Sep
09
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 09 September 2008 |
cried. I looked at the faces of the young enlistedmen, who volunteered in a time of war and cried. I cried because when given the same chance, the general who commanded them chose ROTC to avoid the draft during Vietnam.
I was stunned when the words came out of the general's mouth. Then, when I made my way back to the grunts, I cried. These young men I had been in combat with were being led by a man who slipped combat, but wound up being a general.
Suddenly, a lot of what I had seen made sense.
In reading Bob Woodward's WaPo series about the surge , the strategic and personality conflicts I see remind me of the great divide among officers I occasionally witnessed first hand in Iraq.
The divide between the officers was age and approach to the military.
America's lost generation of generals were commissioned after after the drawdown of combat operations in Vietnam.
They were peace-time platoon leaders in the 70's, garrison company commanders in the early 80's and, with the exception of the thin sliver of battalion commanders from Desert Storm, had never led troops in combat.
None had been involved in sustained combat operations until Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The garrison mentality is on full display in Woodward's writing, with some officers more concerned with the military as an institution than its purpose--defeat the enemy.
Perhaps as a former enlisted Marine, that purpose is clearer to me--as it was drilled into my head at MCRD San Diego and then the School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton.
The purpose of a Marine Corps Rifle Squad is very straight forward:
"Seek out, locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or, repel an enemy assault by fire and close combat."
Close combat meaning fixed bayonette, knife, entrenching tool (shovel) fists and feet.
The officers who came up through the ranks in the garrison culture of the 70's, 80's and 90's forgot or were never taught the purpose of the rifle squad. Or, failed to grasp that the military is nothing but a collection of rifle squads and units whose purpose is to support rifle squads.
On the sprawling military bases in the U.S., it is easy to see how the fundamental purpose could be lost as many of them resemble sprawling office parks and corporate campuses. In that environment, one can forget there is a shooting war being fought or amid the bureacracy of TPS reports, the purpose of the rifle squad remains the same.
The miracle of it all is that some warriors--many of them scholar warriors, made it up through the ranks.
The divide appears, at least in my first-hand experience, smaller in the Marine Corps than in the Army--but that could be attributed to the size of the Army, where there were more opportunities for me see officers on both sides of the divide.
The lost generation of generals has run its course. The new generation grew up with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They saw Desert Storm, Bosnia/Kosovo, Somalia, Haiti.
More importantly, they heard the stories of, but did not come up through the military of the late 70's and early 80's.
To a Marine who only knows the efficiency and professionalism of the Corps in the 90's and now, the stories of the 70's and early 80's are frightening.
But to an officer who came up through that time, it may not seem so bad. That time was good for his career.
The shambled military of the late 70's was the result of the ignoble end to Vietnam. The swell in the 90's was from the success of Desert Storm.
An ignoble end to Iraq could and likely would have brought about the same deliterious effects of Vietnam that wrecked the military.
I argue that in trying to save the military from being wrecked by war, those opposed to the surge, would have wrecked the military by the ignoble end of the war.
Seeing the surge through to the end might not have only saved Iraq, but it might save the U.S. Military as an institution. And twenty-five-years from now, when young men enlisted men are in combat, their generals will hopefully be ones who served as platoon leaders in combat--not garrison, peace-time platoon leaders.
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Sep
05
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 05 September 2008 |
In May of 2007, during one of the blooodiest months of war in Iraq, there stood a sign in a doorway.
Some would consider the words on the sign a bold prediction, but the man who put it there was confident in the abilities of his Soldiers and other commanders across the battlefields of the Iraq to make it true.
"When historians write about Iraq," the hand written words started, "they will write about the march to Baghdad and our Victory in The Surge."
A bold prediction in May of 2007. Only a month earlier the Senate Majority Leader had declared the war lost.
The American public had all but written the effort off at that point. Even just this week, Senator Obama said , “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated.”
But for Lt. Colonel Patrick Frank, Commanding Officer of the 1-28 Infantry Battalion--The Black Lions--it was not a bold prediction. It was a fact waiting to be made certain.
At the time the sign stood in doorway of Frank's forward command center in the West Rashid district of Baghdad. Gun fights were still the order of the day. Explosive Force Penetrators daily ripped humvees and soldiers to shreds. The Shia and Sunnis were still exacting blood-debt assassinations on each other. Mortars rained down on Forward Bases--one landing kill zone close to this writer. (I still marvel at how I came three inches from being shredded by shrapnel.)
And the sign stood there.
Lt. Colonel Frank and his soldiers knew in May of 2007, what the American public is just now coming to grasp fifteen months later--the surge was working and would work.
