Why "Team America" Struck Out

In which Andrew Bacevich explains how GEN McChrystal fell afoul of smug disdain of Washington politics.

To imagine that replacing McChrystal with Gen. David H. Petraeus will fix the problem is wishful thinking. To put it mildly, Petraeus is no simple soldier. He is a highly skilled political operator, whose name appears on Republican wish lists as a potential presidential candidate in 2012. Far more significant, the views cultivated within Team America are shared elsewhere.

The day the McChrystal story broke, an active-duty soldier who has served multiple combat tours offered me his perspective on the unfolding spectacle. The dismissive attitude expressed by Team America, he wrote, "has really become a pandemic in the Army." Among his peers, a belief that "it is OK to condescend to civilian leaders" has become common, ranking officers permitting or even endorsing "a culture of contempt" for those not in uniform. Once the previously forbidden becomes acceptable, it soon becomes the norm.

"Pretty soon you have an entire organization believing that their leader is the 'Savior' and that everyone else is stupid and incompetent, or not committed to victory." In this soldier's view, things are likely to get worse before they get better. "Senior officers who condone this kind of behavior and allow this to continue and fester," he concluded, "create generation after generation of officers like themselves -- but they're generally so arrogant that they think everyone needs to be just like them anyway."

It's a great article, as usual. Check it out.

Comments

[Ray]

I am not going to discuss at length, General McChystal- I don't know him, and I'd refrain from saying anything about what I could wrongfully assume is his true character because of that. The loneliness of command has never been my province (thank God for that, I hear Britain say...) But I use the subject of his removal to look at that bane of military life that Andrew Bacevich I think is alluding to.
I suppose the accepted view among a great many is that once an officer dons the uniform he automatically becomes a gentleman; "An officer and a gentleman". Some of us who have suffered under stupid people in command know that isn't always true, and crucially that military life of the active duty kind may cause some degeneration in some of previously held responsible behaviour. Stress (which I noticed General McChrystal mentioned as a reason for outspokenness)can do it, and the answer to that might be that stress goes with the territory of a general- but there may be limits that even a general can't manage to overcome.
The trouble is with these views on military talent not being indispensible, is that you nevertheless always need to have it in place at all times, and that takes persons or a person with that special talent to find the necessary replacement. The commander is only as good as the person who puts him there? I dunno, but it vexes me sometimes.

[sheerahkahn]

there are good officers, a lot of mediocre officers, and the rest are terrible.
Unfortunately, the terrible outnumber the mediocre, imo, three to one...which, as I think about it, pretty much follows the trend in civilian life in regards to management.

What concerns me is that in civilian life, when the management gets political we can cap their shenanigans with voting, rallys, marches, and editorials...when the military gets political.../gulp...and with our current culture of "warrior worship".../gulp...it does make me perspire a wee bit too much.
The thing is this...Petraeus is political, and the fact that he's the Republican's dream boy and quite possibly, in our current social/political culture, their last "great white hope"...I'm a little concerned that this whole thing is looking a little manufactured.
By whom?
I dunno...but it seems way to convienent in how this has all played out...once again, the politics of DC, as did the Politics of the Senate in Rome in regards to German Campaigns, seems to dictate the direction we're heading in as a nation.

[tammy swofford]

Possibly my view as a lowly Navy nurse (think bottom of the food chain)is unworthy of this discussion. But reading the article in question, my gut response was quite different. I found reason to cheer. It reminded me of the unique camraderie which is shared amongst people who have agreed to a willingness to have their butts shot off for average pay and a few ribbons.

Barracks politics and quarterdeck chatter, field bravado ("You do that again I am going to stick my dick in your ear....") being what it is, the reporter seemed to give an insider's view to the manner in which military men and women can blow off steam one minute, and the next, stand in rank with both fidelity and loyalty to mission.

One of my finer moments was at cold weather training at Fort McCoy, feeling a nasal hair snap off like an icycle whilst my eyelashes collected ice crystals due to a prolonged muster. I cut loose on the command staff later that night within the privacy of the barracks, but do recall the whole experience favorably. Under the cloth of each uniform, a committed American.

