Biden, The Marshmallow In Chief, Has Learned Nothing About Iran And Afghanistan

 Gary Anderson at the Washington Times offers his take on President Biden’s announced withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted in a memoir that Joe Biden has been wrong on every national security issue that he has ever been involved in. Like the French in the Hundred Years War, Mr. Biden appears to have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. He is showing this regarding both Iran and Afghanistan. 

The Iranians are clearly determined to get nuclear weapons. They may be willing to delay that goal to get rid of sanctions, but — like the Germans after World War I — they will subvert international attempts to monitor their weapons program. President Obama was so desperate to get a deal in 2015, that he got virtually nothing in return for a worthless agreement. The Iranians continued bad behavior in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.  

Our new marshmallow in chief appears to be heading in the same direction. The Israelis are made of sterner stuff; they showed it last week with a non-kinetic attack cyber-attack on an Iranian nuclear facility that was clearly engaged in weapons work. Few informed observers doubt that Israel will act kinetically if they believe Iran is on the cusp of getting the bomb. Perhaps President Biden believes that Israel will do his job for him, but if that happens, he will appear to be an even weaker sister than our opponents in the world are obviously learning that he is. 

Regarding Afghanistan, President Trump was wrong in agreeing to a May 1 deadline for withdrawal. He was pandering to the isolationist far right of his party; by setting an arbitrary Sept. 11 withdrawal, Mr. Biden is surrendering to the far left of his. As with Iran, by taking the military card off the table, Mr. Biden is leaving himself with no diplomatic leverage. 

In leaving Afghanistan, the president is ostensibly freeing himself to concentrate on Russia and China; what conclusions these two bad actors are drawing from Iran and Afghanistan? It is very possible that Vladirmir Putin and Xi Jinping will try to see how far they can push before the president acts. That situation will make the world a far more dangerous place.  

Afghanistan is not an “endless war.” Our presence there more closely resembles our continued involvement in Germany, Japan or Korea. Quite frankly, our service people in those countries stand a statistically greater chance of dying in a traffic accident than our forces serving in Afghanistan. Other than isolationists on the far left and right, few Americans think about Afghanistan — or Iraq for that matter — at all. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/17/biden-the-marshmallow-in-chief-has-learned-nothing/ 

Why The United States Must Stay In Syria

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel who was a U.N. observer in the Middle East and a Department of State governance adviser in Iraq and Afghanistan, offers a piece in the Washington Times on why we should stay in Syria.

Defense Secretary James Mattis was right to resign. President Trump is hard to help. When your enemies tell you that you are screwing up, chances are that at least some of what you are doing is right. When your friends tell you are screwing up, it may be a good time to at least re-evaluate your plan. But when everyone tells you that you’re screwing up, you are probably really screwing up. Mr. Trump is in danger of thoroughly screwing up in withdrawing our troops from northeastern Syria. He should re-evaluate his decision.

Mr. Trump’s Democratic Party enemies in Congress jumped on his announcement immediately as did The Washington Post, but so did many of his erstwhile Republican allies. He is also going against the recommendations of his secretary of Defense, James Mattis, and his senior military advisers as well as the majority of Middle East experts in the national security community.

The irony here is that — in cutting and running from Syria — the president is doing in Syria the same thing that he successfully criticized President Obama for doing in Iraq. The Democrats will have a field day with it in 2020. There is absolutely nothing to be gained politically by the Syrian withdrawal. This is a self-inflicted wound.

… The only people applauding the Syrian withdrawal are the Syrian government, the Iranians and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. At a time when he is being investigated for colluding with Moscow, the last thing Mr. Trump needs is to hand the Russians a foreign policy victory with no corresponding quid pro quo for us.

The American presence in the remote backwater of northeastern Syria has served three very important purposes. First, it prevents the 2,000 or so survivors of ISIS who once ruled the area from regrouping in the political vacuum that allowed them to gain power in the first place.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/23/why-the-united-states-must-stay-in-syria/?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=manual&utm_campaign=20171227&utm_

term=newsletter&utm_content=morning&bt_ee=rsbontWoVt20Gk%2F%2F4FxxeYxfiOF4WPl2i

Lr%2FddkCk1H1eGEzmqXDlq3uyTT4Lb8t&bt_ts=1545651491396

James Webb's 'Fields Of Fire': A Look Back At The Finest Novel To Come Out Of The Vietnam War

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel, offers a review in the Washington Times of what I believe is the best novel to come out of the Vietnam War, James Webb’s Fields of Fire. 

