Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 129

The lesson of Petraeus for other generals?

I've
said before the lessons I think other
generals will draw incorrectly
from the fall of David Petraeus. His real mistake, I think, was going directly
from four-star command to the directorship of the CIA. Rather, he should have
taken some time out and reoriented himself. So the real lesson, I think, is
that the time of retirement from high position is a vulnerable moment.

I didn't
think much of Dick Cheney as a vice president, but I think he was a good
defense secretary. I remember being told that when he left that job, he got in
a car and drove across the country alone. Another thing to do might be to go
camping or sailing for a few weeks. The point is to get out of the bubble,
re-connect to the world, and most of all, catch your breath.

Being a Quaker missionary for peace in Fayetteville, N.C., is like...

Well, let's just say
it looks like a tough gig.

Question of the day: Was removing Saddam Hussein in fact a good thing?

Recently I was at a foreign policy discussion in which a
participant said that everybody agrees that the removal of Saddam Hussein was a
good thing, despite everything else that went wrong with the boneheaded
invasion of Iraq.

I didn't question that assertion at the time, but found
myself mulling it. Recently I had a chance to have a beer
with Toby Dodge, one of the best strategic thinkers
about Iraq. He said something like this: Well, you used to have an oppressive
dictator who at least was a bulwark against Iranian power expanding westward.
Now you have an increasingly authoritarian and abusive leader of Iraq who
appears to be enabling Iranian arms transfers to Syria.

And remember: We still don't know how this ends yet. Hence
rumors in the Middle East along the lines that all along we planned to create a
"Sunnistan" out of western Iraq, Syria, and Jordan.

Meanwhile, the Iraq war, which we left just over a year ago,
continues. Someone bombed police headquarters in Kirkuk over the weekend, killing 33. And
about 60 Awakening fighters getting their paychecks were blown up in Taji. As my friend Anthony Shadid used to
say, "The mud is getting wetter."

What Max Boot missed: A response about the future shape of the U.S. military

By Billy Birdzell

Best Defense guest respondent

I believe Max
has missed Das Boot.

1. If COIN is 80 percent political, then the political
construct is most important. French and British in Algeria and Malaya were
conquerors with political and military control over the place for 124 years
(ironic) before their insurgencies began. Please talk about expeditionary COIN.
Russia in Afghanistan, U.S. Afghanistan, U.S. Vietnam, U.S. Iraq. Where else? The
United States in the Philippines 1898-1913 was the Malaya example because we
owned the place. Mixing up political contexts = fail.

2. No matter how good our tactics, cultural training,
language ability, etc., we will never get out of the dilemma that the harder we
try, the worse it gets. More money for AID and development = more corruption. More
troops = accidental guerrillas and al Qaeda in Iraq type organizations. Joe Meyers
and UBL call it defensive jihad, but whatever. Our very presence delegitimizes
the government we are trying to prop up. It's a failed model and one that
Galula said was the worst of all possible worlds. FM 3-24 is a manual for the
worst case scenario -- that in which the military gets stuck with an
insurgency that it didn't see coming. It can, at best, direct military
force to get a slightly better political situation than running away. It is not
a doctrine around which to structure the military.

3. I disagree that language, culture, etc. materially impact
success. Using the military instead of the State Department for diplomacy is
inherently flawed. The military's main contribution is destroying armed groups
who challenge the government's monopoly on force and I'd like to see what
percentage of intelligence was developed by native speakers/culture experts.

4. Tanks are fabulous for killing guerrillas in urban areas.
Artillery is your friend and outbound rounds still make the sound of freedom. Flying
machines are cool. Max fundamentally does not understand that COIN involves
high intensity combat and our technology/firepower, USED APPROPRIATELY, gives
us an edge.

5. I agree with Nagl that advisors a la Landsdale during Huk
(20 PAX, later increased to 56), El Sal (55 PAX), JSOTF-P, and Columbia
are great. However, like all other uses of military force, what is the
strategy? What is the United States trying to achieve? What are we going to
give up to do more/longer/better engagements with which partner nation forces? We
can have the best advisors in the world, if the partner nations do not have
real governments and a military with the will to fight, we're pissing in the
wind.

