Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 132

Is Chicago’s violence so bad that it is becoming a national security problem?

By Jesse
Sinaiko

Best
Defense Chicago bureau chief

The short answer to the question is no. It must
be remembered that from the early ‘70s up through the ‘90s the number of murders
was over twice what it is now -- we almost hit 1,000 in ‘74 (970 I think), held
steady in the 800s and 900s in the ‘90s, and started to diminish in the
naughts. In 2011 they hit a low of 453 and then spiked up to 506 last year. So
in Chicago the
murder rate has been cut in half since the really big gang
wars of the ‘70s and the crack wars of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Cops talk about demographic  trends -- fewer young men -- and having
locked up most of the really bad guys.

However, as Chicago's rate declined, other big U.S.
cities' rates declined much more. In NYC in 2012 there were an all-time low
number, at 414, in a city twice as big as Chicago.

These murders are about 80 percent gang-related.
They are concentrated in certain areas of the West and South sides, although
there are plenty of gang shootings all over the city. And although the general
trend over the past 40 years is down -- way down, Chicago is spiking while
everywhere else they continue to diminish. In the neighborhoods where the
preponderance of murders occur, there is a higher toll than there is in any
built up area in any of the war zones the United States has been involved with,
probably since Vietnam. Baghdad in the middle of the last decade was
undoubtedly worse.

Of course there is a tremendous amount of hand-wringing
over this, as there should be, and there are a few obvious answers:

Fewer cops on the streets due to retirements,
budget constraints, and some hiring issues.




The disbanding of some tactical squads because
two of the most elite spent a lot of the ‘90s and some of the naughts ripping
off dope dealers and selling their dope, along with acting like semi-terrorists
in their AOs. Several guys got very long sentences. They also disbanded tac
squads to flesh out beat-cop manpower on the streets.




Issues around beat deployment: Many safe
neighborhoods have more cops on the streets than they need, to the detriment of
the hoods that need the manpower. It's political. Every time they try to pull
people off beats in good neighborhoods the residents yell to their alderman and
it's reversed.




Razing of the high-rise projects. People who
lived in these hell-holes, sometimes for generations, were given a Section 8
voucher and wished good luck with no social support at all. So they moved into
areas -- high-density already with lots of apartment buildings, with landlords
willing to take Section 8 housing vouchers, and they took their issues from the
projects to pretty good neighborhoods that couldn't take the stress, along with
the economic troubles that everyone has been experiencing.




Finally and most important -- and most
interesting -- is the story about how a strategy worked on a tactical level and
yet made things worse. Starting ten or more years ago, the agreed method was to
take out gang leaders -- middle level guys, battalion and regimental commanders
if you will, working up to the generals if possible. The operational street
unit -- the kids who sell the dope and do the shooting -- is called a clique. Usually
teenagers. A colonel will control a series of cliques in an area. It's a quite
military structure and has been for a long time. So the cops took out a lot of
older guys who controlled things and in many cases sent the generals, even COs,
to prison for a long time.

But when the heads were cut off, the bodies
didn't die at all -- they just kept on doing it with no control from above
whatsoever and chaos ensued, starting in 2010 more or less. Cliques started
shooting at each other even if they were in the same gang. No control from
above, but the guns, dope, and hormone-infused and/or ADHD teenagers are still
around. There is now a theory that lead poisoning (old paint dust breathed by
infants) is a factor as well. And the guns aren't the Saturday-night-specials
of 25 years ago -- they are AK-47s, Glocks with 30-round clips, etc. The guns
are more deadly and the rounds are more deadly, so more killings and serious
woundings. There's a difference between a kid in a car shooing six shots from a
revolver in fairly slow succession at low velocity, and a kid with a 9mm Glock
with a huge clip below, spraying a street with 25-30 shots from a
light-triggered semi-auto. It really is spray and pray. And more innocents get
his as a result -- little kids, moms, etc. Kids get hit in their beds as the
slugs go through walls.