“Fields of Fire” is the finest piece of literature to come out of the Vietnam War, and it has been republished on the 40th anniversary of the original. This will give a whole new generation of readers a chance to understand the reality of Vietnam vice the caricatures that have been portrayed since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

“Fields of Fire” launched the very successful literary career of its author, James Webb, who has gone on to write a number of other best-sellers. Along the way he has also served as a Reagan administration official — most notably as secretary of the Navy — and as a Democratic senator from Virginia.

Vietnam was an infantryman’s war, and Mr. Webb (seen in the below photos) describes the day-to-day experience of a Marine Corps infantry platoon in graphic and gritty detail. It is not a fun book to read, nor is it meant to be. The soldiers and Marines who comprised the bulk of our Vietnam infantry were thrown into some of the nastiest conditions ever experienced by American warriors.

Small platoons and companies spent weeks at a time in the bush fighting the Viet Cong insurgents and North Vietnamese regulars. Their only communication with the rest of the world during these sweeps was occasional helicopter resupply to bring in more ammo, food and mail as well as to evacuate the dead and wounded — of which there were many. It was not unusual for an infantry platoon to suffer over 100 percent casualties in the course of a “grunts” tour. Although the characters in the novel are Marines, Army infantry veterans of the Vietnam War will be reminded of their own experiences.

The book seems real because it is. It is a novelized version of Mr. Webb’s tour in Vietnam. The book’s characters are real people with fictional names. The Marines are a mix of ghetto kids, hillbillies and lower-middle, middle-class youngsters whose parents could not afford to get them into college and the accompanying student draft deferment. Most did not want to be there, but they got very good at what they did.

… Mr. Webb was one of the most highly decorated Marine Corps officers to come out of Vietnam. The fact that the survivors of his platoon — and later his company — remain close to him is a tribute to his leadership skills. This reissue of the book will introduce a new generation of military personnel and their civilian masters to the reality of a war that we don’t want to repeat.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/11/book-review-fields-of-war-by-james-webb/

You can read also read my Washington Times piece on the Vietnam War via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/31/vietnam-war-helped-us-win-the-cold-war/ 

A Birthday Challenge For The Marine Corps

Happy birthday to the U. S. Marine Corps from an old, former sailor.

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel, looks back at Marine Corps history and it’s future in a piece in the Washington Times.

Starting an organization in a bar is a risky proposition, and one of two things can happen. First, it might degenerate into a drunken brawl — the alternative is that you will end up with a very interesting organization. In the case of the U.S. Marine Corps, the second happened.

When it began recruiting at Tunn Tavern in Philadelphia following a 1775 act of the Continental Congress, the Marine Corps consisted of a few hundred qualified riflemen designated to act as shipboard policemen, provide the nucleus for boarding parties and provide snipers to fire at the crews of opposing ships. It would have taken a very prescient visionary in 1775 to envision an organization of nearly 200,000 with its own air force. Despite its present size and prestige, the Marine Corps has been on the endangered species list a number of times approaching its 243d birthday on Nov. 10. This year, its existence is not in question, but its core mission may be.

… The Marine Corps‘ official motto is Semper Fidelis (always faithful), but its unofficial motto has always been “we do windows.” That attitude has served the Corps and its nation well.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/nov/7/a-birthday-challenge-for-the-marine-corps/

Note: In the above released photo U.S. Marine Sgt. Bryan Early, a squad leader assigned to 1^st Battalion, 9^th Marine Regiment, leads his squad of Marines in Afghanistan in 2013. The photo was taken by Cpl Austin Long. 

The Art Of War By Sun Tzu: A New Translated By Peter Harris

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine colonel, offers a review in the Washington Times of a new translation of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

Military theory comes in two forms. The first is an attempt to understand the nature of war and its relation to politics. Clausewitz and Machiavelli represent the best of this school.

The second and more prevalent form falls into the “how to do it” category. Most such works in this type of venue are written by former successful practitioners of the art and science of war. Most military professionals would agree that Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” remains at the top of the former list. Peter Harris has given us a new translation, and perhaps a new twist, on this timeless classic.

