Woodward Spills on Divisive Nat Sec Battles

In an act that will surely fuel the blogosphere and MSM for weeks, the Washington Post released parts of Bob Woodward's latest book, "Obama's Wars," which is due to be released next Monday. It will, at the least, heat up the discussion on the continued erosion of civil-military relations within the US government. I was struck by the inside squabbling between senior civilian and military leaders, White House staff, and NSC staff. Maybe this is typical of all administrations to some degree, but I found it interesting to see how Obama clearly set the political goal of getting out of Afghanistan - in the near term - and how much the military fought against providing options for that goal.

"This needs to be a plan about how we're going to hand it off and get out of Afghanistan," Obama is quoted as telling White House aides as he laid out his reasons for adding 30,000 troops in a short-term escalation. "Everything we're doing has to be focused on how we're going to get to the point where we can reduce our footprint. It's in our national security interest. There cannot be any wiggle room."

Obama rejected the military's request for 40,000 troops as part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end. "I'm not doing 10 years," he told Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting on Oct. 26, 2009. "I'm not doing long-term nation-building. I am not spending a trillion dollars."
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After Obama informed the military of his decision, Woodward writes, the Pentagon kept trying to reopen the decision, peppering the White House with new questions. Obama, in exasperation, reacted by asking, "Why do we keep having these meetings?

I know that many from the left-of-center will claim that this is just indicative of the military-industrial-political complex, driving overseas wars just for the sake of enriching personal coffers. And the right-of-center will claim that this demonstrates how Democrats can't be trusted to listen to the expertise of military generals who have to fight America's wars. I think both arguments miss the main point of the discussion.

Basic Clausewitz 101 - "War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means." When the military leadership stops listening to the political leader's direction, there's a real problem. Obama has correctly (in my opinion) made the judgment that Afghanistan (and Pakistan) is a limited strategic interest not worth ten more years of combat and a trillion dollar investment. It may be that Petraeus (and other military leaders) don't agree. They don't have to. They provide military advice, listen to the President for his commander's intent, salute and move out. This isn't hard stuff.

As Cheryl noted earlier in the month, we all wish for that pony where Obama provides progressive direction and his staff actually carries it out. Actual implementation is much messier than academic discussions, of course. So because Obama met so much institutional resistance to cleanly breaking with past administration direction/inertia on AfPak, he settled for the compromise solution - a limited surge in Afghanistan with a possible drawdown beginning in summer 2011 - instead of either extreme (big surge vs small counterterrorism strategy).

I don't particularly like the White House or NSC staffers, I think they have poorly served the president to date. But it appears there is blame aplenty to go around on the poor development of national security issues. I personally will have to at least thumb through Woodward's book to see this six-page memo that is referenced in the article. Amazing that Woodward is able to get this information and publish it while the administration is still in its first term, but there it is.

Comments

[Mark Ash]

Army Leadership has been a huge problem for a while. After the end of Vietnam they did everything they could to tie the hand of the POTUS with their 'Total Army' concept. The reason the vast majority of combat units stationed in the US were forced to rely heavily on the NG and Reserves to fill out their combat power and support echelons were to prevent the President from sending all but the smallest force for the shortest amount of time to a place where Army leadership didn't want to go. And if the President tired Army leadership would just complain to congress and the media.

While the overall force structure has changed, the mentality hasn't changed.

Does anyone truly think that had the Army's top brass really wanted to deploy ground forces to the Balkins in 1999 they could have a lot quicker? They simply didn't want to fight because it would have been difficult, it wasn't the 'glorious big war' they wanted to fight and they already had Iraq and Korea as the bureaucratic rational for there budget, force levels and end strength. And it didn't help the fact that Wesley Clark wasn't the most beloved general in the army by his peers.

[Michael Drew]

Speaking of Army leadership, are you aware of this little sitch:

http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/09/murder-afghanistan
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http://www.wbur.org/media-player?url=http://www.wbur.org/npr/130026739&title=Father:%20Army%20Ignored%20Complaints%20Of%20Afghan%20Slayings">http://www.wbur.org/npr/130026739&title=Father:%20Army%20Ignored%20Complaints%20Of%20Afghan%20Slayings">http://www.wbur.org/media-player?url=http://www.wbur.org/npr/130026739&title=Father:%20Army%20Ignored%20Complaints%20Of%20Afghan%20Slayings

[J.]

Yeah - see here. Sad stuff.

[Mark Ash]

Of course the son is on trial for murder. He told his father and his father tried to warn the Army. This is just how the military works.

The son is lucky he's not the ONLY one trial. Non-NCOs aren't supposed to tattle on their leadership. It's bad for "discipline".

I'm sure all over the internet there are former and current E-6s through E-9s lamenting "poor" SSgt Gibbs because of his degenerate E-4s and below and the fact the are "blaming" him for everything. Because to them all E-4s and below are degenerates, which excuses you from having to treat them like people and that E-6s and above can do no wrong.

[Mark Ash]

Then again there is the point I failed to make earlier. That is the US Army doesn't think of itself as a geopolitical entity, only a purely 'military' one. You see, military is 'pure' where as political is 'dirtly and unpure'. Because of this they obsess over destroyer the enemy's forces. They believe this will bring them 'military' victory even though victory by it's very nature is always political. They also pretent there is some mystical finality about 'victory'. Victory is only victory as long as both sides agree it is.