While not knowing the remainder of the story - the clash of wills between two powerful men - I retain the belief that the penalty was too severe and a career officer was left with the word "stigma" as the word marked across his officer record. Political spleen is not to be confused with backbone.

Tammy Swofford

[FDChief]

The article made it pretty clear that what was going on among McChrystal's dogrobbers and staff weenies was more than blowing off steam, bravado, or chatter. "Team America" - despite the fact that the military situation in Afghanistan and its environs is no better, and probably worse than when they took over - was flat-out convinced that they knew better, and WERE better, than the sorry civilian pukes they were supposed to be "working" for.

And it's worth remembering that these WEREN'T the guys "getting their butts shot off". They were PAO types, staff aides, REMFs, for lack of a better word. They fulminating and frustrations weren't the result of having had their buddies blown apart; they were because they felt like they were the only ones with the military Midas Touch and they were being held back by nellies in civilian clothes from turning the back-ass of central Asia into geopolitical gold.

Bachevich pins down the most critical thing this entire mess reveals; that this "Long War", like every long war, is ruinous to the society and polity that fights it. And especially to a popular democracy. In war, you do things that are immediately detrimental to people, to liberties, to economies, to societies, because the consequence of being conquered is so much worse. But here we're getting all the trappings of war without the real danger. AQ and the Afghan Taliban aren't going to dictate peace on the steps of the Capitol; "victory" and "defeat" in this "war" are meaningless in the bigger picture of the U.S. national welfare. McChrystal and Company - and, I suspect, many more officers of his ilk - completely forgot that in their need to be the Kings of Battle.

We need to get control of this foolish adventuring, or it will surely get control of us.

[tammy swofford]

COIN doctrine is flawed. It was written from the perspective of a Western mind. We lack strategic depth in the intellectual battlespace re: cultural terrain of geopolitical Islam.

Tammy Swofford

[Ray]

Yes, agreed, Tammy; it is that the practising Muslim world sees things and propounds a spiritual perspective-and without country in the Western sense. Death or injury in the name of that way of life and expected rewards is not a deterrent but to be embraced. So-called moderates are more inclined, I was told by some in the old Bedouin, Jordan, many years ago (has the attitude/interpretation by them changed- I don't know) that the Book should be seen holistically, not bits taken and put on and off like a jacket for the moment's convenience. So, as Shakespeare said, the quality of mercy is not (my brackets-should not be) strained.
Still we see the latter in all religions, even Christianity. But what, written orders, military policy could pursue your principle in the tactical sense. I suppose you brief your patrols and in training to adapt an attitude conducive to what you suggest.

I thought that was what COIN was partly to achieve; but perhaps "they" aren't listening, because it wasn't done from the outset.

[tammy swofford]

Islam is not a religion, it is more aptly described in Western terms as a gestalt - a physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configeration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.

On their side, it is described as a "deen", or total system of life. It is governance with a doctrine of expansionism.

R/Tammy

[FDChief]

Allow me to suggest that you're both trying to read too much into this "Islam is a dianetics-like-cult" thing.

The people in Muslim countries don't like it that we bankroll Israel, our 21st Century crusader state.

They don't like it that we bankroll a list of unsavory Middle Eastern despots because they agree to support us in return for our cash.

They don't like it that we have shown a rather casual willingness to invade other Muslim countries, kill the people in them, and hang around occupying them for reasons that, while they may sound convincing to the Donnie Rumsfelds, Kagans, and Cheneys, are somewhat less than convincing to them.

We objected to some rather less aggro behavior from the British about 250 years ago and it didn't really have much to do with our Calvinists loving them some death and injury.

Likewise, the failure of counterinsurgency has little to do with whether its being applied to Muslims, Vietnamese Buddhists, or El Salvadorian Catholics. It has a lot more to do with the fact that when you are crushing a rebellion you can do it with exceptional savagery - in which case you stand some chance of succeeding - or not, in which case you will not. The British couldn't do successful COIN on us, we couldn't do it on the Vietnamese because both of us didn't go all Roman on them.

