Eyes on the Pakistani prize

Thu, 10/22/2009 - 10:52am

While we're all wanking away waiting for the White House to get off the dime on Afghanistan, some of the smart money stays focused on the real issue: the future of Pakistan. This is the real center of gravity in this mess. What does it profit a man if Pakistan falls apart while Afghanistan is stabilized?

David Rohde's fascinating series on being kidnapped by the Taliban concludes today with his escape. Good to read especially for how the Taliban has evolved in recent years. Or devolved.

Another David, Mr. Ignatius, continues his good reporting out of Pakistan, giving the strategic overview. This guy is so good, he should have his own blog!

I've been struck recently by the relative optimism about Pakistan from Iggie and another smart guy, Peter Bergen.

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Ignatius' "good reporting"?

by Gregg Carlstrom on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 11:37am

Are we reading the same David Ignatius? He seems to be scribbling down whatever the Pakistani army and ISI tell him without giving it an ounce of critical scrutiny.

re: Ignatius, the scribbler

by Don Bacon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 1:31pm

This guy is so good, he should have his own blog!

Get it? :-)

scare quotes absolutely justified

by Norwegian Shooter on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 2:15pm

Don't forget the editorials from the major newspapers!

Hey Tom, did you know what's the latest Georgetown party circuit question?

What does [war] profit a man, you ask?

by Don Bacon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 1:28pm

Let us count the ways, after seeing the film--
IRAQ for SALE
The War Profiteers
A Robert Greenwald Film

The story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.

Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq (Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI and Titan) and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

Slipping Like Sand Through Our Fingers

by PrahaPartizan on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 2:11pm

Pakistan is without a doubt the prize, but achieving success there can only be done by helping to broker some sort of resolution between Pakistan and India over Kashmir. The principal reason is that Pakistan cannot afford the two totally different armies it needs for the two campaigns it finds itself involved in. Did anyone notice the similarity between the Pakistani Army's push into the western provinces and the French Expeditionary Force in Indo-China when it conducted major campaigns like Operation Camargue and Operation Lorraine with heavy infantry pushing temporarily into the insurgents home turf but without the ability to remain there.

To confront India, it needs an armor-heavy mechanized force capable of operating in the border areas with India against another nation-state military. To engage the Taliban in the western provinces, Pakistan needs a light infantry COIN force operating at the battalion and company levels scattered across the landscape to deny the Taliban the social environment in which to survive.

For decades the Pakistani military has opted for the former. Now it needs the latter. Where does it get the funding to make the transition, much less to try to create and maintain both? We're going to need to retrain the Pakistani Army in addition to trying to create an Afghan National Force. But, first, we need to remove the albatross of Kashmir from around the neck of both India and Pakistan.

You've created a perfect echo chamber

by Norwegian Shooter on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 2:12pm

Ignatius and Bergen, Biddle and Exum, an endless string of military commanders, Tom Donnelly, et al. Talk about fishy! I went back 4 screen pages and couldn't find a single anti-escalation link.

How come everybody you agree with (or cites you) is a smart guy?

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. Upton Sinclair

Center of effort vs center of focus

by Walking Wounded on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 3:23pm

Great quote, NS.

Before we decide how to transform the nuclear Islamic Republic thru our amazing diplo-military superpowers, shouldn't we read up a bit on how it got the way it is, and our part in all that?

Understanding the nature of the place, our shared history, and perceptions of us over there would seem to be a prelude to figuring out what kind of (civil and regional) war it already is, on the road to maybe knowing how we want to play it from here.

Reality, what a concept.

Or we could go with 'if we build armed drones, they will shoot missiles at some earthen structure...'

Maybe it's time for another of Mr. Rick's reading lists?

Tom, maybe I missed it, but I'd like to know when you last visited the Kush. How are your personal connections and perceptions of the place and people informing your support for Stan's Plan, a 40K build up over and above what's stillin the pipeline. That will take us into 2011, before everybody's over there and posted to an AfPak duty station, no? Then wait for the 2012 thaw to judge the effect?

Creating a terror-industrial complex

by Don Bacon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 5:23pm

Here's how one of Pakistan's top military commanders put it to [Ignatius], expressing sentiments that are widely shared among his colleagues:

"We must win, if we want our children to be living a life of their choice and belief, and not of these beasts. I wish I could tell you how much I hate them."

This scary talk could have been from an interview with a top US military commander, it makes no difference.

Smedley Butler addressed this syndrome:

I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service.

The point of this is not to diss top militarey commanders. Every top military commander naturally has a warrior's can-do attitude, and little or no time or inclination to actually think about what he's up to or the people who are suffering from what he's up to.

The point, and it is irrefutable, is that terrorism is a crime, a crime that has always been with us, and top military commanders make poor crime-fighters. (Although Butler, in one phase of his colorful military career, including two awards of the Congressional Medal of Honor, did serve as chief of the militarized Philadelphia police force 1924-1925.)

Many people, including top military commanders, have pointed out that terrorism is a crime, and that combatting it the wrong way is bad for us. One was Colin Powell.

What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?
These are dangerous criminals, and we must deal with them. But come on, this is not a threat to our survival! The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it to ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.

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Old Gimlet Eye

by Tyrtaios on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 9:43pm

I note you have a fascination with MajGen Butler, Don. Certainly, MajGen Smedley Butler is one of the legends of the Corps, and had the Marines awarded the MOH to officers in earlier times, such as during the Boxer Rebellion, it is possible Butler, a 2ndLt at the time, would have been awarded the nation's highest decoration for his action there, bringing his total to three at the end of his career.

However, the General was not above using his father, an influential senator's juice to get him what he wanted. What Smedley did, during his career, didn't necessarily equate always to what was good for the Corps or nation, but rather what was good for him.

