Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 96

Mattis vs. Donilon: Wow, no one even called to tell him he was being replaced?

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 25, 2013.

I am
told that General Mattis was traveling and in a meeting
when an aide passed him a note telling him that the Pentagon had announced his
replacement as head of Central Command. It was news to him -- he hadn't
received a phone call or a heads-up from anyone at the Pentagon or the White
House.

I asked
a friend about that. He wrote back:

...the commander-in-chief can make a change
whenever he wants and give no reason. That is right and proper under our system
of government.

But there's also the matter of common courtesy
to an uncommon man. Here is what one person wrote to me: "What message does it
send to the Services when the one leader known for his war-fighting rather than
diplomatic or bureaucratic political skills is retired early via one sentence
in the Pentagon's daily press handout? Even in battle, Mattis was inclusive of
all under his command. He took the time to pull together his driver and guards
after every day's rotation on the battlefield, telling them what he thought he
had learned and asking them for input. Surely senior administration officials
could have found the time to be gracious. But they didn't." Bing
West, admittedly a friend of Mattis and fellow
Marine, tells me: "It was injudicious to truncate Mattis's command time because
his toughness was well-known across the Middle East. The image of a determined
warfighter is precisely what a commander-in-chief should cherish when trying to
exert leverage upon a recalcitrant Iran."

ADDENDUM:

Pentagon
spokesman George Little sent along this note on Friday afternoon:

I
reject in the strongest possible terms your reporting about leadership changes
at CENTCOM. The fact of the matter is that Gen. Mattis discussed the
timing for a change of command at CENTCOM with the Secretary last fall.
At that time, Gen. Mattis was asked for recommendations on who might succeed
him at CENTCOM. It would be wildly inaccurate to suggest anything
else.

I
wrote back to Mr. Little these questions:

Can
you answer these questions? They are yes or no, I think: Are you flatly saying
that Mattis was in fact called? Or are you saying that Mattis was not called
but should not have been surprised? Or are you saying something else?

When
he didn't address those questions, I sent them again and said I would publish
his statement along with the comment that he wouldn't address my specific
questions. This led him to write back:

He wasn't called. He personally met with the
Secretary. This wasn't a surprise. You can't say I declined to address your
questions.

I
think Mr. Little is emphatically denying something I didn't say. That is, I
think Mattis knew he would be leaving eventually, which would lead to such a
conversation with the secretary, but was in fact surprised by the timing and
the lack of notice about a press release announcing his successor being issued.

Rebecca's War Dog of the Week: Today we remember Marine Sgt. Joshua Ashley

By Rebecca Frankel


Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

One year ago today, Marine Sgt. Joshua Ashley was killed while on
deployment in Afghanistan. He and his dog Sirius were working a patrol along
the Helmand River with a MARSOC unit when Ashley stepped on a pressure plate.

That Ashley and Sirius had been assigned to this unit speaks to
their capability as an MWD team. Ashley (aka "Shrek" or "the Hulk") was a
strong handler who loved his dog, loved his job, and relished deployment. A few
of the II-MEF handlers from Camp LeJeune, Ashley's home station, who were with
Ashley during their pre-deployment training when I met him in March 2012, were also
in Afghanistan with him last summer. Theirs was --
and remains -- a particularly close-knit group of handlers and Ashley's
death hit them hard. In the months that followed, they memorialized and mourned
him. They all made it back to home station in time for Ashley's memorial service.

After the II-MEF crew
returned from Afghanistan, I spoke with one of the handlers. He sounded different,
worn, not at all like I remembered him. Ashley had been dead almost three
months at that point. I asked him how they were doing. "We're good. It's back
to the daily grind. But," he said, "it's about every day that we talk about
Josh."  

Today we're thinking of Joshua
Ashley, his loving family, and the handlers who mourn him still. 

There
will be a Celebration of Life on Saturday, July 20, in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

Rebecca Frankel is special projects editor at FP.  

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

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 22, 2013.

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'

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 22, 2013.

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."

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

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 19, 2013.

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

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 18, 2013.

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.

A 2nd Cav officer: Yes, our failures were real, but they reflected larger problems in the Army

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 16, 2013.