6. The most important factors for success against irregulars
-- partner nation governance and the local military's will -- are out of our
hands. Those two issues are not discussed by people who want to rearrange the
military and create all kinds of nonsense. If eliminating safe havens and
supporting stable governments is our policy, then what kind of military
deployments maximize the host nation's ability to create legitimacy and find
their will to win? I argue that Max's
concepts minimize them.

Billy Birdzell
served eight years in the Marine Corps, was a platoon commander during OIF I
and II and a team leader in  MARSOC . He is now
doing that Security Studies thing at Georgetown University.

FDR as a strategic analyst of the Balkans

I was
reading Robert Sherwood's Roosevelt
and Hopkins,
and was struck that in March 1943, President Roosevelt made a prescient
observation about the future of Yugoslavia. Harry Hopkins, his close aide,
quotes him as saying in a meeting with Anthony Eden that, "the Croats and Serbs
had nothing in common and that it is ridiculous to try to force two such
antagonistic people to live together under one government."

Hagel before Senate Armed Services: A confirmation hearing or a mugging?

I just
finished reading the transcript of last week's hearing on the confirmation of
former Sen. Charles Hagel to be defense secretary. The question in the headline
is what I asked myself as I read it.

I heard
a lot on Friday about what a poor job Sen.
Hagel did in his confirmation hearings to be secretary of defense. So I sat
down with the transcript over the weekend. I was surprised. I've spent many hours
covering confirmation hearings, but I never have seen as much bullying as there
was in this hearing. The opening thug was Sen. Inhofe (which I expected -- he's
always struck me as mean-spirited), but I was surprised to see other Republican
senators kicking their former Republican colleague in the shins so hard.

Here's
John McCain badgering his erstwhile buddy:

Senator MCCAIN. ...Even as late as August
29th, 2011, in an interview -- 2011, in an interview with the Financial Times, you said, "I disagreed
with President Obama, his decision to surge in Iraq as I did with President
Bush on the surge in Iraq." Do you stand by those comments, Senator Hagel?

Senator HAGEL. Well, Senator, I stand by
them because I made them.

Senator MCCAIN. Were you right? Were you
correct in your assessment?

Senator HAGEL. Well, I would defer to the
judgment of history to support that out.

Senator MCCAIN. The committee deserves your
judgment as to whether you were right or wrong about the surge.

Senator HAGEL. I will explain why I made
those comments.

Senator MCCAIN. I want to know if you were
right or wrong. That is a direct question. I expect a direct answer.

Senator HAGEL. The surge assisted in the objective.
But if we review the record a little bit--

Senator MCCAIN. Will you please answer the
question? Were you correct or incorrect when you said that "The surge would be
the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." Where
you correct or incorrect, yes or no?

Senator HAGEL. My reference to the surge
being the most dangerous--

Senator MCCAIN. Are you going to answer the
question, Senator Hagel? The question is, were you right or wrong? That is a
pretty straightforward question. I would like an answer whether you were right
or wrong, and then you are free to elaborate.

Senator HAGEL. Well, I am not going to give
you a yes or no answer on a lot of things today.

Senator MCCAIN. Well, let the record show
that you refuse to answer that question. Now, please go ahead.

Senator HAGEL. Well, if you would like me
to explain why--

Senator MCCAIN. Well, I actually would like
an answer, yes or no.

Senator HAGEL. Well, I am not going to give
you a yes or no. I think it is far more complicated that, as I have already
said.

Tom
again: FWIW, Hagel later got in the point that his comment was that "our war in
Iraq was the most fundamental bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam." I think
that assessment is correct.

(Senator
Chambliss then took a moment to abuse the English language: "We were always
able to dialogue, and it never impacted our friendship.")

Then
Lindsay Graham waded in.