As long as these areas remain economically and
socially devastated, this will not be just a police problem. It's a political
and public health issue as well, maybe more so, because, as in Vietnam, you
ain't gonna stop ‘em as long as there is a birth rate. And there will always be
that, so there had better be jobs, education, and at least the sort of
opportunity a town like Chicago used to offer: jobs in the stockyards and the
steel mills and associated heavy industries, now of course mainly gone.

Obviously it's complex and closely intersticed
with all sorts of sociopolitical and economic issues. The cops do the best they
can. I'm not a Rahm fan, and some of this can be laid at his feet, but it
started well before he got here. I know people who live in some of these
neighborhoods and they do sometimes talk about the Army or National Guard, but
generally I think it'll improve somewhat as the economy improves. The huge
economic hits of 2008-2009 were devastating to neighborhoods that were already
or still on the edge. The general trend away from upward mobility has hurt very
badly; these people are strivers but there are far fewer opportunities to
realize any improvement in their lives. Areas that have been solidly
middle-class are now taking real hits. There is a good series that started recently
in the NY Times about a neighborhood
called Chatham that is in this situation.

Still, it should be realized that, as bad as it
is, it's still way down from the days of total urban decay of the ‘70s and
‘80s.

Jesse
Sinaiko, who recently was promoted to be Best Defense's Chicago bureau chief, is a business and nonprofit consultant in Chicago. Born, raised, and
educated on the city's South side, he continues to live there after a spell in beautiful
Belfast, Northern Ireland, in the 1990s. He has been an amateur military
historian since his days at the University of Chicago.

Some amazing personnel statistics from the Civil War: Mo. contributions, Pa. draft avoiders, and a large number of deserters

A few years ago I swore off reading more books about the
Civil War because I decided I needed to broaden my scope and learn more about
other events.

But just when I think I am out, I get pulled back in. The
other day I picked up the Army's official History of Military Mobilization in the
United States Army, 1775-1945, a 1955 publication. I was looking for
information on the history of U.S. military drawdowns, but instead found myself
fascinated by the breakout of some personnel statistics from the Civil War.

I was surprised by how small the initial calls for manpower
were in April 1861. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware,
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Arkansas each were given quotas of
780 men. The four biggest initial providers of federal manpower were New York
(13,906), Pennsylvania (20,175, far greater than its quota of 12,500), Ohio
(12,357), and to my surprise, Missouri. This last state had a quota of 3,123
but furnished 10,591 men. Anybody know why? (I don't.)

New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio held their positions during
the war as the three largest suppliers of soldiers. But Pennsylvania stands out
as the largest source of "paid commutations." Some 28,171 of its people hired a
substitute or paid $300 to get out of being drafted. That's about 10,000 more
than New York, the second largest commutator. I wonder if this reflects the
fact that there were a lot of wealthy Quakers in Philadelphia? (I know the
Amish also are pacifists, but I doubt that farmers could afford to pay $300 in
1860s dollars, unless somehow the community collectively raised the money.)

The overall desertion rate also surprised me: Of a total of
2.7 million men raised for the force, there were nearly 200,000 desertions.

Black troops overwhelmingly came from the south. The largest
provider of any state was Louisiana, with 24,052, followed by Kentucky (23,703),
and Tennessee (20,133). The surprise to me here was Texas, which is listed as
providing 47, fewer than any other state, even including Maine, New Hampshire,
and Vermont. My wife, the 19th century historian, says this is
because Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee were occupied, while Texas was "the
least occupied state." At any rate, the black contributions were significant --
Louisiana and Kentucky provided more black troops than total troops sent to the
war by Rhode Island or Delaware.

An aspect of Obama’s speech I missed

I think
I didn't appreciate how important Obama's inauguration speech on Monday was to gay Americans.
This thought dawned on me as I was walking my dogs on Monday night and passed a
local gay bar. The entire second floor of the building was covered by a huge
American flag. I found that moving.