By Capt. Alexander Frank, U.S. Army

Best Defense guest respondent

Thomas
Ricks' recent post in Foreign Policy discussing a report on my
unit's performance during a major training exercise in Germany presents a
scathing critique. From my personal experience and through discussions with my
peers throughout the regiment, the criticisms he offers are largely valid. However,
they are incomplete and utterly meaningless unless viewed in the broader
context of the Army's culture. The points he makes are merely symptoms of
underlying cultural problems within the Army rather than the specific failures
he enumerates.

Valid criticisms

In
his post, Ricks reviews the Center for Army Lessons
Learned reports
on our exercise in October. He calls the conclusions of the reports "hair
raising" and draws out several key points. The reports found "commanders and
command sergeant majors tethered to command posts, rarely visiting subordinate
units." Instead of face-to-face interactions, they stayed in their command
posts and issued a steady stream of fragmentary orders, "not feeling
comfortable to allow subordinates to operate broadly under their intent." In
sum, he paints a picture of commanders micro-managing from the safety of their
headquarters.

On
a personal level, this is consistent with what I saw and my own actions as a
leader during the DATE. As an executive officer for one of the best line
companies in the regiment, I discussed with my commander before the exercise
what my role should be -- mentoring the platoon leaders based on my two years
of experience as a PL, including combat. This would involve moving forward to
their positions to walk through their plans and provide on the spot guidance
during key moments of a firefight, but from there letting them operate broadly
within what we were trying to accomplish.

Despite
agreement from my commander and clear intent during the exercise, I was never
encouraged to move forward of our company command post and did not take the
initiative to do so, despite the opportunity. Leaders at all levels rarely did
so.

Overall,
leaders -- including myself -- were focused on the multitude of tasks
prescribed to them in the institutional framework in which we operate. For me,
that meant taking part in meetings over the radio with various support
personnel, filling out logistics reports, and then running errands in the rear
such as picking up graphics from our intelligence people.

The
Army bureaucracy and culture prizes information flow and reliance on assets and
technology, making personal leadership a secondary priority. For example, reports
--how to send them, what was the best format, and their content were the key
priority prior to the commencement of DATE during our preparations. This
over-emphasis on information flow and technology meant that during the actual
exercise, there was little attempt to actually gain good situational awareness
through battlefield circulations and terrain analysis.

Partial viewpoints on
the nature of warfare

These
are merely symptoms of broader cultural problems and assumptions about the
nature of war in the 21st century that were brilliantly outlined by
T.X. Hammes in The Sling and the Stone. Hammes argues that
during the 1990s and into the first years of the 20th century, DOD developed an
institutional mindset completely centered around technology. The planning and
vision papers put out "see increased technical capabilities of command and
control as the key factor shaping future war." The command and control systems
created would "exceed the capabilities of any opponent and will provide us with
a near-perfect understanding of the battlefield." The enemy becomes "a series
of inanimate targets to be serviced. He who services the most targets the
fastest wins."

This
viewpoint formed the basis for the Future Combat System (FCS) and drove our
training and mindset for much of 1990s. As a retired general told me who played
a key role in the initiation of FCS , "future combat system was hijacked by
people who thought you could completely lift the fog of war." Although FCS was
eventually scrapped, the ideas that underpin it still drive Army culture. "Currently,
DOD has defined the future as technology and is driving all experiments in that
direction."

A
perfect illustration of this a movie I was shown at my Infantry Officer
Training course. It starts with a rather chubby colonel in a perfectly starched
uniform striding into his command post, a comfortable tent with desks, chairs,
and several computers set up. A major informs him that a UAV has picked up an
enemy tank headed toward his lines. "Very well," he says, "put an artillery
target right there, and then fire it on my command." The commander pauses as he
watches the tank on a live feed slowly plodding along and then excitedly yells,
"Fire." The fire mission destroys the tank and everyone in the command tent
gives themselves a pat on the back for enabling their colonel to destroy a lone
tank. The movie focused on FBCB2 -- an excellent tool that allows great
situational awareness on the battlefield. The narrator introduced it claiming, "FBCB2
and integrated technologies will allow unprecedented
low-level initiative and delegation of authority." Not quite what happened in
the video, however, but a good illustration of Army culture and mindset.

