ARTICLE: Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort, By Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, February 5, 2007; Page A01
Generals often do what Petraeus has done in creating this inner think tank/crew of advisers. He's just put together an unusually talented bunch on the very subject he himself has spent so much time trying to educate the Army: counter-insurgency.
I admire all these guys a lot. Hashim was a colleague of mine at both CNA and the War College.
But I think Hashim's own book's conclusion points to a fundamental reality: the insurgency is superseded by the trifurcating sectarian violence.
I think Petraeus will end up simply midwifing this outcome, which is why he's following McMaster's strategy, which amounts--in my phrase--to doing Vietnam backwards (direct role changes to advising).
I think that's just the way it's gotta be since Iraq's evolution will essentially be Yugoslavia backwards (leader gone, the sectarian violence).
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Comments (3)
I see a number of parallels from Viet Nam and McNamara. Does the fall of countries in the Middle East sound a little like the domino theory? Does Petraeus' think tank sound a little like McNamara’s Institution of Systems Analysis? Of course, at the end of McNamara's tenure, he advised President Johnson to stop the bombing, hand over fighting to Viet Nam, and "get out of dodge." Johnston rejected McNamara's advice. McNamara's recommendations amounted to him saying that all the policies he had been promoting for years were wrong, and that his strategy for winning the war was a failure. That is (IMHO) true patriotism.
It is worth out time to understand past patterns (history) so we perhaps may learn from them. We have been here before.
Posted by Al Alborn | February 6, 2007 8:11 AM
While I agree with Al Alborn, I'm afraid the following quote grows more entrenched in my old age as I view events:
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
-- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Posted by le0pard13 | February 6, 2007 11:37 AM
Lessons learned or lessons identified?
Posted by JRRICHARD | February 6, 2007 10:38 PM