During Butler's tenure in mufti in Phildelphia, he was unable to accomplish very much as chief of law enforcement in that town. It should be noted, Butler had a personal ax to grind upon seeing his star fading in the Corps and subsequently retiring, thereupon writing his little primer you quote.

It doesn't mean I disagree with him, but let's be realistic: politics, economics/resources, and military muscle have been going hand-in-hand since before Joshua brought the walls of Jericho down.

Anecdotally, Smedley may have had a deteriating jaw disorder that caused him to seek relief through the use laudanum. There is some speculation that he could very well have been high during some of his earlier exploits of valor.

Enjoy your trip down under and stay safe! : )

General Duckboard

by Don Bacon on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 11:29pm

Thank you for your wishes,

and I'm glad you share at least some of my appreciation for Old Gimlet Eye. Actually Smed's dad was a congressman, not a senator, and merely a member of the House Naval Committee. I don't doubt there was some "juice" there. That's what got him sent to Philly, after a direct request from Calvin Coolidge.

But I must disagree that Butler was in any way selfish in his career, and that his actions were not in the best interest of the Corps. He fully and faithfully represented US (commercial) interests in the "banana wars" and elsewhere (France, China again, etc.), which he later regretted, of course. "War is a racket", he said.

There are many examples. One anecdote I recall was when he was in France, and with the rain in the trenches the men were suffering trench-foot. They were unable to requisition wooden boards to relieve the misery. Smed marched some of them down to the docks where they "requisitioned" some pallets, broke them up and carried them back. Butler carried some too, earning him the appellation "General Duckboard."

Another anecdote. Before MacArthur broke up the WWI Bonus Marchers' camp in Washington, Butler addressed the veterans and told them to hang in there -- he was with them. He had served with them, after all. That was one reason the American Legion types tried to recruit him for a coup against FDR -- because they believed the troops would follow him in their nefarious plot -- and Smed blew the whistle on them.

So you don't agree with me that General Butler was head and shoulders above the current run of military moral midgets, but thanks anyhow. I AM being realistic, I think, to believe that General Butler was a different sort of general officer than we now have. The troops loved him, and there is no higher love. How common is that these days?

Thanks again. Stay on Tom for me -- he thrives on it. A good man.

Thanks for the correction. I

by Tyrtaios on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 8:37am

Thanks for the correction. I was aware Smedley's father was a congressman, but misspoke of him being a Senator.

As for your question, was MajGen Butler head and shoulders above the current run of what one might consider his peer group, were he serving today - combat leader, scholar, thinker, educator, innovator - and importantly, displaying unwavering moral courage?

If we shake the flag pole, surely some would drop to the deck and measure-up. To be fair, how many wouldn't, I can't say. What I will say is, when a nation entrusts their citizens and treasure to your care, it demands a standard of excellence unparalleled in any other profession - let me think upon it for awhile?

Another anecdotal musing on Smedley Butler: aboard the Marine Base at mainside Quantico, there is a stadium that MajGen Butler designed, taking advantage of the unique features in the surrounding terrain. This was all built by hand under his supervision, to include underground drainage, using available materials in innovating ways to meet the challange of that time period.

I'm from another time period also.

another time period also

by Don Bacon on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 9:37am

Yes, and so I'm not entirely up on current leadership. But I do read a lot of soldier stuff, and there are "metrics" after all.
How many senior officers have been lost to IEDs? None that I know of. They have not hollered against delays in mine-resistant vehicles and always go by chopper, while the troops got to use the mine-infested roads in soft vehicles. Smed would have been on it big time.
We've heard many stories about how vets are getting screwed, denied their injury benefits due to "pre-existing conditions" with the collusion of doctors -- how many senior officers have spoken at an American Legion conference, say, and said that this must be corrected? It's gone on for years, going back at least to Agent Orange, and not a peep that I've noticed. Butler would have been there, just as he was at the bonus camp, up on that lectern telling the vets how much their service was appreciated and how necessary it was to fight for their rights.
I remember being in a small camp in Korea, cold winters, troops had to leave their hooches to go to an outside latrine, while senior officers had a salesman come to show new carpet samples for their suites. My superior officer (good description), at about the same time, went to the troops prior to a trip to Seoul and asked them what they needed -- new pool cue, etc, -- and brought back what they needed. Smed-type behavior.
Is this just academic, or old soldier gossip? I don't think so.

Senior Officer Casualties

by admiral on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 11:17am

"How many senior officers have been lost to IEDs?"

Mr. Bacon,

I have recently searched for a breakdown of officer KIA and WIA vis a vis enlisted in Iraq. It's hard to find. I have gone through unfortunately long lists of the killed and mutilated. Senior officers seem not to be on the lists outside of air crashes, accidents and a few fragings. I would say they have become masters of staying out of danger in Iraq. Didn't Dave travel around with a battalion of security? It seems that in today's Army the senior officers see their lives as more valuable than their own troops. This again reinforces my statements that we currently have the worst leadership in our nations military history. The advocacy for the mutilated from the brass is not there. Besides, mutilated soldiers and marines are nothing but a liability and are gotten rid of as soon as possible. Kind of like taking out the trash to the dump.

Because

by MDrew on Thu, 10/22/2009 - 11:05pm

there's no way the administration is working on Pakistan while determining the resource question in Afghanistan. Clearly they've got blinders on and see nothing but the political consequences of ordering a troop increase in Afghanistan.

wanking

by diablotakahe on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 1:11am

i would have thought you'd spent enough time with kilcullen to know just how rude a word this was. . . .

its like a huge commonwealth practical joke on americans. its even been on the simpsons.