What ever the outcome of the meeting between General McChrystal and the President, I think it is time to rethink the process by which the war is conducted and I think WWII offers us a better model.
Strategy was conducted in conference with the key allies combining the political and military. Key issues such as Germany First were decided in these meetings. The year of the second front was another key call.
By having such conferences, the commanders could be sure of the resources and of the task ahead. None of this begging for men. All was clear for the Commander. All he had to do was to do.
What is clear for any commander in Afghanistan?
Both Roosevelt and Churchill were served by a top soldier who not only knew their stuff but all the players. More both Marshall and Brooke held their own egos in check. So the political leader could be assured of a sure advice.
The leader of the allied team in Afghanistan has to be a diplomat and subtle. How was McChrystal chosen? Imagine if Patton had been in Ike's job? We might have lost the war. Very poor advice. Based on of course not a clear strategy.
Marshall had his Black Book. He had tested every senior officer. He cleared the decks after the Louisiana Maneuvers and his black book had the names of those who had it. This was war and only the most fitted would get command.
But most important of all - stay or leave - we need to think our way.
If it is leave we need as thoughtful a man as one who would stay. This is General Julian Byng. It was his job to extricate the British (Australian and New Zealanders too) from Gallipoli. The withdrawal was the most brilliant retreat in the annals of war. Byng then went on to command the Canadians in France and was the architect of Vimy. He knew how to pick men and it was his support that made Arthur Currie his Canadian successor.
If it is stay then what does that mean. We have to have a real strategy. Can we rely on the creation of a state? Is this realistic? Can we rely on Karzai? If not then what?
It might mean hold and contain.
After their total defeat, the British had a holding strategy that worked for 100 years. That might work too - but it does demand a bit of homework! I wonder how much the Pentagon know of what the Brits did on the frontier - I bet next to nothing.
But there are officers like Maj Jim Gant who know what they are doing. They know how to do this.
This is not big army. This is not nation building. This is social war where engagement and trust and time all are essential. It means living and being like Afghans. It means being in villages for years - not in an American Compound but in the village putting your life in the hands of those that you are there to serve.
Sounds mad? That is what the Brits did for a century.
Gant is the 21st century 19th century "Social Soldier" who loves and understands the Afghan people and knows how to work within its culture to get results. Underneath "Big Army" are people like Gant who have a lot to contribute if the President is interested in hearing what is practical.
Such a strategy is based on the Tribal and not State idea. It demands a long term attachment to the Tribes and to being there as true brothers. Jim Gant's greatest supporter is the supreme writer of historical fiction today, Steven Pressfield - author of amongst other books - The Afghan Campaign - the story of another campaign that ran into trouble - Alexander the Great.
Here is how he answers the question of whether Americans could do such a job - become those that they serve and escape the bubble of their culture and Big Army:
Men for the job
Tribal Engagement Team members, should this concept be adopted, would be called upon to commit for multiple tours under the loneliest, harshest and most hazardous conditions imaginable. To succeed with the tribe they are assigned to, they would have to demonstrate impeccable combat credentials and, even rarer, possess the “people skills” to establish and maintain rapport across a cultural chasm—Western to Tribal Afghan—that has defeated every outside entity from Alexander the Great to the British and the Soviets. The task would be extraordinarily difficult, dirty and dangerous, and in the end would almost certainly be rewarded neither by career advancement (because the enterprise would be unprecedented and outside the normal channels of military promotion) nor by recognition from the public at large, who in all probability will rarely hear of it and wouldn’t understand or appreciate it if they did.
How can we identify and attract such men?
Do you remember this tiny, three-line ad from the London Times, December 29, 1913?
Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.
5000 volunteers queued up in response to this advertisement, posted by Ernest Shackleton seeking crewmen for his Antarctic expedition.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think our young American warriors would respond with any less enthusiasm than their British cousins did a century ago to a similar call. Do you?
What is the strategy and what is the outcome. These are not the questions for the local commander - they are the questions for the political leadership. If there is a "Coalition" then they should be at the table.
Time to put the unworkable ideas of democracy and national building aside and to bring in people who know what they are doing to advise on what can be done.
Big Army has lost every conflict since WWII - for they miss the political point. Every army that has taken on Afghanistan has lost - including Alexander. Being powerful conventionally is not enough.
Alexander got out by bowing down eventually to the cultural realities of the place - if he could put aside his version of Big Army, then who are we to think we can better him?
