received a 50 percent disability rating from the VA for his PTSD diagnosis, and
that will be in the exhibit, too.

It's an innovative exhibit that, we hope, will
get people thinking about the war and its legacy -- things that are slipping
into a collective memory hole. We launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign
earlier this month and we're nearing our goal but we're not yet there. If we
can reach it and go further, we will start working on stage two of our project --
to assemble and publish war diaries from other combatants and civilians. Yes,
this post is a bit of a fundraising pitch, though we also
want people to just know about the exhibit and not let the anniversary pass without
remembrance. In mid-March, Foreign Policy
plans to publish an online series of photos and stories about Tim's diaries.

For Tim, Gary, and me, it has been an uphill
battle. Part of the backstory involves being turned down by a number of
galleries and museums before the non-profit Bronx Documentary Center agreed,
enthusiastically, to host our exhibit. The fancy places were not interested in
Iraq -- old news, time to move on, tired of war, there's no money to be made in
war diaries, etc. We have been working on this as a labor of love, because we
think it's a unique and provocative way to fight the tide of forgetting.

Please come visit the exhibit when it opens on
March 15, and if you can help our fundraising, we would
be delighted, too. Also, if you are affiliated with an organization that would
be interested in hosting the exhibit after it closes in New York, please give
us a shout.

Peter Maass, author of Love Thy Neighbor and Crude World, has written about Iraq and Afghanistan for the New Yorker and the New
York Times Magazine. Gary Knight is a founder of the VII Photo Agency and director of the Tufts University Program for Narrative &
Documentary Practice. Tim McLaughlin is a lawyer in Boston and president of Shelter Legal Services, which provides free
legal advice to veterans and the homeless.