The Kelleys: Who are these morons?

Dudes,
if you don't want your civil liberties infringed, don't ask your pals in the FBI
to investigate e-mails you don't like. Instead, do what I do: Hit the "delete"
button.

Why the
FBI dove into this mess remains, to me, the big unanswered question of the
entire episode. Now that D. Petraeus, P. Broadwell, and J. Allen have been cleared, the only
pending transgression that has gone unaddressed is that apparently committed by
the bureau.

So:
What was the role of the FBI in this? Who authorized the investigation -- if
anybody? And was the NSA involved? People who care about the American system
should care about these questions. Anybody in Congress care to help out here?
The word "patriot" gets tossed around a lot these days. Here is an instance
where it counts.

Obama’s 2nd inaugural address: 'Peace in our time'? Really, Mr. President?

The WTF
moment for me in Obama's second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was
his use of the phrase "peace in our time." This came during his discussion of
foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal
does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu's chain.

I also
simply didn't understand what he meant by "a world without boundaries." But my
immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries -- like those meant to
keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan.

Two
things I did like:

His
emphasis on "the rule of law" in foreign policy. Now if we could officially
renounce torture as U.S. government policy, and hold a truth commission on the
issue. If only people who supposedly believe in the rule of law could bring the
energy to this that they brought to Benghazi. 




His
comment that "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and
a growing many barely make it."

Overall,
I'd give it a C-. It wasn't a terrible speech, but I am grading on the curve
because I have seen him do so much better. Overall, the rhetoric seemed tired,
like second-rate Kennedyisms, which may reflect the pack of Hill rats and
political hacks staffing the White House. It made me wonder if the president is
depressed. I mean, I wouldn't blame him. But not a happy thought. 

The pros at Journal of Military History check in with 2 reviews of 'The Generals'

The new
issue of Journal
of Military History
carries two reviews of my new book.  One
is by Edward Coffman, one of the grand old men of American military history, who calls The
Generals
"fascinating." His bottom line: "This is a well researched and written book
which informs readers about the Army's command problems since the Korean War."

The
other review is by Roger Spiller, a bit more of a military insider than
Coffman, having taught for decades at Fort Leavenworth. I've read several of his books, and
used one of them quite a lot in writing The Generals. I had expected him to do
the "con" review to balance Coffman's. Rather, he also is complimentary. He
says I have the reputation of being "the best American military correspondent
since Hanson Baldwin." (I think he may need to check out the works of Peter
Braestrup, C.J. Chivers, Sean Naylor, Dexter Filkins, and several other
people.) His bottom line: "Ricks's assessment may well provoke discussion in
official circles, but one might ask whether the leaders produced by the system
are capable of reforming themselves."    

Does the Navy throw away good officers? Not really, even after they screw up or fail

By
Capt. John Byron, U.S. Navy (ret.)

Best
Defense chief maritime correspondent

In the final pages of Tom's marvelous book,
he recommends the Army take a look at the Navy's stricter standards on command
accountability...and start firing those who can't do the job. Good advice.

But then he says the Army should avoid the "unforgiving
approach the Navy takes, in which relief from command usually results in
leaving the service and often a kind of isolation and disgrace." With this I
take issue.

There's no over-arching ‘Navy' practice or
policy separating officers fired from their jobs for disciplinary or
performance issues. All the services are governed by the same legal procedures
of Title 10 of U.S. Code. Aside from instances of moral turpitude, most command
reliefs in the Navy don't even rise to the level of consideration for
separation, and those that do often decide in favor of retention. So...not
‘unforgiving' and not in any way unique to the Navy.