Chinese in either its Mandarin or Cantonese versions, is a notoriously hard language to translate into English. As in Arabic, some characters have multiple meaning depending on the context in which they are used. Most former military officers of the Vietnam era were raised on Marine Brig. Gen. Samuel Griffith’s 1963 translation. 

Griffith’s translation became popular during the Vietnam War because North Vietnam’s brilliant Gen. Giap was known to be a Sun Tzu student, as was Chairman Mao, who was then considered to be the primary sponsor of the North’s cause.

Before 1963, Western interest in Sun Tzu was spotty at best. It is highly unlikely that Erwin Rommel or George Washington had ever read Sun Tzu, but both made excellent use of deception, feigned retreats, reconnaissance and surprise to win their most notable victories in ways recommended in “The Art of War.” 

Critics of Sun Tzu have complained that he depends too much on the non-military aspects of war fighting rather than the mere act of trying to kill more of the enemy than he kills of you.

Washington used campfires to cloak his disengagement from a superior enemy in several situations. Rommel won many battles by withdrawing his smaller tank force through a line of the superb 88-millimeter anti-tank guns allowing those weapons to break the momentum of the pursuing British allowing his tanks to counterattack on more favorable terms. Sun Tzu would have approved in both cases.

Mr. Harris tends more than Griffith to emphasize the non-military aspects of national power — economic, information, diplomatic means.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/12/book-review-the-art-of-war-by-sun-tzu/ 

Brutal Battles Of Vietnam: America's Deadliest Days

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel, reviewed Brutal Battles of Vietnam: America's Deadliest Days for the Washington Times.

During the Paris Peace talks in the early 1970s, American Col. Harry Summers was talking to his North Vietnamese counterpart during a break. Summers reportedly told the Vietnamese that we had won every battle in the war. The Vietnamese replied, “That is true, but it is also irrelevant.” It is not irrelevant to the surviving veterans who fought those battles or to the families of Americans who did not return.

With the exception of Hue City and Khe Sanh, most of the big battles have faded into history. We are as far in time from Vietnam today as we were from World War I in 1967, and the sacrifices of those who fought the war are in danger of being forgotten by the majority of the American people. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) strive mightily to keep those memories alive. “Brutal Battles of Vietnam” is an attempt to recreate those desperate battles largely in the words of those who fought them.

The book is the culmination of a seven-year project of articles from the VFW magazine. Each chapter focuses on a specific battle and there are separate chapters on the naval and air wars. The book is edited by Richard K. Kolb, who wrote the majority of the magazine articles that make up the anthology. Each chapter is painstakingly researched and the interviews with participants of the battles represent primary sources in a way that has not been done in any of the literature of the war that I have come across. In addition to some excellent photographs, this readable volume lists the award winners of the highest medals for heroism.

… When Americans think of Vietnam, they generally see it as a tragic mistake. A few years ago, I talked with a former Soviet-era Russian general who had another view. He told me that the fact that we had fought for so long to contain communism in Vietnam, and recovered so quickly that in four years we would wage a counterattack against the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan, had a profoundly sobering effect in the Kremlin, and may well have contributed materially to the decline of the Soviet Union. At least someone was paying attention.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/26/book-review-brutal-battles-of-vietnam-americas-dea/  

Hue 1968

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine colonel, offers a review of Mark Bowden’s Hue 1968 for the Washington Times.

A few years ago, I was lecturing my students on strategic surprise. I asked each of them to write paragraph on how surprise was used at Hue in 1968 based on what they knew of it. With few exceptions, the reply was that Hue was the battle where the Viet Cong won the war in a general uprising. These were graduate students, and their woeful knowledge of the Vietnam War was gained through the state of education in our high schools and undergraduate college programs. Their ignorance is more a comment on the “liberal” in liberal arts than in any defect in my students.

Today, we are chronologically as far removed from Vietnam as my generation was from World War I in 1968; and its lessons are in danger of being lost. Mark Bowden tries to remedy this with his excellent new book, “Hue 1968.”

Mr. Bowden points out that the Tet Offensive campaign, of which Hue was the major battle, was a strategic surprise that ranks along with Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11 as a colossal American intelligence failure. However, it was not planned and fought by peasant Viet Cong (VC) guerrillas. It was planned by the North Vietnamese general staff and political leaders in Hanoi and fought largely by regular regiments of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA); the VC were relegated to being scouts, guides, suicide sappers, and cannon fodder.