The result

The
criticisms listed by Ricks of our unit flow from the cultural problems observed
by T.X. Hammes and others. Hammes discusses how these attitudes have made it
very difficult to effectively fight a complex global insurgency that tends not
to approach the battlefield straight on, in tanks. Even in a fight against a
more conventional enemy, the mindset Hammes describes proved ineffective,
leading to the weaknesses Ricks outlines. Because of the emphasis on
information flow and technology, it's natural for commanders to remain in their
command posts where they can have access to the flow of reports from the front
and UAV feeds from above. In theory, they can access a near-perfect view of the
battlefield and micro-manage their formations thanks to the excellent
communication and sensor technologies at their disposal. In such circumstances,
commanders moving forward behind their lead assault elements aren't necessary
to get a good idea of the battle or drive their subordinates to take action
quickly.

DATE
showed the fallacy of this mindset. The opposing forces we fought did not
afford us the opportunity when they attacked to form a near-perfect view of the
battle. Why? Because they moved so
quickly and concentrated their forces so well that by the time reports and UAV
feeds were processed, the information was already useless. This occurred
because commanders never moved forward to get a good idea of the terrain, and
so our enemy was able to utilize it effectively to bypass all of the obstacles
and areas we planned to kill them in. The result was that our enemy was deep in
our rear before we brought to bear any assets against them. We were unable to
develop coherent action in the face of attack and they managed to engage our
forces piecemeal one after the other. With their firepower and armor advantage,
they were able to beat us in any engagement.

A learning organization

That
being said, Ricks tells only one side of the story and ignores the accurate and
insightful comments he received from Colonel Barclay. The thrashing we took
when we were on the defense served its purpose well. During the next phase of
the operation, when we were on the attack, we embraced a far bolder plan with
commanders out of their command posts right behind their lead elements. My
squadron commander spent the bulk of his time just behind our lead elements
where he was able to better influence the fight.

The
plan developed by headquarters allowed for more subordinate initiative. One of
our platoon leaders noticed a key piece of terrain outside of his area and was
allowed to quickly seize it. From there he was able to flank the enemy and we
achieved complete tactical surprise. My troop was able to infiltrate deep into
the enemy's rear with no resistance and pick off isolated enemy units in front
of us. The enemy was never able to take concerted action against us and instead
continued to maneuver ineffectually in small isolated elements, similar to our
predicament when we were playing defense. A fellow captain's company came up on
the enemies reserve while they were essentially sitting in a parking lot and
destroyed them.

During
the culminating live fire exercise afterwards, my company commander dismounted
from his Stryker and got behind the lead platoons rather than managing the
fight over the radio and FBCB2, as he had been instructed to in the preliminary
briefing. When I saw him afterwards, he was giddy with excitement. "I felt
connected with the men," he said. He was actually in a position to influence
the battle. Although he might not have been as plugged in to the information
flow as well as he could have been further to the rear in his Stryker, he was
able to influence the human side of the operation. His mere presence inspired
the men, motivated the platoon leaders to take the initiative, and when
necessary, quickly make key decisions about individual platoons on the spot. Technology
has its place and provides tremendous advantages, but over-emphasis at the
expense of the human factor leads to failure in our experience.

Over
the past decade, the Army has had to become a learning organization, and my regiment
is no different. The important failures early on in the DATE stemming from
major cultural flaws I described have driven change. The entire point of
exercises such as DATE is to learn those lessons when lives are not at stake,
to lessen the chance they will occur on a real battlefield, a point Ricks does
not accept or acknowledge. [Interruption from Tom: Please don't forget the
second sentence of my original post: "It is worrisome that this unit
appears to have deteriorated so much, yet paradoxically reassuring that the
Army is using its maneuvers to identify shortcomings."]

