Debating a Failure of Generalship and Leadership
A fascinating online discussion between US Army intellectuals Colonel Gian Gentile, Colonel Paul Yingling and journalist and Iraq War veteran Carl Prine:
Paul Yingling A Failure in Generalship –AFJ
….Having spent a decade preparing to fight the wrong war, America’s generals then miscalculated both the means and ways necessary to succeed in Iraq. The most fundamental military miscalculation in Iraq has been the failure to commit sufficient forces to provide security to Iraq’s population. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) estimated in its 1998 war plan that 380,000 troops would be necessary for an invasion of Iraq. Using operations in Bosnia and Kosovo as a model for predicting troop requirements, one Army study estimated a need for 470,000 troops. Alone among America’s generals, Army Chief of Staff General Eric Shinseki publicly stated that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be necessary to stabilize post-Saddam Iraq. Prior to the war, President Bush promised to give field commanders everything necessary for victory. Privately, many senior general officers both active and retired expressed serious misgivings about the insufficiency of forces for Iraq. These leaders would later express their concerns in tell-all books such as “Fiasco” and “Cobra II.” However, when the U.S. went to war in Iraq with less than half the strength required to win, these leaders did not make their objections public.
Gian Gentile A Few Questions for Colonel Paul Yingling on Failures in Generalship – Small Wars Journal
….Perhaps you see it differently, but the failure that I see in American generalship in both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with precedence in Vietnam) is the idea that tactical and operational excellence through a certain brand of counterinsurgency (or any other form of tactical innovation) can rescue wars that ultimately are failures of strategy, or as Schlesinger more harshly puts it “national stupidity.”
In light of how you respond to these questions might you consider writing “A Failure of Generalship, Version 2” for Afghanistan?
If not, might you spell out the differences between what you saw as the failure of American generalship in Iraq from 2003-2006 with the past two years plus in Afghanistan. In other words, how has American generalship been a failure in Iraq and not in Afghanistan?
Paul Yingling The Gentile-Yingling Dialogue: ISAF Exit Strategy – Neither International nor an Exit nor a Strategy – Small Wars Journal
….Those of us charged with strategic thinking ought to heed this example. Imagine a failed Pakistan that results in a terrorist organization acquiring one or more nuclear weapons. What would our response be in the aftermath of such a crisis? What intelligence capabilities do we need to locate compromised nuclear materials? What civil security and law enforcement measures might disrupt or minimize the impacts of such a threat? What counter-proliferation capabilities are required to seize and render safe compromised nuclear weapons or materials? Imagine further the capabilities required to avoid such a crisis. What diplomatic measures might change the Pakistani strategic calculus that lends support to extremism? What broader engagement with Pakistani civil society might render this troubled country less amenable to radical ideology? Now imagine still further back to the institutional arrangements that generate national security capabilities. Do we have the right priorities? Are we buying the right equipment? Are we selecting the right leaders? Are we making the best use of increasingly scarce tax payer dollars?
Too often, what passes for strategic thought in the United States is actually a struggle among self-interested elites seeking political, commercial or bureaucratic advantage. Such behavior is the privilege of a country that is both rich and safe. However, a pattern of such behavior is self-correcting: no country that behaves this way will stay rich or safe for long.
Carl Prine A Colonel of Truth – Line of Departure
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