Senator GRAHAM. ...You said, "The
Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here. I am not an Israeli senator.
I am a U.S. Senator. This pressure makes us do dumb things at times." You have
said the Jewish lobby should not have been -- that term shouldn't have been
used. It should have been some other term. Name one person, in your opinion,
who is intimidated by the Israeli lobby in the U.S. Senate.

Senator HAGEL. Well, first--

Senator GRAHAM. Name one.

Senator HAGEL. I don't know.

Senator GRAHAM. Well, why would you say it?

Senator HAGEL. I didn't have in mind a
specific--

Senator GRAHAM. First, do you agree it is a
provocative statement? That I can't think of a more provocative thing to say
about the relationship between the United States and Israel and the Senate or
the Congress than what you said.

Name one dumb thing we have been goaded into
doing because of the pressure from the Israeli or Jewish lobby.

Senator HAGEL. I have already stated that I
regret the terminology I used.

Senator GRAHAM. But you said back then it
makes us do dumb things. You can't name one Senator intimidated. Now give me
one example of the dumb things that we are pressured to do up here.

Senator HAGEL. We were talking in that
interview about the Middle East, about positions, about Israel. That is what I
was referring to.

Senator GRAHAM. So give me an example of where
we have been intimidated by the Israeli/Jewish lobby to do something dumb
regarding the Mideast, Israel, or anywhere else.

Senator HAGEL. Well, I can't give you an
example.

Next to
throw some punches was David Vitter:

Senator VITTER. In general, at that time
under the Clinton administration, do you think that they were going ‘‘way too
far toward Israel in the Middle East peace process"?

Senator HAGEL. No, I don't, because I was
very supportive of what the President did at the end of his term in
December-January, December 2000, January of 2001. As a matter of fact, I
recount that episode in my book, when I was in Israel.

Senator VITTER. Just to clarify, that's the
sort of flip-flop I'm talking about, because that's what you said then and you're
changing your mind now.

Senator HAGEL. Senator, that's not a
flip-flop. I don't recall everything I've said in the last 20 years or 25
years. if I could go back and change some of it, I would. But that still
doesn't discount the support that I've always given Israel and continue to give
Israel.

Near the end of the day's verbal beating,
Senator Manchin said, "Sir, I feel like I want to apologize for some of the tone
and demeanor today." That was good of him.

You all know I was not that much of a Hagel fan before. But now I feel more inclined to
support him, if only to take a stand against the incivility shown by Senators Inhofe,
McCain, Graham, and Vitter, the SASC's own "gang of four."

'American Sniper' author shot dead

[image error]

I don't know what to say about this murder of the Navy SEAL sniper, committed by a former
Marine at a Texas gun range. I do think our culture is sick with guns.

Avast! What Tom should have been reading about the age of fighting sail

By
Jeff Williams

Age
of fighting sail bureau

"C. S. Forester" (AKA Cecil
Louis Troughton Smith) was a delightful writer of fiction but a less successful writer of naval history. His Age of Fighting Sail has long received mixed reviews among modern naval
historians interested in that period. Forester had a tendency towards "received
wisdom" and was careful not to contradict technical details he had already
incorporated into his marvelously successful "Hornblower" series novels.

As we all know,
there is a tendency for nations to inflate their victories and diminish their
defeats. Consequently, it had become customary in re-telling the extraordinary
saga of the British Navy in the age of sail to emphasize the superiority of
French-built ships versus those of the Royal Navy. It made the long period of
English naval victories even more amazing and intrepid. Even still, like most
myths, the lore of superior French and Spanish ship design did in fact contain
an element of truth for a period.

In the past thirty
to forty years a great deal of intense academic research has been performed
concerning the ship building and construction practices of the French, Dutch,
Spanish, and American sailing navies, but most particularly into the British
Navy of the sailing era. Much legend (knee deep when it comes to
naval affairs) has been stripped away by contemporary naval historians
such as Brian Lavery, Robert Gardiner, and others.

