Four Generals and The Epic Struggle For the Future of The United States Army

What makes an effective wartime general? Hardly an academic question when the United States is ramping up its military efforts in Afghanistan. In The Fourth Star, David Cloud, former Pentagon correspondent for the New York Times, and Greg Jaffe, who covers the Pentagon for The Washington Post, probe this question through the eyes and careers of four distinguished officers who joined the army as second lieutenants after Vietnam and rose to the highest rank - four-star general - during the Iraq insurgency.

This insider's view of officership and the operation of the U.S. Army is based primarily upon interviews with the four generals - John Abizaid, George Casey, Jr., Peter Chiarelli and David Petraeus - and their families, subordinates and others. Cloud and Jaffe are gifted writers, who use their access to these senior commanders to good effect. They provide a lively, personalized account of the successes and setbacks of the four highly able and ambitious servicemen as they climb the military career ladder...

More at The Washington Post.

The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army - Amazon.com

Trying to counter information-savvy enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has rapidly spent nearly $1 billion in the past three years on strategic communications. Paid-for news articles, billboards, radio and television programs, and even polls and focus groups have been sponsored by the U.S. Central Command, which has raised its spending for information operations programs from $40 million in 2008 to $110 million in 2009 to a requested $244 million in 2010.

But when Congress asked this year what the Defense Department across the services and commands proposed spending for strategic communications -- or information operations as it is often called -- in the fiscal 2010 budget, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates found that no one could say because there was no central coordination. The first answer came back at $1 billion, but that was later changed to $626 million. As a result, Gates has multiple studies underway to get a firmer grip over the individual military services' plans for strategic communications next year, according to Pentagon officials...

More at The Washington Post.

This was another year of the vanishing center in America. Despite the election of a president who promised to govern across party and racial lines, partisan division seemed to engulf nearly every important institution and topic - with one notable exception, and that was the U.S. military. So at year's end, I want to examine the person who came to symbolize the military's apolitical unity, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A year from now, I'd love to be able to say there are more Mullens in our national life and fewer Rush Limbaughs.

Mullen managed the military's transition from George W. Bush to Barack Obama, from surging in Iraq to withdrawing U.S. troops. He worked with the new president while Obama painstakingly made the decision to escalate in Afghanistan. Through it all, Mullen managed to remain out of the limelight most of the time, which is where a military leader ought to be. Mullen isn't a flashy operator. He botches his syntax, and he doesn't always finish his sentences. A friend of Mullen's likens him to the actor Walter Matthau - a big man with a meaty face; fit, but slightly rumpled; at once wry and grandfatherly...

More at The Washington Post.

Two days before announcing the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, President Obama informed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal that he was not granting McChrystal's request to double the size of the Afghan army and police. Cost was a factor, as were questions about whether the capacity exists to train 400,000 personnel. The president told McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, to focus for now on fielding a little more than half that number by next October. Ten days after Obama's speech, the U.S. command responsible for training the Afghans circulated a chart detailing the combined personnel targets for the army and police. McChrystal's goal of 400,000 remained unchanged. "It's an open issue," a senior Pentagon official said last week.

Nearly a month after Obama unveiled his revised Afghanistan strategy, military and civilian leaders have come away with differing views of several fundamental aspects of the president's new approach, according to more than a dozen senior administration and military officials involved in Afghanistan policy, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Members of Obama's war cabinet disagree over the meaning of his pledge to begin drawing down forces in July 2011 and whether the mission has been narrowed from a proposal advanced by McChrystal in his August assessment of the war. The disagreements have opened a fault line between a desire for an early exit among several senior officials at the White House and a conviction among military commanders that victory is still achievable on their terms...

Much more at The Washington Post.