The NVA and Viet Cong lost every tactical engagement and failed to achieve their primary objective, a popular uprising that would topple the South Vietnamese government and force the Americans out of the war. However, Tet was the turning point of the war because America’s leaders were discredited by the surprise and lost the confidence of a significant portion of the American public. Tet ruined Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. There was no “light at the end of the tunnel.” Although the last U.S. bombs would not fall until 1973, the North Vietnamese had irretrievably gained the psychological advantage.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/30/book-review-hue-1968-a-turning-point-of-the-americ/  

Narconomics: How To Run A Drug Cartel

Gary Anderson offers a good review in the Washington Times of Tom Wainwright's Narconomics: How To Run a Drug Cartel. 

”Narconomics” is the book that Sean Penn wanted to write. Tom Wainwright may not have interviewed Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, but he did talk to drug kingpins every bit as ruthless and intimidating in writing this book. Along the way, Mr. Wainwright also talked to cops, hitmen, national presidents and addicts. He is one of the luckiest journalists alive just to have survived his research. The work that he has produced argues his thesis that the drug industry is run on very similar lines to companies such as McDonald’s or Wal-Mart; he makes a convincing case. Mr. Wainwright is an investigative journalist who is an editor for the Economist magazine; he began this project while covering Mexico, Latin America and the U.S. border for that publication.

Mr. Wainwright argues that most successful drug cartels operate like Wal-Mart in that they have a virtual monopoly on the product at the source of supply. The farmers who produce the basic cocoa, poppies or marijuana have no choice but to sell to a single buyer in their respective areas. This helps to explain why drug prices remain relatively inelastic and why eradication efforts fail; there are always sellers someplace to sell at the buyer’s price.

Like Mc Donald’s, some cartels such as the Mexican Zetas have also found franchising to be an effective business model. This is a symbiotic relationship. The cartel finds a local criminal gang that wants to expand its business. That gang knows the local territory and has established relationships. The franchise gets the brand name of the major cartel and its protection against other cartels for a cut of the franchise profits. Like McDonald’s and Burger King, the cartel has to maintain quality control. The difference between quality control in the fast food franchise business and the drug trade is that a drug franchise that comes up short may find its members hanging from a highway overpass.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/27/book-review-narconomics-how-to-run-a-drug-cartel/ 

The New Tsar: The Rise And Reign Of Vladimir Putin

Gary Anderson at the Washington Times offers a review of Steven Lee Meyers' The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.  

Some traditional American allies are beginning to view the United States as a nation of lions led by a sheep, and Russia as a nation of sheep led by a lion. For several years now, Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently outthought and outmaneuvered a seemingly hapless President Obama on the world stage. Perceptions are everything, and Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is in tatters; it is too late to salvage that. The next American president will have to show our allies that our country still has resolve and can be trusted. To do that, our next commander-in-chief must be able to deal firmly with Mr. Putin. If knowing your adversary is key to dealing with him, our next president should read “The New Tsar,” Steven Lee Myers’ biography of Mr. Putin.

Mr. Myers traces Mr. Putin’s rise from the only surviving child of a poor Russian war hero workingman in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) of the defunct Soviet Union to the leadership of a newly assertive Russia. The author does so in a no-nonsense narrative that largely avoids hyperbole while explaining the development of the psyche of a world leader.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link: 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/25/book-review-the-new-tsar-the-rise-and-reign-of-vla/  

Days Of Rage: America's Underground, The FBI And The Forgotten Age Of Revolutionary Violence

Gary Anderson offers a good review of Bryan Burrough's Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence for the Washington Times.

As a Marine Corps second lieutenant in 1971, the first article I wrote for the Marine Corps Gazette addressed the real possibility of an urban civil war in which the military might be called on to fight radical elements of my own generation who were advocating and actively working for the violent overthrow of the United States government. Looking back over four decades, my concern now seems unwarranted, but at the time, it was a very troubling possibility. Most Americans who lived through the era want to forget its violent antics, but author Bryan Burrough believes they should be documented. “Days of Rage” is his attempt to do so. He probably gives us more information than we need to know, but it is an instructive read for those who are interested.