Bottom
line: After participating in those mistakes,
I have the utmost confidence in the leaders in my regiment. The next
several years will be a key period for us and the Army as a whole as we relearn
how to fight a more combined arms hybrid threat than includes conventional mechanized
and armored formations. The mentality and culture we develop now will likely
determine the character of our institution for decades to come.

CPT Alexander Frank is
an infantry officer with 2nd Cavalry Regiment stationed in beautiful Vilseck,
Germany, where he is enjoying the travel opportunities while not training. He
has a bachelor's degree in physics from Duke University.

What Hagel took away from the Army: His NCOs were better than his officers, and it's the 'little guys' who suffer

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 15, 2013.

As defense secretary, Charles Hagel is
likely to be particularly attuned to the needs of enlisted soldiers and
skeptical of the demands of senior officers. That's my takeaway from reading
the transcript of an oral history interview he gave
to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. Sure, he was in
Vietnam 45 years ago -- but he made these statements in 2002.

"The people in Washington make the
policy, but it's the little guys who come back in the body bags," he said near
the end of the interview.

He also came away from Vietnam underwhelmed
by his senior leaders. Here's an extended comment about that:

I was not much impressed with our -- our battalion
leaders, our XOs. I don't -- I didn't ever get a sense that they came down in,
enough into the platoon company level to really do what I thought officers
should do. And the lieutenants and the captains carried the bulk, as they do in
any war, essentially. But it was the sergeants. It was the senior enlisted that
carried the weight. I mean really carried the weight. And it was obvious to
everybody. And they -- the senior sergeants were the reassuring, calming guys.
And in many cases, many cases, these were the guys that didn't fall apart. And
some of the officers did. And some of the officers couldn't read maps very
well. And I just -- I never had much confidence in -- in a lot of the officer
corps. Now, there were exceptions to that. Some exceptional officers that I saw
and I served with.

It is also striking how the Army he
served in differs from today's. In 1968, Hagel had been in the Army less than
two years, yet for a short time after the Tet Offensive, he served as "acting
company sergeant." That's a green force.

Other stuff that struck me:

He saw the system of individual
rotation of soldiers causing a lot of problems.




He spent a lot of time walking point.




He saw PTSD in his own family. "I remember my father, when I was young -- he was in
World War II overseas for almost three years. I remember him waking up in the
middle of the night screaming....And it happens not just because of necessarily
the blood and gore that you see in combat. It's the -- it's the pressure of the
mental process that -- that makes you that way."




General Westmoreland's
brother-in-law, Lt. Col. Frederick Van Deusen, briefly was his battalion
commander before being killed. (In one three month period, he comments, "we had
three battalion commanders killed").




He
still has some shrapnel in his chest.

Simpson's 'WFTGU' (IV and last): What a strategic narrative is -- and how to use it

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 14, 2013.

The last two chapters
of Emile Simpson's War
From the Ground Up
offer some of the best things I have read on strategic narrative. They also may be the most
significant part of the book, because I think he breaks some new trail here.

His point of
departure, as you might have noticed in his piece for Best Defense on Friday, is
that narrative is a key element of strategy. "Strategy does not merely need to
orchestrate tactical actions (the use of force), but also construct the
interpretive structure which gives them meaning and links them to the end of
policy." (P. 28) That is, it offers a framework into which participants and
observers can fit the facts before them. "Strategic narrative expresses
strategy as a story, to explain one's actions." (P. 233)

This aspect of
strategy is both more important and more difficult now than in the past, he
argues, because of the global information revolution, which means more
audiences must be involved in one's strategic deliberations. When military
action not only serves political ends (as in classic war) but must be judged in
political terms to determine who is prevailing (as in our current wars), he
argues, constructing a persuasive narrative becomes key to success.

You run into trouble
when your "strategic narrative does not correspond to the reality on the
ground," he warns. (P. 125) That phrase evoked for me the Bush administration's
rhetoric about Iraq in 2003-05 -- first insisting that there was no insurgency,
then claiming it was "a few dead enders" and that steady progress was being
made.

It also made me think
about the fundamental contradiction of the Bush administration embracing
torture as part of an effort to defend rights and freedoms it held to be
universal. As Simpson warns, "The moral high ground, once evacuated, is very
hard to regain." (P. 209) That admonition should be remembered by anyone
devising a strategy in the 21st century.