How could Frank have known it would work?
A skeptic would say he was just being an optomistic commander. But they didn't get to spend the time I did with Frank, his officers and Soldiers.
In the 'Baghdad Surge' episode my documentary trilogy , Frank describes what he planned as the knock-out punch against the violence in West Rashid--electricity, running water, sewage lift stations.
His staff officers became public works directors. Company Commanders became ex-officio Mayors by day, while sending their platoons to hunt Al Qaida and JAM assassins like Malik and 'The Wolf' by night.
He knew a fundamental truth of counter insurgency--it is not about winning hearts and minds, which is impossible, rather, it is about doing what the enemy cannot--electricity, running water, sewage lift stations.
And then standing between the factions and saying, "stop!" Those that refused to stop found themselves flex-cuffed and stuffed in the back of a humvee, or were otherwise permanently stopped.
Lt. Colonel Frank always knew. History and others are just now begining to grasp the reality that Frank saw and his Soldiers created.
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Sep
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 01 September 2008 |
Abraham followed the road along the Euphrates river north as God commanded him.
The road followed course of the great river and its lush green farming villages. The road Abraham travelled passed through villages and cities whose names have changed or been lost to the ages.
One of those is the ancient city of Anbar.
Persians, Romans and Arabs all fought battles over this ancient city.
The Roman leader Gordian died at Anbar.
The Arab General Khalid wrested the city from the Persians.
Centuries later, U.S. Marines and Soldiers fought house to house in the same city. We know it now as Fallujah.
Scarsely two years ago, Al Anbar province was thought to be lost. But just yesterday, control of the province was handed over to the Iraqi government.
I know many men--American and Iraqi-- who have given blood, life and limb so that this day may come.
Ali lost a leg and an arm. Yacos, Christopher, Dallas and McClung still have bits of shrapnel in them. Watkins gave his life in a dusty field.
I have cried too many times watching young Marines and Soldiers be loaded onto helicopters bound for the surgical hospitals in Baghdad and Balaad.
Many others like Schlau, Nawrocki and Huber gave their youth to the desert, growing from teenagers to men in Mesopotamia.
The Paratroopers of Blackfoot Company survived what was almost a five-month siege at their tiny outpost north of Kharmah. The sieges of Outpost Omar being the last gasps of Al Qaida in the region.
For even as Omar was set upon with barrages of enemy fire, to the South, the tribes of Anbar were joining with the coalition .
The handing over of Anbar Province to the Iraqis was not a mere administrative procedure. It was a declaration that a victory has been achieved.
This victory will not be splashed across the headlines above the fold. It will be buried under a hurricane, a Vice Presidential nominee and the Republican Convention.
But it is a victory worthy of the ages as the coalition and Iraqi citizens defeated one of the greatest evils of our time.
It is a victory for every Soldier and Marine who stepped foot outside the wire in Anbar Province and every Iraqi who took up arms against the Takfiri and Al Qaida.
Like Abraham, Gordian and the others of history who tread the banks of the Euphrates river--they have made their mark.
Two years ago Anbar was thought to be lost, then it Awoke. Now Anbar stands on its own.
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Aug
16
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 16 August 2008 |
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With the Russian Bear deciding the 'Great Game ' is back on and steady growth of the Chinese military--History and big geopolitics is, as Robert Kagan says , making a comeback.
Geopolitics and History invariably lead to the Clauswitzian politics by other means--war.
And in those other means, the United States has a distinct advantage over all others--not just in machines and materials--but where it counts the most: NCO and Officer Leadership.
On March 20th, 2003, when the U.S. led coaltion crossed from Kuwait into Iraq, very few officers and non-commissioned officers of any rank had actual combat experience.
Five years and several months later--the United States military is one of the most combat-experienced militaries in history.
Virtually every officer of the line has led Soldiers and Marines on daily combat missions.
Sergeants and Junior Staff NCOs have come up through the ranks not in garrison or on training exercises but in combat.
Virtually every U.S. Rifle Platoon has something the Russian and Chinese military do not--experience in a gun fight.
While many may not believe that the U.S. has started winning in Iraq, the General Staff's of the authoritarian regimes know what is happening and surely must be wondering how their untested conscripts would fare against the battle hardened 1st Marine Division or 82nd Airborne.
In a proxy war, the lessons learned from Al Qaida--the Improvised Explosive Device-- and the Jaish al Mahdi --the explosive force penetrator-- would be employed by U.S. advisors.
If the authoritarian regimes were wise enough to download a copy FM 3-24 , the Counter Insurgency Manual, the U.S. officers and NCOs who implemented the tactics know all the tricks and how to subvert them.