Mr. Burrough chronicles how extreme elements along with the predominately benign flower power and civil rights movements morphed into homegrown terrorist groups attempting to foment the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Their brief period in the limelight, and their eventual fade into irrelevance and obscurity, are now a historical oddity. Unlike the Civil War, there are no “Lost Cause” legends; nor are there Daughters of American Seventies Radicals organizations to keep the myth alive.

Until the present millennials, the baby boom generation was perhaps the most pampered that the nation had ever produced. Concerned that their children should never have to live through the Depression of their youth, parents tried to give their offspring what they themselves didn’t have as children. By the time my generation was college age, many fell prey to the hedonism of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Faced with a war in Vietnam, many males justified their avoidance of it by claiming that the war was immoral. Crowds chanted, “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, the NLF is going to win!” and waved Viet Cong flags at the troops. That protest movement morphed into the more radical Weathermen, and finally to the extreme violence of the Weather Underground.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/13/book-review-days-of-rage-americas-radical-undergro/

Churchill's First War: Young Winston At War With The Afghans

Gary Anderson offers a review in the Washington Times of Conn Coughlin's Churchill's First War: Young Winston at War With the Afghans.

With the possible exception of his archenemy Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill saw more front-line combat than any leader of the 20th century as a young man. Con Coughlin’s excellent new book chronicles young Winston's first real taste of battle and its formative influence on one of the great leaders of the British Empire.

Churchill had mapped out his life at an early age, and with his legendary sense of purpose, he achieved and exceeded his early ambitions.

... Acting as a soldier-journalist, he got his chance for combat, in a brief and brutal campaign with the Malakand Field Force’s punitive expedition against Pashtun insurgents on the northwest frontier with Afghanistan.

The climax of the book is the battle of Shahi-Tangi, where Churchill came very close to being killed in close combat, but he was “mentioned in dispatches” for heroism. It was the next best thing to getting a medal. Although he would become much better known for his adventures in the South African Boer War, Churchill had begun the reputation as a soldier-journalist that would be the springboard to his political career.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/23/book-review-churchills-first-war/?page=all#pagebreak

Robert Gates' "Duty: Memoirs Of A Secretary At War"

Gary Anderson wrote a review of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War for the Washington Times.

Some memoirs are written to explain or apologize, and some are written to settle scores. Although Robert M. Gates' “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” settles some scores, my sense is that he wrote it to get his whole experience as secretary of defense behind him. He certainly doesn’t need to apologize. By most accounts, he is one of the best to serve as defense secretary since the post was created in the middle of the last century; he is certainly the best wartime leader we have had in the job.

Mr. Gates accepted the job from President Bush in 2006 when the war in Iraq was at its nadir and the conflict in Afghanistan was unraveling. By the time he left in 2011, Iraq was under control and Afghanistan had at least stabilized, and he dramatically improved the condition of medical care and evacuation for wounded service members. He also accomplished the near-impossible by reining in Defense Department expenditures, which had spiraled badly out of control since 2001. He did not seek the job and came increasingly to despise it. His tenure wasn’t perfect, and he owns up to his many mistakes.

What Mr. Gates obviously regrets is that the venal and self-serving nature of many in Congress and on the White House staff falls far short of the example set by our Founding Fathers and the nation’s leaders in most of our past wars.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/17/obama-did-not-believe-in-the-strategy-he-approved/

Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story Of Blackwater And The Unsung Heroes Of The War On Terror

Gary Anderson offers a good review of Erik Prince's Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror in today's Washington Times.

Civilian Warriors” is a spirited defense by Mr. Prince of himself and his company, and nothing in the book dampened my admiration for what he was trying to do, and what he succeeded in doing. It is a good read, because he spins an exciting yarn, but it is also a potential handbook for young entrepreneurs on how to start and grow a company on a shoestring if a person sees a marketing niche for his company.

... When Iraq and Afghanistan happened, Blackwater was uniquely positioned to protect American diplomats and other officials tasked with trying to rebuild those two shattered countries. Using retired special operators, Marines and other combat veterans, Blackwater provided that protection and went beyond the call of duty to assist American troops in both countries when all other means of assistance failed.