... On 24 December 2009, NTM-A/CSTC-A hosted a European Gendarmerie Force (EGF) Reflagging Ceremony to officially mark the activation and participation of the EGF mission within Afghanistan. Honored guests and speakers were: Afghan Minister of Interior Haneef Atmar, the Chief of the French Gendarmerie Force, General Roland Gilles, and the EGF Commander Colonel Jorge Esteves. The ceremony also included 24 members representing all of the EGF members in Afghanistan were reflagged by changing their national headdress for the EGF blue beret and under the NTM-A umbrella, expected to exceed 330 personnel in 2010.

General Gilles led the ceremony stating that the EGF is ready now and he expects more contributions from the EGF participating countries. The main priority is ANCOP training and mentoring of the Afghan Uniformed Police. Minister Atmar followed emphasizing the importance of using trained Afghan Gendarmerie type forces (ANCOP) in high threat areas, and that the EGF under NTM-A will play a critical role in training these ANCOP personnel. We then described the importance of this ceremony to be on par with the activation of NTM-A last month, and emphasized the importance of NATO, the EU and Coalition forces working as a team with the Afghan MoD and MoI to create transparent and trustworthy institutions for the Afghan people. Over 200 personnel witnessed this memorable event.

... the EGF is a rapidly deployable, multinational police force with military status. This organization was established by five European Union Member States - France, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. On 17 December 2008, the Romanian Gendarmerie joined EGF as a full member. The Polish Military Gendarmerie and Lithuanian Public Security Service are contributing partners while the Turkish Jandarma has an observer status.

Currently, 190 Dutch Royal Marechaussee members, French Gendarmes, Italian Carabinieri and Spanish civil guards are deployed in Afghanistan under the EGF flag. Additionally, over 80 members are supporting the Afghan National Police training at Adraskan and Mazar e Sharif, and one of its major contributions will be its committal of nine Police Operational Mentorship Liaison Teams (POMLTs) to bolster the ANP mission...

SWJ note: On 8 December 2009, EGF officially started its operational commintment within the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan is a new operational commitment for EGF assets, already engaged in the EUFOR integrated Police Unit within the framework of the EU Operation Althea in Bosnia Herzegovina. The EGF mission in Afghanistan inlcudes:

- Delivering experts to the NTM-A HQ/CTAG-P command structure;

- Delivering mentors and training advisers to the Afghan National Civil Order Police;

- Providing Police Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams (POMLTs);

- Contributing to the develpment of pre-deployment training requirements and standards for the POMLTs.

NTM-A/CSTC-A - Official Website

European Gendarmerie Force - Official Website

On October 27, 2009, The Asia Foundation released findings from its fifth public opinion poll in Afghanistan, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People, which covers all 34 provinces in the country. The Asia Foundation has conducted five surveys, dating back to 2004, which collectively establish an accurate, long-term barometer of public opinion across the country to help assess the direction in which Afghanistan is moving in the post-Taliban era. The 2009 survey captures the Afghan public's perceptions of reconstruction, security, governance, and attitudes towards government and informal institutions, as well as the 2009 national elections, the status of women, the role of Islam, and the impact of media. The fieldwork for the survey was conducted prior to the August 20 elections, from June 17 -- July 6, 2009, when 648 Afghan men and women conducted in-person interviews with a multi-stage random sample of 6,406 Afghan citizens 18 years of age and older from different social, economic, and ethnic communities in rural and urban across all provinces in Afghanistan.

Read our press release about the survey or download the full report, Afghanistan in 2009: A Survey of the Afghan People. Key findings, FAQ, and Dari and Pashto translations of the key findings and press release are also available.

All four previous surveys, conducted in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008, in Afghanistan are available on our website.

Read the full report at The Asia Foundation.

... If Pakistan truly has given up on its old double game of claiming to back America while allowing a Taliban sanctuary within its borders, now would be a good time to show it's serious. If not, the U.S. has leverage with Islamabad through foreign aid, as well as various military options. U.S. drone strikes can be expanded, including for the first time to Baluchistan, and special forces might be deployed across the porous border.

