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The decision on Gen. McChrystal’s fate, the president said last night, will be ”determined entirely on how I can make sure that we have a strategy that justifies the enormous courage and sacrifice that those men and women are making over there, and that ultimately makes this country safer.” That, however, begs the question: stay with the existing strategy (clear, hold, build, transfer; train; persuade Karzai to govern; partner with Karzai to negotiate; encourage Pakistani military effort in Waziristan; drone-strike) or change course? My Washington Independent piece this morning is about the likely continuity of strategy in Afghanistan, no matter who’s ultimately in command of the war effort.
What remains unclear from any Kandahar planning is the effect even a successful operation will have on the overall strength of al-Qaeda’s allies in Afghanistan — and al-Qaeda itself, across the border in Pakistan. “There was good reason to drive al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, but there’s no good reason to stay in the place,” said Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army colonel and a skeptic of counterinsurgency. “I don’t see any evidence [Obama's] suddenly going to summon the wherewithal to change course, but frankly this is an opportunity for him to do precisely that.”
If Robert Gibbs’ press briefing Tuesday was any indication, Macgregor has a point about Obama’s wherewithal. Gibbs, the White House press secretary, couched his and the president’s disapproval of McChrystal’s comments by questioning whether McChrystal was committed to implementing Obama’s strategy. “We’re here to implement a new strategy,” Gibbs said in his Tuesday briefing, and “that’s what we want everybody from the ambassador to the combatant commander to anybody else involved with this to focus on.” Gibbs emphasized that the mission in Afghanistan “is bigger than anybody on the military or the civilian side” — signaling that no officer is irreplaceable…
I would suggest that from the start of #McClusterfuck yesterday, most everyone observing — and I definitely include myself here — was too quick to conflate McChrystal’s fate with the fate of Afghanistan strategy. My smart commenters pointed out that any strategy that’s dependent on one commander is hopelessly doomed. So while there’s going to be turbulence for implementing strategy in any command change, a command change doesn’t have to augur a strategy change. (Though we may still be doomed. One of the things that surprised me the most about Hastings’ piece is that he was surprised McChrystal’s people aren’t sure they can pull it off in Afghanistan. But advocates for the strategy recognize how late the hour is and that it’s not the best strategy in Afghanistan, only the least-worst.) And it doesn’t look like one’s on the horizon.
That’s why I was surprised to read this from Galrahn, who wants Gen. Mattis to take over:
The way I see it, Obama has several choices. McCrystal either stays or goes. The existing COIN strategy either stays or goes. I personally think the President should allow McCrystal to retire, and a Marine should be put in charge. I also think it is time to draft a strategy to meet the Presidents objectives of defeating al-Qaeda and other extremist groups and denying them sanctuary and give up the central government building exercise that has been completely ineffective – and indeed perhaps counterproductive.
The Marines left Iraq to go to Afghanistan. They wanted it – I hope the President gives it to them. I strongly believe that President Obama needs to pick one of two men – Lieutenant General John R. Allen or General James Mattis. No more West Point COINdinistas guys – it is time to pick a Marine.
It is time to call in General James Mattis.
So a Marine COINdinista, then? Mattis’s people are certainly not averse to the idea. But it’s hard to envision Mattis executing a radically different strategy. That’s not to say a new commander wouldn’t have room to make significant adjustments — reemphasizing the east? more kinetic operations? — but all the likely candidates to replace McChrystal operate on a spectrum between Significant Adjustment (Adm. Eric Olson) and Few Adjustments (Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez), and Mattis is probably in the center of that spectrum. (And I wonder how likely Olson is to take over.) I’m not the kind of guy who says that details don’t matter, but take this in the spirit of setting expectations for more continuity in strategy after today’s Situation Room meeting than departure.
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Perhaps most of the Beltway propagandists were telling us to think that, but not at FDL. The real strategy is neverending war, for the war profiteers of the Beltway.
Most everyone at FDL was quick to conflate McChrystal with the failed, illegal and genocidal Afghanistan Neo-con Conspiracy.
You describe the present course as having six specific pieces:
1. clear, hold, build, transfer;
2. train;
3. persuade Karzai to govern;
4. partner with Karzai to negotiate;
5. encourage Pakistani military effort in Waziristan; and
6. drone-strike
Of these six, three of them are highly dependent on personal relationships of trust. The US commander and US ambassador can’t persuade Karzai to govern (3), if Karzai doesn’t trust the commander and/or ambassador. Karzai won’t be terribly anxious to negotiate (4), if he doesn’t trust the partnership offered by the US commander/ambassador. The Pakistani military won’t respond to encouragement from the US commander (5) without having trust in that commander.
I’m not saying McChrystal is indispensable — far from it. Instead, I’m saying what I said yesterday: McChrystal’s attitude toward his own superiors in the chain of command changes not only the domestic situation in the US, but also how he — and the US forces more generally — are perceived by the Afghan leaders. McChrystal’s beloved counterinsurgency stragegy requires that there be trust and confidence between the US forces and credible, capable, local leaders, and the attitude of McChrystal captured in the Rolling Stone article damages that tremendously.
Local leaders will look at McChrystal and his staff, shake their heads, and say to one another “If these guys talk this way about their own political leaders behind their backs, how do you suppose they talk about us? If the US President and VP can’t trust this guy, how the hell can we?”