The second portion of the book details Blackwater’s fall. Mr. Prince freely admits to mistakes, both personal and professional, but I agree with his assessment that much of its downfall was a result of opportunistic left-wing politicians, hysterical blogging by anti-war pseudo-journalists and ambulance-chasing lawyers. Most disappointing was the company’s betrayal by officials at the State Department. That organization benefited the most from Blackwater’s protection; not one department official that the company guarded was ever killed or seriously wounded under its protection. One has to wonder if Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens might still be alive had Blackwater been around to protect him.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/9/book-review-civilian-warriors/

Benghazi: The Definitive Report

Gary Anderson at the Washington Times reviews a new ebook on the Benghazi incident.

This is a “first report” e-book that was obviously rushed to publication. The definitive book on the Benghazi debacle still needs to be written, and this isn’t it. “Benghazi: The Definitive Report” has problems.

The authors are former special operations soldiers and work for an on-line publication called SOFREP.com. The book contains some startling revelations, and for that, it is worth reading. However, the first part of the book wanders from Libya to Mali to Syria, making it hard for the reader to see where it is going and why. This is too bad because the second half is a gripping account of the attack on the American consulate and the CIA compound in Benghazi that reads like a thriller, but its lack of footnotes renders its credibility suspect at best. The book makes some dynamite accusations, but the lack of citations makes it impossible to verify their credibility. 

The authors claim that the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were probably premeditated and not a result of a reaction to a movie portraying Islam in a bad light. They also state that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton learned of the situation too late to do anything about it.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/25/book-review-benghazi-the-definitive-report/

My Share Of The Task: A Memoir By Retired General Stanley McChrystal

Gary Anderson, a retired Marine Corps colonel, wrote an interesting review of retired General Stanley McChrystal's book, My Share of the Task: A Memoir and Fred Kaplan's The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot To Change the American Way of War.

The review appeared in the Washington Times. 

Counterterrorism (CT in military argot) and counterinsurgency (COIN) are two very different things that are sometimes used interchangeably by politicians and journalists not familiar with the national security community’s often confusing tribal language. CT is killing or capturing terrorists and breaking up their networks. COIN is an attempt to wean a local population away from insurgents and to convince those people to support, or at least tolerate, their own government. Each requires different skill sets, and both are things that a host nation should do once it is able. That is not always possible in the early stage of the conflict; and this was the case in Afghanistan and Iraq, albeit for different reasons. The two books that this review addresses are about men who mastered each of these skills in Iraq, but who found Afghanistan a much more difficult challenge.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s book, “My Share of the Task,” is an autobiography. For most of his career, the author was a fairly conventional soldier, but he had shown an early interest in unconventional operations. As a qualified airborne officer, and a graduate of the Army’s Ranger Course, he sought out a chance to gain an assignment in the elite Ranger Regiment, and eventually was assigned to the even more elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) counterterrorist force, which he rose to command. In Iraq, he wore two hats as commander of JSOC and its Iraqi Manifestation, TF 714. As the counterterrorist commander in Iraq, he transformed his unit from a team of rivals into a network that combined intelligence with direct capture-kill operations and was responsible for the eventual capture of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of the notorious Abu Musab al Zarqawi.

On The Insurgents, Anderson writes:

It’s a warts-and-all account of how people like Gen. Petraeus, Lt. Col. John Nagl, Maj. Gen. H.R. McMaster and others strove to get the Army to readopt counterinsurgency doctrine, which the Army had dropped like a hot potato after the debacle of Vietnam. They succeeded in doing so in Iraq, but suffered a setback in Afghanistan. Here, both books converge.

Gen. McChrystal took over the war in Afghanistan when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates fired his predecessor. He moved from CT to COIN, and the move from the largely tactical level of war to the realm of strategy was not smooth. However, Gen. McChrystal was smart enough to know that he was in a dogfight. He describes Americans dealing with Afghans as akin to high school students walking into a Mafia bar. I always had that feeling in my meetings with Afghans, but lack the general’s gift of metaphor to express it.

When Gen. McChrystal was, in turn, forced to resign over remarks that his staff made to a disingenuous Rolling Stone reporter, Gen. Petraeus took a demotion to replace him. Like all of us who had success in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus found Afghanistan to be a much harder slog. When he left after a year, he had made progress, but not as much as he would have liked.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jan/22/book-review-my-share-of-the-task/

Note: General Stanley McChrystal appears in the above DOD photo.