Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

From the newsstands: Notable magazine offerings from February and March issues

Iraq, three years later

Esquire, March

"This is going to be a long war," writes Thomas P.M. Barnett, a strategic consultant for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2003. "In the two dozen interviews conducted with top American military officials for this article, the overwhelming consensus is that the boys are not coming home, that these conflicts will not be ending anytime soon. In fact, the generals have taken to calling Washington's war on terrorism the Long War."

The brass say that means the Army's going to have to keep many of its forces overseas continuously, and they're going to have to learn quickly from their mistakes in Iraq. The front-and-center lesson: Figure out the culture and learn to work with the locals. Intelligence, especially the political kind, is vital.

Marine Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who has commanded U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, is quoted as saying: "If we go into Pyongyang [North Korea] and we're fighting there six months from now against a mechanized unit, 100,000 Special Forces would be running around doing what they're doing to our rear area now. So guess what? This is the best training ground in the world. For the German troops [before World War II] it was Spain, right? Well, Iraq is ours."