Both carry diplomatic risks. Though drone strikes have killed about two dozen civilians according to one Pakistani government estimate, the country's press loves to exaggerate the toll to embarrass the government and stoke anti-Americanism. The presence of U.S. troops in Pakistan, if publicized, could also undermine a Zardari government that's taken brave risks to help Washington.

This is where Mr. Obama's decision to announce a July 2011 deadline for beginning to withdraw from Afghanistan has been damaging. Various Administration officials have tried to walk back that deadline, but it has played inside Pakistan as further evidence that the Americans will eventually bug out of the region. Pakistan's military and intelligence services have long hedged their bets by supporting Mullah Omar and the Afghan Taliban in case the U.S. leaves and for fear that India will try to fill any power vacuum in Kabul. Now they have another excuse not to change...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has proposed a major overhaul of the way the Pentagon and State Department do nation-building, seeking to end friction between the bureaucracies by putting them jointly in charge of three huge new funds aimed at stabilizing strife-ridden countries. The proposal is aimed at addressing problems that have dogged the U.S. effort in Iraq and Afghanistan - particularly, disputes over whether civilians or the better-funded military should be in charge of stabilization.

But Gates' proposal goes beyond those conflicts to address what the military increasingly sees as the greatest threat to the United States - failing states such as Yemen and Somalia that could provide a haven for terrorist groups. The proposal would concentrate existing and new money in three long-term funds totaling as much as $2 billion. They would be dedicated to training security forces, preventing conflicts and stabilizing violence-torn societies around the world. The funds would exist separately from the war budgets, and allow for quicker and better-coordinated response to looming or actual conflicts, officials said. In a memo to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Gates noted that the huge increase in Pentagon funding for stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted complaints about the militarization of U.S. foreign policy...

More at The Washington Post.

Retired Army Col. Robert L. Howard, 70, who died Wednesday in Waco, was a Medal of Honor winner who at the time of his death was believed to be the most-decorated living American soldier. Howard will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery...

Howard, who grew up in Opelika, Ala., enlisted in the Army in 1956 at the age of 17 and retired as a full colonel in 1992.

In Vietnam, he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces and spent most of his five tours in the secret Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observation Group, or MACV-SOG, which was an unconventional force whose members were assigned to deep-penetration reconnaissance and interdiction missions. He was nominated three times for the Medal of Honor, which he was awarded in 1971 for the rescue of a seriously wounded platoon leader who was under enemy fire...

COL Robert L. Howard - Tribute Website

COL Robert L. Howard - Wikipedia

COL Robert Howard's Medal Of Honor Citation - KWTX

Medal of Honor Series Video: COL Robert Howard - Pritzker Military Library

Obituary and Online Guest Book - OakCrest Funeral Home, Waco, Texas

... For commanders fighting in some of Afghanistan's most hotly-contested areas, the struggle has been even more intense. How much restraint do you show, before you jeopardize your troops? How do you protect the population, if the Taliban have the freedom to roam and attack at will? When is it time to go "kinetic," and drop the softer approach? There are no easy answers, as I saw this summer with Echo company of the 2/8 Marines. Captain Eric Meador, the company's commander, wanted to spend more time holding shuras and swaying village elders to his cause. But there were too many Taliban in the vicinity, he felt, to allow those peaceful talks to take place. So instead, he sent the majority of his marines out on patrols that were almost certain to turn into firefights. "I call it the eye gouge," Meador told me. "To keep the good areas here relatively calm, you have to go to the enemy and punch him in the chest, punch him in the face."

The conundrum has become even more perplexing in Afghanistan's Arghandab river valley. One battalion of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has been locked in a vicious struggle there that's not only killed 21 U.S. soldiers and more than 50 insurgents in just a few months, Army Times' Sean Naylor reports. "It's led to a popular company commander's controversial replacement and... caused the soldiers at the tip of the spear... to accuse their battalion and brigade commanders of not following the guidance of senior coalition commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal to adopt a 'population-centric' counterinsurgency approach." ...

More at Danger Room.