Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 152

Obama did OK, but Tom was knocked out in debate's first round by Romney

I thought I had some sort of responsibility to listen to
last night's debate, so I tried. But this time I lasted only 7 minutes. When
Romney's voice started feeling like chalk screeching on the blackboard, the
book I'm reading about small boats in big weather suddenly seemed much more
interesting. (I'm in the chapter on using drogues as sea anchors.) Andrew
Sullivan carries the best summary of the debate: Romney's argument was, "I will lead
America the same way, but with more leadership!"

But Jim Gourley has a longer attention span, so he will
analyze the debate for us today.

Soldier of the year was born in Nepal

Congratulations to Fort Bragg's Sgt. Saral Shrestha.

The ability of the United States to
attract talent and determination from around the world is one of its great
strengths.

No vets on the presidential tickets for the first time since FDR ran against Hoover

John Wilkens points out something I hadn't
realized: "It's the first time in 80 years that there
are no veterans on either major-party ticket for the White House. The last time
it happened, in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover."

And even then, FDR had served as assistant Navy secretary, leading
him to identify with that service even years later. I recall reading somewhere
that he used to tease George Marshall by referring to the Navy as "us" and the
Army as "them." 

Israeli army bans song about border policeman from its radio station

The IDF has ordered that a song about a border policeman
not be played on its radio, Haaretz reports. Some
of the offensive lyrics:

To learn to kill is a
matter of momentum, you start small and later it comes... First it's only a
drill, a rifle barrel bangs the door, children in shock, family in panic... The
heart goes crazy, beats wildly, he knows -- from now on it will be easier.
They're not a man, not a woman, they're only an object, only a shadow. To learn
to kill is a matter of habit... To learn cruelty is a matter of momentum, it
starts out small and later it comes. Every boy is a man, eager for victories.
Hands behind your head, legs apart.

Power wins wars, but a lot depends on what kind of power you use and when

By Col.
Jason Brown, USAF

Best
Defense guest columnist

In
years to come, historians will ask important questions about the role of power
in the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. Specifically, they will ask how Afghanistan became America's longest
war, and how we were able to invade and leave Iraq within the bookends of the
Afghan conflict. It is especially hard
to understand how we recovered power in Iraq after Abu Ghraib and a fractious
civil war. Although arguments over what
we accomplished in Iraq will endure for years, we regained enough power to
leave Iraq without a debate. We
subsequently attempted to carry the momentum of the Iraq counterinsurgency
campaign to Afghanistan in 2009, but still struggle to achieve something resembling
the ambiguous success in Iraq. The
disappointment in Afghanistan goes beyond a misapplication of what worked in
Iraq; the power equation between Iraq and Afghanistan was altogether different.

In
war, power wins. Individuals often
confuse military might with power, but in reality, there are many power factors
relevant to the outcome of war. Power
flows from diplomatic, political, and economic strength as well as strategic,
operational, and tactical effectiveness. Sound analysis of warfare will avoid focusing on any one of these
sources, and will instead examine relevant power, which accounts for the
interplay of power sources within the context of conditions and rivals in a
war.

In
both Iraq and Afghanistan, our relevant power ebbed and flowed due to changes
in our power sources. We did not have
adequate power to influence conditions in Iraq before 2007 due to limitations
across the power spectrum, from diplomacy to military tactics. Changes in
leadership and an effective counterinsurgency campaign adjusted our relevant
power to influence the human terrain, the adversary, and the diplomatic and
political environment. While many credit
the increase in U.S. troops as the key factor in the Iraq campaign, in reality
political settlements with the Sunni population, a counterproductive terror
campaign by Al Qaeda, and the decision by Iran to no longer incite Shia
resistance had greater impacts on stability and thus increased the coalition's
relevant power. As conditions changed in
Iraq, military coercion became relevant when we coupled it with an acceptable
political alternative. In contrast,
increasing economic pressures, tensions with Iran and Pakistan, and corruption
within the Karzai government have likely created insurmountable conditions for
a similar outcome in Afghanistan. Consequently, our military-centric Afghanistan "surge" lacked
the political component which boosted our relevant power in Iraq.

Additionally,
the Taliban affected the power equation in Afghanistan by using available time and
space, provided by our shift in focus to Iraq, to mitigate our
counterinsurgency campaign. The Taliban
attacked our strategy directly by weathering drone strikes in their Pakistan
safe havens, and adopting tactics with strategic payoff-namely IED, high
profile, and insider attacks. They understand the parameters of our relevant
power in Afghanistan, and to some degree, they learned how to leverage their
own power to counter ours.