Brian Lavery is undoubtedly the world's leading authority on the sailing ships of
the line, having spent decades researching the subject to its smallest detail. He
has a number of volumes to his credit but the ones that directly address the
subject of this article would be:

The
Ship of the Line -- The Development of the Battlefleet 1650 -1850, Vol. One




The Ship of
the Line -- Design, Construction & Fittings, Vol. Two




Nelson's
Navy, The Ships, Men and Organization 1793-1815

In Building
The Wooden Walls -- The Design and Building of the 74-Gun Ship Valiant, Lavery uses his
first two chapters to describe how the Royal Navy entered the 18th century
undefeated but with ships that were generally poorly designed. Their design
patterns had become rigidly conservative with little scope for experimentation.
This was partly due to a complacency derived from long success in battle. Why
fix what's not broken?

The French on the
other hand, understanding that they could not defeat the British Navy because
of the need to finance large standing armies and a shortage of ports and seamen,
decided on a policy of building speedier and more powerful ships. Later in the
century, the new American Navy facing the same problems as the French adopted a
similar policy in lieu of a battle fleet.

For the British
the end of that complacency came in 1755 with a new surveyor of the Navy, the
redoubtable Sir Thomas Slade, and his partner William Bately. The creative
logjam in the hidebound surveyors office, that controlled the design protocols
for the Navy, was removed and British shipbuilding moved into a new era.

At the time of the
Seven Years War, the Royal Navy as a result of the through defeat of both the
French and Spanish in battle had captured many of the latest French and Spanish
ships. As standard practice, the Navy took the lines off those ships, repaired
them if possible and incorporated them into its own fleet. With the practical
experience of having these captured ships now as part of the British fleet it
became apparent that they contained many advantageous qualities. Slade merged
many of those French ideas with his own into a new British building practice.

As an example, it
was customary in that era for French battleships to be more "weatherly"
(meaning how close they can sail to the wind) by being able to sail 6 points (on
the 32 point compass rose) to the wind, while the average British battleship
could usually manage only 7 points. That weatherliness was usually largely a
function of the relationship between the length and breadth of a vessel. That
feature was very important for ships trying to achieve the "weather gauge" (upwind)
on an enemy vessel -- rather like a Spitfire fighter trying to gain an altitude
advantage on a ME 109.

Slade's new
renaissance in British naval construction is usually considered to have been
initiated with the building of HMS Valiant.
This ship's lines were actually taken from the captured French Invincible. Valiant,
along with her sister Triumph, were
the lead ships in a new 74-gun class that began to standardize the British
battle line for the next 70 years. British ships were lengthened, their
armament re-ordered to be more formidable, and the ships became nearly as fast
and weatherly as their French peers but more robustly built.

It should be noted
that while French ships were fast and Weatherly, there was a price to pay for
those features. One of the costs was "hogging," a circumstance where the bow
and stern of the ship actually droops down from a lack longitudinal strength,
thus destroying its sailing qualities over time. Generally, British shipwrights
tried to keep the scantlings and timbers stouter than French practice and also
maintained narrower room and space (the space between frames) than the French
in order to minimize the hogging of the keel. Later, British dockyards used the
Sepping's method that allowed a greater length to be built into their ships by
using a very strong diagonal framing process. Also, in the new class of ships,
the British lower main gun decks were designed to be a little higher above the
waterline in order to make them less wet and more available when the ship
heeled in the wind. Often the lower gun decks of French ships were so low to
the water that even in a moderate breeze the gun ports were unusable.

Importantly, I
might add that the British were the first to completely copper the bottoms of
their entire fleet beginning around the time of the American War for Independence.
This factor had a radical impact upon hull durability and speed, comparable
with almost any changes in actual ship design. It was hugely expensive but kept
ships out of dry-dock and improved their weatherliness and speed and helped
assist uniform the speed characteristics of the whole battle fleet when in
formation. This crucial change in itself was comparable in impact to the 20th
century's incorporation of the microprocessor into modern naval electronics.

