Me and Fareed

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Tuesday, October 20, 2009 - 3:42 PM Share

I forgot to mention that I was on Fareed Zakaria's Sunday CNN show the other day to discuss what happened at Wanat, the small battle in the summer of 2008 that strikes me as representative of the war.

Zakaria struck me as one of the smartest people I've ever met. Long-time readers of this blog may remember that I think he did the best foreign affairs interview I've ever seen with Obama, back when Obama was running for president.

DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:AFGHANISTAN, MEDIA, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, WANAT

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NORWEGIAN SHOOTER

8:22 PM ET

October 20, 2009

You almost got bumped off my DVR by ballon boy

The first 20+ minutes of his show was delayed for live-sheriff-at-podium coverage. Watching the balloon fly at 4x times fast is just as stupid looking as normal speed, but at least tolerable for the lack of sound.

Is he the smartest person you've met because he called you the best military journalist around? Couldn't resist. Good interview, but that Google Earth stuff and the table-top video display were awful. On the first, the map didn't show Kabul, Peshawar, etc. - no context. On the second, you should go to some auditions for hand modeling - they look great! Okay, couldn't resist again.

Cheers

STARBUCK

11:56 PM ET

October 20, 2009

Oh why...

Why did the book you recommended (Bugles and a Tiger) have to cost $90 on Amazon for a used copy? ARGH!

TYRTAIOS

4:51 AM ET

October 21, 2009

Where to find books

Hey old man.:) If you go through Barnes & Noble, there is an outfit in Europe called EuroBooks. The average price for "Bugles and a Tiger" is about 39.00 plus shipping.

If you already bought it - good on you. Remember Eurobooks for the next time.

PHIL RIDDERHOF

1:07 AM ET

October 21, 2009

Representative of the War?

I had to go back and look at your earlier posts to find the following: "...a key problem that the battle of Wanat highlighted: the ongoing, long-running confusion between a counterterrorism mission and a counterinsurgency one. How do the two fit together? The U.S. military, embroiled in two such wars now simultaneously, in Iraq and Afghanistan, would do well to spend more time on that question."

For me Wanat is representative in that it displys the risks of the distributed model we are adopting to conduct operations--whether its "pop-centric" COIN, or CT (whatever that exactly looks like.

While it is easy to say from the comfort of a sofa in CONUS, battles like Wanat, and the more recent COP almost overrun, may be the price of doing business in this manner. I'm not saying that mistakes weren't made in these specific instances, but we have to realize that eventually the enemy is going to mass where we don't expect it. We may not always be able to bring in the long range fires or reinforcements in time (if the enemy takes the time to read the book "Spec Ops" by the current JSOC commander, VADM McRaven, they'd get a good idea of how to achieve a critical period of relative superiority in a specific area).

However, if our lessons from these is to pull in, use fires more liberally, or mass forces (thus covering less population), then we will also be hindering our progress.

STARBUCK

11:11 AM ET

October 21, 2009

I'll check that one out.

I'll check that one out. I've switched to the Kindle, so I'm going to have to get used to reading real books again.

PHIL RIDDERHOF

12:41 PM ET

October 21, 2009

"SpecOps"

Starbuck,
McRaven wrote Spec Ops (published as a book in 1995) when still a Commander, as a student at the Naval Post Grad School. Its not about COIN, but really about raids. What it provides is a compelling framework to explain why raids (which is what Direct Action really is) work or don't work.
His model describes how a raid force, through surprise, speed, and focus, can achieve superiority on a specific objective area for a limited amount of time (this is really based on conventional combat power factors). The purpose of the raid, actions on the objective area (whatever they may be), is achieved during that window of superiority. If the raid force fails to achieve that window, or it closes, they will either not achieve their purpose, or will not be able to withdrawal (inherent in a raid) without signifcant losses.
While it is seemingly obvious, McRaven explains it in a powerful way that can be broadly applied. In Afghanistan, I'm sure that Taliban commanders take into account how fast they can mass on certain targets, what level of surprise they can achieve, and how long before the coalition forces can react with fires or a QRF. They know they have that specific window within which to achieve their purpose before they execute a planned withdrawal or dispersal. On our side, we need to understand those calculations and try to close that window as much as possible.
While this all sounds overly conventional, I think these factors are important for those dispersed forces to adequately "protect the population."

BPB1979

2:02 PM ET

October 21, 2009

Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is a very smart man, but one who's quite unaware of the limits of his subject matter expertise. Be careful with generalists; they can sound very clever while expounding on subjects they don't understand.

BRETT

5:20 PM ET

October 21, 2009

The main problem I have with

The main problem I have with Zakaria is that he occasionally falls into the Thomas Friedman trap of projecting present trends outward.