COINdinistas and Change in the U.S. Army in 2006
by General David H. Petraeus at AEI Online
... Well, let me take you back some four and a half years. Our effort in Iraq was beginning to struggle. Despite progress in a number of areas, the insurgency was spreading. Levels of violence were escalating. Political progress was at a virtual standstill. And in the wake of the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Shi'a Islam, sectarian violence, in particular, began to grow at an alarming rate. A sense of fear and terror grew through the summer as the violence began to tear apart the very fabric of Iraqi society. And while new operations periodically arrested the downward spiral at various intervals, in their wake the violence grew even more.In truth, by late 2005, a number of us--including my Marine counterpart, General Jim Mattis--had felt it was important to produce a doctrinal manual on counterinsurgency operations. The developments in 2006 heightened the imperative to identify what changes might be necessary in Iraq as well. Indeed, as events marched on in 2006, we increasingly came to recognize the need for change if the forces in Iraq were to arrest a steadily deteriorating situation and help the Iraqis knit back together the fabric of their society.
Now here I want to emphasize the word "we" in that last sentence. What I'm about to describe was not a task I undertook alone. Indeed, you don't change an organization as large as the US Army by yourself. Quite the opposite. I may have been the front man for a good bit of our work, but this was the effort of a team of teams comprised of people who were passionate about transforming our Army. I just happened to be the coach of some of those teams after I left Iraq in the fall of 2005 following a second tour there and in September 2005 became the Commander of the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The position at Fort Leavenworth brought with it considerable influence over the organizations capable of changing the Army as an institution. Indeed, the Combined Arms Center Commander's responsibilities included developing the Army's doctrinal manuals, which are the repositories of our big ideas; supervising some 15 schools and centers across the US that educate all of the Army's leaders; disseminating the big ideas and fostering debate about them through various additional organizations; overseeing the scenarios at the combat training centers where big ideas are put into practice by units preparing to deploy; and, finally, capturing lessons that need to be learned about the application of the big ideas. And that's why the folks at Leavenworth have long claimed to have their hands on the controls of the Army's "Engine of Change."
That notwithstanding, when my assignment to Fort Leavenworth was announced, some suggested I was being sent out to pasture. Indeed, as those of you who have visited that historic post know, it is located in the middle of America's heartland on the west bank of the Missouri River, that wonderful body of water that farmers describe as being too thick to drink and too thin to plow. Some observers--particularly some in this fair city, which reportedly likes to see itself at the center of every map--felt that Fort Leavenworth was a place where you went to think deep thoughts and never be seen again. That, obviously, was not the case...
Much more at American Enterprise Insitute.