To
understand the relevant power equation between Iraq and Afghanistan, we must
keep two things in mind. First, we
cannot assume political, economic, or military strength will translate from one
conflict to another or will even endure throughout a war. Because power fluctuates between and within
wars, the conditions that define a conflict provide the first measuring stick
for relevant power. Conditions in Iraq
were eventually ripe for our power to influence the political and security
situation. Not so in Afghanistan. Second, we cannot always compensate for deficiencies in one source of
power by increasing strength in another. War is a duel, and any ability to adjust or adapt depends on the
capability of our adversary to do the same. The Taliban exploited conditions to evolve into a strategically savvy
opponent, whereas Al Qaeda in Iraq diminished due to their own strategic
ineffectiveness. Our relevant power
depends on internal factors as well as the external ability of our opponent to
counter our strengths, exploit our weaknesses, and adapt and influence at a
faster rate.

Power
plays the leading role in war, but assessing power is not straightforward. Iraq and Afghanistan proved power in war is
neither broadly applicable nor enduring, it is relevant to changes in
conditions, our opponents, and ourselves. Good strategy must account for the give-and-take between power sources,
and their changing value within and between conflicts. It is far easier for strategists to measure
strength in isolation and assume it translates to power, but that shortcut does
not serve them well when preparing for war. Success in war requires an understanding of when and how to expend or
preserve power -- and when and how to end a war in order to retain future
freedom of action. The consequences for
misunderstanding relevant power could cause a nation with considerable military
might to lose a war by stubbornly pursuing an unrealistic end state,
significantly draining its power in the process. Avoiding that outcome requires asking two
simple questions. When told our nation
inherently possesses power due to military, political and economic strength,
our military strategists and the policymakers they serve should ask,
"power to do what ... to whom?"

Colonel
Jason Brown is an active duty Air Force officer attending the Air War College.
He is a graduate of the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting. He commanded the 13th Intelligence Squadron
and has deployed to multiple locations including Iraq and Afghanistan. The conclusions and opinions expressed are
those of the author. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, or Air
University.

A quantitative study of my military library shows Vietnam hot on the heels of Iraq

A spell of lousy weather recently enabled me to finish
putting together bookcases and then unpack the remaining boxes of military-related
books I had in the basement. Now I have all books on military
affairs in one place, and shelved, except for perhaps 50 volumes
at my office at CNAS, and about 16 feet of military reference books I also have
in DC. 

There were a few surprises to me in shelving the books.
First, how many books I now have on the Iraq war. Second, how few I have on the
American Civil War -- a surprise in part because I feel like I've read too much
about it, compared to the rest of American and global military history.

So I got out a tape measure to begin comparing the
sections by size, measured in terms to shelf space occupied.  

Major sections

The big winner was World
War II, with 32 feet of books. This is not a surprise because I just
finished writing a book that
begins with eight chapters on American generals in World War II. I've read almost
all of these except a couple of fairly recent books on Churchill. The case is
similar for most sections, except as noted.

The second biggest section was the U.S. war in Iraq, with a total of 31 feet.  But the Vietnam
War was surprisingly close behind, with 27 feet. This surprised me because
I went to Iraq 14 times but have only made one, short trip to Vietnam, decades
after the war there ended. The Vietnam section likely will grow in the next
year and pass the Iraq section, because I am thinking about writing a book on
the Vietnam War.

The next biggest section isn't really a section -- it is an
overarching "general U.S. military
history from all over the place," like Russell Weigley's classic The American Way of War. It came in at 12
feet. 

That's also about the size of the section on the American Revolution, but I have
read very few of those. I assembled the collection because I thought I might
write a book on George Washington's early military career, and how it shaped
his approach to the Revolution, but no one seems much interested in having me
do such a book.

In sixth place was the Korean War, with 9 feet. I feel like I have read pretty much
everything worthwhile on that one.

Just behind that was the "literature of war" section, which is novels, plays, poetry and
literary memoirs, which came in at just under 9 feet.  (One-third of that was WWII, one-third was
stuff from the last 30 years, and one third was other, such as World War I
poetry and John Masters' Bugles and a
Tiger.)

