Petraeus’s Last Stand?

Petraeus’s Last Stand?

February 24, 2011 by Don Vandergriff

The author of this important report in Politics Daily (also attached below), Dave Wood, is a very experienced combat reporter and one of the very best US reporters covering Afghanistan. (Truth in advertising: I have known and admired Dave for 25 years.) Wood has produced an an excellent, if grim, Afghan SITREP that is well worth studying carefully, including its hotlinks.

I think it would be a mistake to conclude that the situation being in a kind a balance, because we are in a strategic stalemate, however. While it is probably true we are in a strategic stalemate in the strictest sense of term ‘strategic,’ every year the Taliban is able to maintain its menacing posture gives the insurgents additional leverage at the far more decisive grand-strategic level of conflict: To wit, ask yourself if any of the following five trends (which are inversions of the five criteria defining a successful grand strategy) is way out of line:

(1) Polls tell us that the political will at home to continue this war is slowing deteriorating;

(2) our allies are also going wobbly and some have already pulled the plug;

(3) uncommitted countries are not being attracted to our cause and our warlike activities are alienating many in the Muslim world;

(4) the insurgents’ will to resist shows no sign of weakening; and

(5) no one the US government has a clue how to end this conflict on favorable terms for the United States that do not sow the seeds of future conflict in the region, or with Islam.

The Afghan insurgents may not understand grand strategy in these terms, but they understand instinctively that they can outlast invaders, because they believe they have done it before to Alexander the Great, the British at the height of their imperial power, and the Soviets. Is there anyone who not think the insurgents’ moral is being boosted by the prospect of outlasting the Americans?

A simple grand-strategic analysis reveals that time is clearly on the Taliban’s side and to assume that battle hardened leaders of the Taliban do not understand this is just a tad optimistic, to put it charitably. In fact, the breakdown of President Obama’s strategic review last December, which devolved into a dispute over when to leave, simply reinforced the obvious.

Chuck Spinney

Read more: http://donvandergriff.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/petraeuss-last-stand/

It Takes a Network

BY STANLEY A. MCCHRYSTAL

From the outset of my command in Afghanistan, two or three times each week, accompanied by a few aides and often my Afghan counterparts, I would leave the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul and travel across Afghanistan -- from critical cities like Kandahar to the most remote outposts in violent border regions. Ideally, we left early, traveling light and small, normally using a combination of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, to meet with Afghans and their leaders and to connect with our troops on the ground: Brits and Marines rolling back the enemy in Helmand, Afghan National Army troops training in Mazar-e-Sharif, French Foreign Legionnaires patrolling in Kapisa.

But I was not alone: There were other combatants circling the battlefield. Mirroring our movements, competing with us, were insurgent leaders. Connected to, and often directly dispatched by, the Taliban's leadership in Pakistan, they moved through the same areas of Afghanistan. They made shows of public support for Taliban shadow governors, motivated tattered ranks, recruited new troops, distributed funds, reviewed tactics, and updated strategy. And when the sky above became too thick with our drones, their leaders used cell phones and the Internet to issue orders and rally their fighters. They aimed to keep dispersed insurgent cells motivated, strategically wired, and continually informed, all without a rigid -- or targetable -- chain of command.

Read more: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/it_takes_a_network 

Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving

Tim Kane

Why are so many of the most talented officers now abandoning military life for the private sector? An exclusive survey of West Point graduates shows that it’s not just money. Increasingly, the military is creating a command structure that rewards conformism and ignores merit. As a result, it’s losing its vaunted ability to cultivate entrepreneurs in uniform.

Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/why-our-best-officers-are-leaving/8346/ 

Valgustatud kindral Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst

Aivar Jaeski
 

Ajateenistusele pani Euroopas aluse Prantsuse revolutsioon, mis kukutas Bourbonide ülemvõimu, tõi õigused kodanikele ning lõi vabariigi. Kuidas juhtus nii, et Esimese maailmasõja alguseks oli loodud õlitatud, hästi toimiv süsteem? Kes olid nende muudatuste taga?

 

Revolutsioonis tekkinud Prantsuse vabariik ei kestnud kaua, kuid see kogemus valgustas paljude Euroopa mõtlejate meeli. Käesolev artikkel käsitleb ühte valgustatud meest, kindral Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorsti, kes tutvustas ajateenistuse ideed Preisi aristokraatidele. Scharnhorst väärib tutvustamist ka juba kas või seepärast, et ta oli kuulsa sõjandusteoreetiku Carl von Clausewitzi õpetaja. Huntington on nimetanud Scharnhorsti refomistiks, kes pani aluse tõelisele lääne sõjaväelase elukutsele.

Teema käsitlemine on raske, sest vähene hulk seda puudutavaid materjale elas üle Teise maailmasõja. Maailmakaardilt on kadunud ka Preisi riik ning jäänud on vaid mälestus vapratest meestest, kes 1815. aasta juunis jõudsid Waterloo lahinguväljale napilt enne Wellingtoni armee kokkukukkumist. Ühe põhjuse, miks Scharnhorsti vähe teatakse, toob välja Charles Eduard White raamatus „Valgustatud sõjamees" („The enlightened soldier"). Tema väitel ignoreerivad nüüdisaja ajaloolased Preisimaa toonased reforme seetõttu, et Natsi-Saksamaa kolleegid neid liigselt imetlesid.

Loe edasi: http://www.horisont.ee/node/1455