Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism by David Kilcullen, New York Times book review by Rajan Menon
Kilcullen has an impressive résumé. A former officer in Australia’s military with a doctorate in political anthropology, he has served a number of senior American civilian officials (Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice) and generals (David Petraeus in Iraq and Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan). “Blood Year,” a breezy survey of the West’s antiterrorism campaigns, has a message: The strategy Kilcullen helped design has failed, as witness the emergence of ISIS. The Iraq war — needless and ineptly waged, he says — was a godsend to Al Qaeda, which used the wrath it provoked to “aggregate” the grievances of militants worldwide. Kilcullen rehashes the standard criticisms of that debacle. But even its vociferous critics will find his comparison of President Bush’s Iraq war to Hitler’s attack on Russia overwrought. And resorting to inferential excess, Kilcullen contends that President Obama’s failure to punish Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria encouraged Vladimir Putin’s land grab in Ukraine and saber-rattling over the Baltic States.
Kilcullen explains superbly the multiple paths to jihadism, the numerous ways in which terrorists can strike, the plentiful targets urban societies offer, and antediluvian ISIS’ savvy use of the Internet and social media to attract and train acolytes. He describes the torture, beheadings and massacres perpetrated by the terrorist “Internationale.” Yet such horrifying acts are not positive achievements, and historically, terrorist movements have never shown the capacity to inflict lasting harm on well-ordered states.
Although Kilcullen’s portraits of Iraq and Afghanistan prove that militarized nation-building makes matters worse, his faith in military means (despite caveats) abides…
Comments
Edited and added to little bit:
In the Epilogue (a portion of which I viewed through the "Look Inside" option offered by Amazon) -- and at Page 231 in the subsection entitled "You Can't Fight Without Fighting" -- Kilcullen points to how both Rumsfeld liked, and how Obama likes, the so-called "light footprint" approach to the use of military force.
(Echevarria, of course, suggesting that this such focus is misguided, as the "light footprint" approach is, in his opinion, only feasible for winning battles, and not, as he suggests, viable for winning wars.)
In the Rumsfeld case, this "light footprint" concept would seem to have been shaped by his and other "idealists'" beliefs in such things as "universal (Western) values;" as described, for instance, in this 2002 speech by the then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz at The World Affairs Council:
BEGIN QUOTE
To win the war against terrorism and, in so doing, help shape a more peaceful world, we must speak to the hundreds of millions of moderate and tolerant people in the Muslim world, regardless of where they live, who aspire to enjoy the blessings of freedom and democracy and free enterprise. These are sometimes described as "Western values," but, in fact, they are universal.
END QUOTE
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/677988/posts
Shinseki, it would seem, did not place much -- if any -- faith in these "universal (Western) values" concepts and, accordingly, wanted "several hundred thousand" troops (to be employed indefinitely?) to see the "transformational" job through in Iraq (to wit: the job of transforming Iraq more along modern western political, economic and social lines).
Understanding all this, then should we suggest that President Obama, much like former SecDef Rumsfeld before him, likes the "light footprint" approach because he believes that such things as "universal (Western) values" makes the need for more troops unnecessary?
Or should we understand President Obama's liking of the "light footprint" approach from a completely different perspective from that of former SecDef Rumseld above? To wit: from the perspective that our current president understands that:
a. "Universal (Western) values" have not, in fact, obtained throughout the world. And that, accordingly,
b. The use of military force must be employed to achieve only much less ambitious political objectives? (Thus, political objectives other than transforming outlying states and societies more along modern western political, economic and social lines?)
Thus, to see the "light footprint" determination -- of former SecDef Rumsfeld then and President Obama today -- as being derived from completely opposite viewpoints: In the former SecDef's case, from the "idealist's" point of view? In the case of our current president, from the perspective of "realism?"
(Kilcullen, of course, saying that both of these guys were/are unrealistic and, thus, totally wrong. In Obama's case, in thinking that he can [a] get away with not employing large numbers of troops for [b] extensive/endless/unknown periods of time, this to [c] deal with the problems of resistance to the advance of "universal ([Western] values;" such resistance as is, for example, manifested in the efforts of ISIS, AQ, et. al?)