In consequence of
these changes, the battles fought by the British Navy from the period of the
American Revolution, French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic wars were
generally fought with ships of equal or superior design characteristics to
those of their assorted opponents. This was particularly true of British
frigate designs that evolved even faster and were the blue water cruisers of
their era.

As most people who
have an interest in naval history know, ship design was only one factor -- important
as it was in the development of naval superiority. Unlike armies, navies cannot
be improvised. They required factors such as the availability of trained and
experienced seamen, gunnery science, navigation skills (advanced mathematics),
seamanship, signaling (an area of complete British superiority), and a
developed and practiced doctrine of aggressive leadership. These were all
crucial in achieving and maintaining superiority at sea. As the superlative
American Admiral Nimitz said, "better good men on a bad ship than bad men on a
good ship."

As a final note,
Spanish ships (many British considered Spanish captures superior to those of
the French) and Dutch ships to a lesser extent were also very interesting in
their own right and deserve coverage. The Dutch naval tradition is outstanding
though their ships had a tendency to be rather small and shallow of draft to
allow them to clear the mud flats off the Dutch coast. The American
contribution to naval design in the age of sail was both unique and of
generally very high quality and is a full story in itself.

Incidentally, Robert Gardiner, a superb historian of naval architecture, has a number of books out on the specific
design elements of various classes of ships such as frigates, brigs, ships of the line, etc., of this period. His work is excellent and
spares no detail.

How a rogue pilot misbehaved for years in a B-52 squadron, and so killed 4 people

Of all
the military services, the one I know least about is the Air Force, which
doesn't get a lot of electrons on this blog. So I was especially intrigued to
finally sit down and go through a study sent to me months ago by a Best Defense
reader. "Darker Shades of Blue: A Case Study of
Failed Leadership"
is a thorough, careful study of how leadership lapses over the course of
several years ultimately led to disaster in an Air Force bomber wing. It's also
a beautiful if horrifying exploration of how bad shit can happen despite
volumes of rules and regulations aimed at ensuring safe practices are followed.

Even if
you care nothing about the Air Force, it is a fascinating study of leadership,
and applicable to many different situations. Basically, it is the tale of how
an out-of-control pilot managed to consistently break the rules, but did so
with a clever understanding of how to manipulate the system. So, for example,
he would push the limits until his commander sat him down and gave him an oral
warning. But these were not recorded. So the pilot, who had a reputation as
perhaps the best B-52 pilot in the Air Force, would lay low a bit and then,
when the next commander came in, the pattern would repeat itself. The rogue
pilot got by on a series of these "last chance" reprimands. Subordinates knew
what was going on, and found themselves in the position of either risking their
lives by flying with him, or risking their careers by refusing to do so.

When a
senior officer was told about video evidence showing a recent instance of
flight indiscipline by the free-styling pilot, he responded, "Okay, I don't
want to know anything about that."

Eventually,
on June 24, 1994, a B-52 with the rogue pilot at the controls went down at Fairchild
Air Force Base while attempting a tight 360 degree left turn around the control
tower at 250 feet above the ground. It "banked past 90 degrees, stalled,
clipped a power line with the left wing and crashed," killing four crew members
-- three lieutenant colonels and a colonel.

The key
thing to watch, warns the author, Tony Kern, is "incongruity between senior
leadership words and actions." That is a very important lesson for any
organization.  

(A big tip of the official BD baseball
cap to the person who sent me the link a couple of months ago -- I searched all
four of my e-mail accounts and couldn't find who it was, but I appreciate it.)

From Stars & Stripes and NPR's 'Talk of the Nation': The latest news on my book

Here's a nice review of my new book from Stars & Stripes. (Sorry, Hunter.)
They get to the point quickly: "The idea that
people who aren't good at their jobs must be fired shouldn't be a revolutionary
concept in a place like the Army, where failure gets people killed." The bottom
line: "Army leaders would do well to take notes."

I also was on NPR's Talk
of the Nation earlier this week with two novelists whose
work I admire, Karl Marlantes and Tim O'Brien. They are both Vietnam vets. It
was a moving show. I teared up during one of the phone calls.