You'll note that the Sri Lankans seem to have done just fine against the Muslim Tamils and the Russians on the Muslim Chechens.

Figuring out why fighting a colonial war in a Muslim state while not acting like a colonial power is a mug's game doesn't require summoning the weird ju-ju powers of Islam. Just read your history.

Go Roman, or go home.

That's all.

[Ray]

Casuistry of half-truths. If you believe that "hearts and minds" is a policy to pursue, then the respective knowledge of how people experience their daily lives must be followed; musdt show respect to the ruling class.
FD Chief, the British did indeed pursue that policy with many of their subjects; indeed, married into the Indian aristoracy and there was no colour bar etc until the Vitorians came along with the Empire conceit. As for early America, we all spoke the same language and shared the same social skills. At the beginning of the War for Independence it was by no means a collective effort- it looked a damed close run thing, until it gathered momentum.
I do read my history, and try to get into it's shoes and walk around in them, against my prejudices where I can see them, and it isn't always comfortable.

What you say about Islam in the present context shouldn't be confused with other countries histories. The cultures count, the languages are different, and the topography dictates a lot of lives differently to other places. Butcher, baker, candelstick maker...

[Ray]

PS sorry about the spelling errors- got a damned cramp in my leg but I wouldn't stop my alleged trains of thought!

[Ray]

Tammy: "...its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts." That's correct, and at the same time holds the opposite answer to the proposition it submits- the academic's view; it always fails to understand and never uses that awkward term "spiritual". It can't because it doesn't feel it. You never will hold your own in a war unless you try to understand both the enemy and the friends within the culture you engage with.Rome knew that- and used foriegn cohorts, leaving them to fight in their own way for Rome, as well as being often commanded from among their own ranks.
(I can give many examples- all from sources
FD Chief's view is, I believe, that we should pull out of the war and deal with those consequences of aftermath outside the war-torn country. The aftermath, however, will be experienced differently for America to that of the UK, because back in our home nations there are different priorities, and I may add, different citizens- we have large resident (British)Commonwealth and home -born peoples from all over- including Pakistan and India...As well as Muslims;the latter do not worship Gestalt symbols, which are not, in the main, likely to cause wars.
As for "Rome": it did not often use home-grown troops or commanders to further it's Imperial aims. On the contrary, it increasingly used a great many cohorts from foreign climes. 5,500 Samartians were sent to Britain by Marcus Aurelius
(Kleim and Klumbach, Der Romische Schatsfund von Straubing,1951.Taf.20 and 21.) space prevents me from giving many, many examples.

[tammy swofford]

Ray,

Whilst most people are talking about Islam I have sustained tremendous dialogue within the Muslim community - both friend and entrenched foe. The research cubicle remains sterile until primary source documents interface with actual meals and cups of coffee with the players.

The Qur'anic Sciences are cryptographic - not necessarily like the cabbalistic system of Gematria (called isopsephism by the Greeks), but unique in their own right.(Hence the conversion of Nero Caesar in Hebrew letters to the number of the Beast - 666) You must enter literary chain of command structures such as "silsila" - an unbroken chain of mentorship extending from Muhammad to the present, into Al-Ikhwan and yes, AQ loyalists - to attain strategic depth. (check, check, check) Been there, done that.

Focus on Qu'an, Hadith and perhaps Seerah - negates the potency of the other literary sub-disciplines such as Maghazi literature (the battles of Muhammad), Shamail literature (attributes of Muhamamd)Dalail literature (miracle performed) and the distinct science which places grammar in eloquent style, feeding into the smaller literary field known as Na'at (in Urdu and Persian) and Madah al Nabi in Arabic.

The rest.... not in the public corridor. smile

Tammy

[Ray]

wa alaykum al-salam...

[a weary warrior/loggie]

Scary stuff.

We few, we band of brothers against the vast Muslim, who sound a lot like Scientologists with beards, world conspiracy against Chritianity.

I remember this same crap about the "Communist" Vietnamese.

There are lots of ways to rationalize killing other people.