Whether McChrystal stays or goes, the game has changed because of the appearance of this article that reveals the attitudes of McChrystal and his staff.
Given that, the course *cannot* remain the same. The COIN game has taken a step backwards, thanks to the display of personal arrogance by General Stanley McChrystal and his inner circle.
The latter sentence I agree with, as I agree with most of your comment*. The former sentence — why? You’re making an argument about what should happen. I’m bringing you a descriptive argument about what is. Just because something has come unmoored doesn’t mean it will change.
I think you also make a mistake in personalizing counterinsurgency to McChrystal. McChrystal is a counterinsurgency theorist/practitioner/advocate. But so is Michele Flournoy and Doug Lute and Adm. Mullen and Gen. Petraeus. A host of other administration officials embrace other counterinsurgency tenets about the relationship between civilian population-protection and the reduction of civilian casualties to sustainable security, including Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, Richard Holbrooke, Jim Jones, President Obama and even Vice President Biden. My piece is about calibrating the degree of change if McChrystal stays or goes, and I see little evidence of any such change.
A “Host” of officials embrace “tenets”. I would call them a “Pod” of “Pod People” leading us to disaster. Richard Holbrooke is a PNAC murderer. Bob Gates is an Iran-Contra-Cocaine co-conspirator. Obviously Clinton and Obama do not know that that the Afghanistan Taliban was a creation of Saudi Arabia and the CIA.
Why must the course change? Because the relationship between the US (via its designated military commander) and the folks in power in Afghanistan is no longer the same as it was.
Put it this way: If you learn something disturbing about your significant other, it changes the way you view your SO. You may or may not break up over what you’ve learned, but the relationship is different, simply because of what you learned.
For example, when McChrystal goes to the Afghan military and civilian authorities to help them with training (#2 on your list of six items), and he preaches about honoring and supporting and trusting the chain of command, how is that going to be heard, now that this story has come out? “Nice words, coming from you. But we see how you act”
Suppose the alternative — that McChrystal is removed. If you then put in a new commander, and charge that commander with pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy, things have changed because of this episode. That new commander will not simply be able to pick up where things were last Thursday and move ahead. He’s going to have to rebuild trust where it was damaged, and make amends where things have been strained.
Those Afghans who trusted McChrystal will have to learn to trust the new commander that they do not know — someone appointed by the people who removed the person they liked. On the flip side, those who mistrust McChrystal will be saying to themselves, “why should we trust this new guy, after the last guy you sent us was so untrustworthy that you had to remove him?”
Is it possible to overcome this? Absolutely. It happens all the time, in all kinds of organizations when there is a change in significant leadership. But pretending that the change of leaders (or retention of the leader after a misstep like this) has no effect on the conditions on the ground is dangerous. Things *have* changed.
As for overly personalizing things, I disagree. Note that I’m not personalizing counterinsurgency, but rather the relationship between the US and Afghanistan. Right now, McChrystal *is* the face of the US in Afghanistan. Yes, there’s an ambassador and a special envoy, but McChrystal has shown over time that if push comes to shove, Holbrooke and Eikenberry are not the ones that the Afghans need to listen to, because McChrystal has the clout to overrule the suits at State.
COIN is built on trust, and McChrystal has serious damaged his ability to be trusted, and by extension, the ability of the US to be trusted. Regardless of who is in command in Afghanistan next week, things are different, and I hope and pray that whoever the commander is will recognize that reality.
OK, I appear to have misread you on the personalization, so my apologies for that.
My broader concern is that we’re talking past one another. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written, and am unsure if you think we’re arguing when I don’t see it. “Pretending that the change of leaders (or retention of the leader after a misstep like this) has no effect on the conditions on the ground is dangerous.” A fair point, and not one that I think my piece contradicts. This might be a long way of asking if you’re offering observations here or supplementing/correcting what I wrote. Because I certainly didn’t want my piece not to incorporate what you’re saying, and I don’t think it did.
But as a reader you’re better positioned to tell me if it did.
I don’t think we’re arguing as much as you’re writing broadly and I’m looking for nuance.
You put forth two choices: keep on going as we are, or change course. I see the first as an impossibility, because McChrystal’s interview (and now departure) change the circumstances rather significantly. If your strategy is built on trust and cooperation, the “stay with the existing strategy” option is a misnomer. The existing strategy envisioned trust built around a given team of US military forces and civilian advisers — a team that is now being rebuilt rather significantly. Even if you give that team the same instructions, it’s a new leader and new team that will have to carry them out, which means it’s a new ball game.
If the US faces two choices, I’d say those choices are “back up three steps and start re-building trust so we can try COIN again” or change course from COIN to something else.
To borrow from US football . . .
This isn’t as simple as McChrystal coming out of the game at halftime and leaving it to his successor to lead the team forward from there. This was a fumble with the ball bouncing backwards on the turf. Sure, the fumble was recovered, the one who bungled things left the field and a new player is taking his place. But the down has been lost, the ball is further from the goal, and the other 10 players now have to adjust to a new player in their midst.
Sure, you can call the same play you had planned earlier, and it may be the right play, and it may work — but you have to recognize that the circumstances of the game have changed before you call that play.