Yes, a fair number of Navy officers who've
gotten across the breakers do leave service. But it's their choice, their
decision. Those within striking distance of retirement usually choose to put in
their twenty. But a significant number stay longer, often to the full tenure
allowed by law. Navy, as the other services, has many arcane byways and
cul-de-sacs that need specialized officer leadership. While it won't profit a
front-runner to stay in one of these jobs long enough to become expert, those
in a terminal pay grade often do homestead as key role-players in important
technical and non-traditional billets, to the Navy's and the nation's benefit.

Thus a friend who had a rocky tour as a
destroyer executive officer served for many years after as the Navy expert on
large-bore rapid-fire guns. Another who left command early after a drunken
episode sobered up and became a valuable long-time liaison to the British
Trident Program. Another couldn't make it as a surface warfare officer but did
make huge contributions as an expert on personnel management systems. Another,
a submariner who didn't even get to command, continued on through a series of
procurement jobs and ended his service as a successful commanding officer of a
major Navy test unit. And many (most) of the Navy students I meet in their
visit to The Nation of Florida (final training to be a defense attaché) got
there after being dead-ended in their warfare community...but have many years'
good and useful service ahead of them as foreign-area specialists. Etc. etc.
etc.

The Navy accommodates and desires continued
service even from officers who don't make it all the way on their first career
path. Soylent
Green is a work of fiction.

Captain John Byron, USN (Ret.)
served on continuous active duty for 37 years, commanding
the submarine GUDGEON
and Naval Ordnance Test Unit at Cape Canaveral. He is a former chief sonarman . 

The ouster of Mattis: Some follow-up details and a White House response

Here are a few
things I have heard since I posted my comments on Friday about the Obama
administration pushing General Mattis out at Central Command. Thanks to all who
wrote in to make this follow-up possible:

A particular
point of disagreement was what to do about mischief Iran is exporting to other
countries. Mattis is indeed more hawkish on this than the White House was.




National
Security Advisor Tom Donilon in particular was irked by Mattis's
insistence on being heard. I cringe when I hear about civilians shutting down
strategic discussions. That is exactly what the Bush administration did in late
2002 when generals persisted in questioning whether it was wise to invade Iraq.
That led to what some might call a fiasco.




I wonder if
Donilon understands that the key to making effective, sustainable national
security policy is having robust, candid discussions between civilian and
military leaders that bring to the surface differences and also explore assumptions. I am told that that
is what Mattis was trying to do. He knows, as do all smart generals, that in
our system, at the end of the discussion the civilians get to decide what to
do. In a talk at Johns Hopkins SAIS in late November, Mattis said that, "We
military leaders have a right and duty to be heard, to give our best military
advice, but we were not elected to and we have no right to dictate." (In the
same talk, Mattis also likened Cairo today to Paris in 1789 -- a very
interesting thought, and one that made me wonder if 15 years from now, one Arab
leader will dominate the entire region as Napoloen dominated Europe early in
the 19th century.)




Insisting on
being heard should be part of the duty of a senior general. That's the lesson
of two great books: H.R. McMaster's Dereliction
of Duty and Eliot Cohen's
Supreme
Command . Indeed, General
Mattis cited the latter in his talk at Johns Hopkins SAIS. I suspect Donilon
needs to brush up on both.  




In his dealings with the
White House, Mattis also tried to change the strategic framework, insisting
that we need to plan not just for what we assumed Iran might do, but also for
what Iran was capable of doing. I am told this was not a welcome thought.




The
Mattis-Donilon disagreements weren't just about Iran. Other issues on which
Mattis was pushing the White House to think deeper and harder, I am told, were
"Afghanistan, concerns about Pakistani
stability, [and] response to the Arab spring."




The mishandling
of Mattis is a larger part of an attempt by Donilon to centralize foreign policy
making in his office, with DOD and State as implementers. My guess is that this
is doomed.




The Marines are
watching this intensely, but the other services also are taking note. The
careerist generals will take the lesson that go along gets along. The
duty-before-career guys will either go to ground or leave. Hence this incident
likely will be a factor in shaping the character of the general officer corps
for several years.