So, he advises, "The
key in counterinsurgency is to match actions and words so as to influence
target audiences to subscribe to a given narrative." (P. 154)

Strategic narrative
must not only be rational but also have an emotional component, he says. "War
is as much a test of emotional resistance as a rational execution of policy."
(P. 193) Nor does the need for it go away. "The requirement is to maintain the
narrative -- perpetually to win the argument -- is enduring, not finite." (P.
210)

Helpfully, he cites the Gettysburg Address as an example of the
presentation of a strategic narrative. I think he is correct in that
insight. He also invokes Kennedy's inaugural address. I think he is correct
that it indeed was a presentation of a narrative -- but I think that JFK's "bear any burden" narrative was
incorrect, and would be proven so a few years later in the jungles and villages
of Vietnam.

Marine captain responds to JOs getting out

During the summer, the Best Defense is in
re-runs. Here are some favorites that ran in late 2012 and in 2013. This item originally
ran on Jan. 7, 2013.

By Capt. Lindsay L. Rodman, USMC

Best Defense office of company-grade issues

I have been thinking a
lot lately about whether to leave the Marine Corps at the five-year mark. In response to "We're Getting Out of
the Marines"
-- I hope I can contextualize what many company grade officers (or "junior
officers") are facing.

The problem with
anecdotal observation is that we all only have our own
experiences to draw from. If the lieutenant who wrote "We're Getting
Out of the Marines" is coming face-to-face with incompetence, in a short
four or five year career, how does he get a sense of whether that problem is
systemic? Or how thoroughly it pervades? One's experience is 100 percent
of their exposure, regardless of whether it represents the bottom
X percent.

I am career designated
and my commitment is up. I am taking note of every bad leader and every good
leader I come across. Everyone is an input into the final decision. I know that other top company grades/JOs are doing the same thing (if they have
not already decided to get out).

Anecdotally again, and
I understand that this is flawed analysis, it really feels like my most
qualified and competent peers are getting out. I look at the lists of who
is still in (at five years), and the glaring holes are the most intelligent and
self-possessed of my cohort. That is not true for everyone, but the
percentage of those who are still in is dwarfed by the number of those that
have left -- and that number continues to rise.

I don't know what I'm
going to do. I don't really want to be anything other than a Marine, so
for the time being, unless something crazy happens, I'll stay. But I also
fear what the future brings, when our current ranks feel like they are being
gutted.

I was recently
forwarded the following link by Phil Carter: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg94185.html. It is an
eerily-similar string of discussion regarding essentially the same cast of
characters, including the disillusioned company grade and his decision to get
out. Phil's and other sentiments I have read from ten years ago are
humbling and have really made an impression on me. We all think our own
experiences are novel, and that no one could possibly understand what we
currently face. Obviously, not true for me and my peers. I have no
doubt that the current company grade/JO perspective is similar, if not directly
analogous, to what company grades/JOs have faced for decades. In some
ways, though, that is more cause for concern - why have we been complacent for
decades? And why are we resigned to that complacency now, when we may
have a window of opportunity (more societal interest in preserving competency
in the military than in the ‘90s, fewer distractions than in the ‘00s) for change? We have known forever that this bureaucracy needs better meritocratic policies,
and better quality management at the field grade level (and I read a good book
lately on similar concerns with respect to generalship).

I hope these concerns
don't fall on deaf ears because they resonate -- that seems
problematic. Rather, I'd hope that they would provoke a desire for
change. There is a lot of misfiring when it comes to incentive programs,
graduate school, bonuses, promotion systems, etc., that could be used in a
targeted fashion to improve retention rates at the top.

Capt. Rodman is a judge
advocate currently stationed at Headquarters, Marine Corps. She has been
in the Marine Corps for nearly five years, serving in Okinawa, Afghanistan, and
the Pentagon. She is a graduate of Duke University (AB '03), Harvard Law
School (JD '07) and the Kennedy School of Government (MPP '07). The views presented here are her
own and do not represent those of the Marine Corps or the Department of
Defense.