The war in Iraq--whether a person thinks it was a mistake or the correct course of action--has led to an unintended advantage at the brink of the return of history--first hand experience in implementing politics by other means on a large scale all the way down to the Platoon level.
(Welcome Instapundit readers! Take a look around and watch the trailer from the latest movie .)
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Aug
15
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 15 August 2008 |
How do you know if something is correct?
How do you know for a fact that 2x2 does not equal 5?
As a professor at Johns Hopkins, Francis Fukuyama knows the answer--measurement, testing, calculation, counting. But in his analysis of the war in Iraq he ignores these basic tools. Moreover, he does not bring up that they cannot be used to measure the correctness of a war, yet still plows ahead with a judgement.
In a laboratory or controlled environment the variables can be managed and measured. After an experiment is run, the model of the test can be changed and run again.
Once Coalition Forces crossed the line of departure on March 20th 2003 everything changed. The events happened. They could not be undone. There is no way to go back to before that moment and run an accurate decision tree to determine what would have happened otherwise.
We can easily measure the results of the decision to invade Iraq. The cost in terms of lives and limbs lost, dollars used up, diesel fuel consumed, can all be measured and calculated.
But it is impossible to know what the world would look like now had the Coalition not crossed the line of departure.
Because the alternative potential future cannot be measured and calculated, it cannot be compared to the present to determine which course of action was correct and which was a mistake.
One of my previous occupations, and something I still do as a sideline, is measuring and calculating whether something really works--particularly campaign advertising.
The process is not incredibly complicated but does require a graphing calculator and is akin to common randomization testing with a little regression analysis thrown in to impress the clients.
A decision like going to war cannot be tested on a sample. The variables--especially potential future variables--cannot be controlled through any mathematical model of regression analysis.
One could try to set up a decision tree using game theory to determine the likely hood of the decisions in an attempt to arrive at a determination of what the world and the middle east would look like had coalition forces not crossed the line on March 20th 2003.
Any honest analysis would come up with dozens, if not hundreds potential possibilities for an alternative August 2008.
Some of them would make it appear that the invasion in 2003 was a mistake. Others would probably make it seem like the best of all possible decisions.
To casually dismiss how things could have potentially turned out in the declaration that the war was a mistake, is to assume that all the potential possibilties were better than where we are now in August of 2008.
Whether or not the decision to cross the line on March 20th 2003 was a mistake is a value decision. A value can be assigned to where we are now, but value cannot be assigned to what might have been. The actual can be measured, the the possible potentials cannot. Therefore, it is truly impossible to know if it was a mistake. There is nothing to measure against that we know is correct or even a better result.
I suspect Professor Fukuyama knows this, but cannot grasp why he would ignore it. That isn't true, I understand why he would ignore it.
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Aug
12
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 12 August 2008 |
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I prefer old books to modern punditry.
If you want a primer on what is happening in Georgia, I suggest:
'Eastern Approaches' by Fitzroy MacLean
'The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia' by Peter Hopkirk
(Surprisingly, both are currently available on Amazon.com)
My confidence that the surge would work was based on reading old, out-of-print books by British Officers who succeeded in quelling the Malayan insurgency in the 1950s.
Throw in a little Gibbon and the Histories of al Tabari, and it is not hard to see a lot of the underlying fundamentals of Iraq.
The modern punditry and analysis, and even modern books, are tainted by the current political climate.
Hopkirk's book is a bit 'young,' being published in the early 1990s, but it is distant enough of an analysis to be more reliable than modern punditry and its political positioning.
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Jun
13
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 13 June 2008 |
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In the clip below from my documentary, Lt. Colonel Valery Kaeveny gives an example of Al Qaida's judicial procedure.
The writ of Habeas Corpus in this example arrived before the literal execution of the sentence--by way of a Platoon of Paratroopers.
The U.S. Supreme Court, by granting the Writ of Habeas Corpus to enemy combatants, has declared the the war on Islamic Terrorism over.
It should now be properly phrased the criminal investigation of Islamic Terrorism.
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May
03
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 03 May 2008 |
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Bill Ardolino files a report from Sadr City.
Read the whole thing.
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Apr
24
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 25 April 2008 |
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The men who weild hot lead at the enemy
love hot women. That should not be a surprise to anyone, but to
some it is .
Some see pin-ups in the barracks as a
vice, but it is part of a larger virtues of--Love & Fortitude.
It is currently against the regulations
of Multi National Forces Iraq to possess any pornographic, lewd or lacivious
material.
Even pinups of girls in bikinis were
not exempt from the regulations I first read in 2005.
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