On Saturday I sent
the above post over to the NSC for comment. Here, without comment from me, is
what NSC spokesman "Tommy" Vietor wrote back:

I greatly appreciate your offer to allow us to comment.

What you describe in your email doesn't at all resemble
the rigorous, open NSC process I've been a part of here at the White House. The
role of the NSC is to coordinate the interagency and facilitate an all of
government process and discussion to ensure each agency has input into national
security policy. General Mattis has been a critical part of those discussions
about the CENTCOM region, and it's completely inaccurate to say there was any
effort to prevent him from airing his views. I'd note that General Mattis
prepares a weekly report for the Chairman and SecDef on everything that's
happening in his AOR. Tom makes sure that report is delivered to the President
each week in full.

With respect to Iran policy, Tom [Donilon] worked
directly with CENTCOM's leadership, in particular General Mattis and General
Allen, to put together our force posture in the region. Without getting into
detail, there has obviously been extensive contingency planning related to Iran
and the region, and there has been a policy process that has been deliberately
structured to allow for assumptions to be challenged and hard questions to be
asked at the highest levels of government.

More broadly speaking, many of DOD's top leaders have
said that the process Tom lead to formulate out defense strategy was the most
robust, open and inclusive conversation they've been a part of.  

To quote Secretary Panetta: "And in my experience, this has been an
unprecedented process, to have the President of the United States participate
in discussions involving the development of a defense strategy, and to spend
time with our service chiefs and spend time with our combatant commanders to
get their views. It's truly unprecedented."

Chairman Dempsey:
"This strategy emerges from a deeply collaborative process.  We
sought out and took insights from within and from outside the Department of
Defense, to include from the intelligence community and other governmental
departments.  We weighed facts and assessments.  We challenged every
assumption.  We considered a wide range of recommendations and
counter-arguments.  I can assure you that the steps we have taken to
arrive at this strategy involved all of this and much more. This strategy also
benefited from an exceptional amount of attention by our senior military and
civilian leadership.  On multiple occasions, we held all-day and multi-day
discussions with service chiefs and combatant commanders.  The service
chiefs, who are charged with developing the force for the strategy, were heard
early and often.  The combatant commanders, charged with executing the
strategy, all weighed in time and time again. And we were all afforded
extraordinary access to both the president and the secretary of defense."

The bottom line is that we are extraordinarily grateful
to General Mattis for his patriotism and his service. He is a critical part of
our team, and we look forward to his continued counsel in the months ahead.

Tom Ricks again: That comment struck me
as blather that obscured more than it illuminated.  I said so to Mr. Vietor, who wrote back to ask
me what specifically he hadn't addressed.  So I sent over these questions:

Why
does Mr. Donilon think Gen. Mattis is leaving earlier than planned?

Vietor's
answer: "I'm going to let General Mattis speak to the timing of his departure."

Did
Mattis and Donilon have specific disagreements about how to respond to Iranian
mischief abroad?

Vietor's
answer: "This won't satisfy you, but both Tom [Donilon] and General Mattis
understand that policy debates and advice to the President should remain
confidential, so I have no plan to outline their candid advice or views."

Does
Donilon welcome hearing dissenting views? If so, why is there a widespread
perception among the uniformed military that he does not?

Vietor's
answer: "The President and Tom both welcome hearing dissenting views. Its
crucial to good policy making. I can't speak to an alleged anonymous
perception. If you quote someone on the record or something specific, I can try
to offer more."

Is
Donilon aware that the Obama administration twice has dumped on the two current
culture heroes of the Marine Corps? Why does he think this is? What signal does
Donilon think he has sent with his handling of Mattis?

Vietor's answer: "The average
tour length of the previous 25 COCOMs is 2.7 years. The longest serving COCOM
is Admiral Stavridis, who assumed command of SOUTHCOM in October 2006. 
The second longest serving COCOM is General James Mattis, who assumed command
of Joint Forces Command in November 2007. 
The President just appointed General Allen SACEUR. The last Marine
SACEUR was Jim Jones, who later become NSA. I think that's a pretty strong
signal about how much the President values the Marine Corps."