The intelligence
section measured 7 feet, but that overstates my interest. I have only read
about half of this section. Also, about 2 feet of it is old congressional
reports on intelligence from the 1970s I saved because I once thought I might
write about that someday. But with the passage of time the subject seems less
compelling 

Next was World War
I, at 5 feet long. That surprised me because I don't feel I know that much
about that war.

At 4 feet

--Afghanistan

--Terrorism,
of which one foot is "getting bin Laden."

--American Civil
War. As I say, I thought it would be more.

--"Other '90s
section: Haiti, Somalia, etc": 4 feet

3 feet

--Ancient military
history, general military theory/strategy

--Counterinsurgency

--Middle Eastern
military history, from Crusades to the present.

2.5 feet

--U.S. Navy,
general history

--Air Force,
ditto

--Special
operations. If I included the "getting bin Laden" section here, it would be
3.5 feet-that is, bigger than my collections on the Navy and Air Force. The
American public loves reading about Special Operators, and so publishers churn
out these books and mail them to me. I haven't read a lot of these books.   

2 feet

--Pakistan/India
(haven't read many of them)

--U.S. military personnel
issues (manning the force, women in military, gays in military)

--U.S. wars in Balkans
in '90s

--Military transformation
(no one remembers but this was a hot issue in the '90s)

--Civil-military
relations

--Pre-20th
century British military history, excluding wars with U.S.:  2 feet

Others

--Marine Corps,
general history : 1.5 feet. I thought there would be more, but I guess many of
the Marine books are in the war sections, especially World War II, Korea,
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

--Nuclear weapons:
1.5 feet, but haven't read most of them. I always have found the subject kind
of boring.

--Military-media
relations: 1 foot

Gen. Boykin: U.S. economy close to collapse, could result in martial law

Remember Lt. Gen. William "My God is stronger than yours"
Boykin? It turns out he thinks that the United States is on the verge of economic
collapse, and that martial law could be declared.

Well, it takes all
types. But it does amaze me that a guy this deep into
survivalism held a senior position in the U.S. Army and in planning the war on
terror. (HT to Bill
Arkin.)

Rebecca's War Dog of the Week: Harley supports Operation Jaws in Helmand

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

Harley, an IDD dog, was one of many Marines with 1st Combat Engineer Battalion deployed on a June mission supporting Operation Jaws in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province. Their goal was to clear the area of IEDs and create safe passage for  troops moving within and through the area and "to aid infantry maneuvering and delivery of supplies." Over the course of the ten-day mission, which included not only the efforts of explosive-detecting Harley, his handler, and their unit, but those of the supporting Afghan National Army teams and other Marine battalions.

Though the teams were attacked while conducting their searches -- hit with RPG rounds and small arms fire by insurgents in attempt to dislodge their efforts -- the mission was deemed a success, their finds boasting upwards of 15 IEDs and an anti-tank explosive.

"My guys did fantastic; I am super proud of them," said Staff Sgt. Gerhard Tauss. "We got into a firefight and they performed admirably; exactly how we trained them to. They kept their cool and I am lucky to have them in my platoon."

Above Harley takes a break in the back of a vehicle on June 23.

Ready to go to war in Syria?

The
fellas over at the Foreign Policy Initiative seem eager to intervene in Syria.
They're proposing establishing "a safe zone" that
would be protected by a "no fly zone."

They
don't go into details of whether there would be boots on the ground.

The
board of directors are Eric Edelman, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, and Dan
Senor. I know some of youse will get upset by those names, but I think the
first three are some of the most thoughtful conservative interventionists
around. (I don't know Senor well. I think I have only met him once or twice and
have never read much of what he has written.)

Personally,
I am sick of Americans being involved in wars in the Middle East. I don't like
this plan of keeping on trying 'til we find we all like. That said, I find it a
bit awkward to explain why I thought it was the right thing to help intervene
in Libya but not in Syria. I find David Ignatius persuasive (as usual) on why we should do
more than we are doing, but less than Foreign Policy Initiative
recommends.  

Romney's parade of flag endorsers

I wish generals
and admirals would get out of the business of endorsing presidential candidates. It's a bad business and can only
result in politicization of the relationship between our presidents and our
military leaders.

The upside of this
list is that it is very heavy on Marines and Navy, and
surprisingly light on Army generals (with the notable exception of Tommy
R. Franks!). Is the Army the most reliably
obedient of our services? I remember an admiral saying at the Naval War College
that the Navy is a golden retriever, the Air Force is an airedale, and the Army
is a loyal Labrador. (He wasn't sure if the Marines were mastiffs or
pitbulls.)