The Obama administration’s inexplicable mishandling of Marine Gen. James Mattis

Word on the national
security street is that General James Mattis is being given the bum's rush out
of his job as commander of Central Command, and is being told to vacate his
office several months earlier than planned.

Why the hurry?
Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way -- not
because he went all "mad dog," which is his public image, and the view at the
White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering
the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran. Some
of those questions apparently were uncomfortable. Like, what do you do with
Iran once the nuclear issue is resolved and it remains a foe? What do you do if
Iran then develops conventional capabilities that could make it hazardous for
U.S. Navy ships to operate in the Persian Gulf? He kept saying, "And then
what?"

Inquiry along these
lines apparently was not welcomed -- at least in the CENTCOM view. The White
House view, apparently, is that Mattis was too hawkish, which is not something
I believe, having seen him in the field over the years. I'd call him a
tough-minded realist, someone who'd rather have tea with you than shoot you,
but is happy to end the conversation either way.

Presidents should
feel free to boot generals anytime they want, of course -- that's our system,
and one I applaud. But ousting Mattis at this time, and in this way, seems
wrong for several reasons:

TIMING: If Mattis
leaves in March, as now appears likely, that means there will be a new person
running CENTCOM just as the confrontation season with Iran begins to heat up
again.

CIVIL-MILITARY SIGNALS:
The message the Obama Administration is sending, intentionally or not, is that
it doesn't like tough, smart, skeptical generals who speak candidly to their
civilian superiors. In fact, that is exactly what it (and every administration)
should want. Had we had more back in 2003, we might not have made the colossal
mistake of invading Iraq.

SERVICE RELATIONS:
The Obamites might not recognize it, but they now have dissed the two Marine
generals who are culture heroes in today's Corps: Mattis and Anthony Zinni. The Marines have long memories. I know some
who are still mad at the Navy for steaming away from the Marines left on
Guadalcanal. Mattis made famous in Iraq the phrase, "No better friend, no worse
enemy." The Obama White House should keep that in mind.

I'm still a fan of
President Obama. I just drove for two days down the East Coast
listening to his first book, and enjoyed it enormously. But I am at the
point where I don't trust his national security team. They strike me as
politicized, defensive and narrow. These are people who will not recognize it
when they screw up, and will treat as enemies anyone who tells them they are
doing that. And that is how things like Vietnam get repeated. Harsh words, I
know. But I am worried.

Rebecca's War Dog of the Week: Dog teams come to Washington

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent 

In preparation for Monday's inauguration, when President
Barack Obama will be sworn in for his second term in office, Washington, D.C.
is tightening
security across the board as it anticipates that upwards of 800,000 people
will descend upon the city for the proceedings and celebrations. The Secret
Service says it has "42 partners here -- every law enforcement entity,
every transportation entity, everyone that's got camera -- we are
utilizing." And that includes
Military Working Dogs. 

In addition to D.C. police dogs, canine teams from around
the country will be joining in for the weekend for the extra-special POTUS
mission. The Joint Task Force-National Capital Region/Military District of
Washington has been "coordinating for [nearly 18] months with the Secret
Service and FBI to plan for inauguration security," and that includes
providing more dogs -- 45 dog handlers to be exact. 

CNN noted that
when Thomas Jefferson was sworn into office, "he declined the seven horses
and two carriages that were ready to ferry him from his boarding house to the
Senate chamber where he would take the oath of office" and just walked.
Hard to imagine that Obama could afford to do the same, even if escorted by all
45 dog teams. 

And though these teams may not be charged with ferrying
Obama safely from location to location, they will be on hand throughout the
weekend conducting sweeps of the "parade grounds and the Capitol
Building." On inauguration day they will be out in full force, on-hand and
at the ready.