Iraq in Retrospective

 This is a comment I posted on Kevin Drum's post looking back at Iraq, which you should read:

"Wish I was blogging then so I'd have a good record of what I was thinking. As best I can remember I was dubious of Afghanistan, given the Soviets failure there, our failure in Vietnam, etc. But it went surprisingly well, and the aftermath seemed to be working well with Karzai getting support.

So with Iraq I was torn. The Post had a reporter who was filing good stories challenging the official line. I still had some skepticism about war. But on the other hand Bush did have Blair on board, and Blair seemed capable and had worked well with Clinton. So I think my attitude when the bombs began to fall was to the effect: I don't think I'd do this if I had the power, but I don't so I hope you're right and can do as well in Iraq as you seem to have done in Afghanistan.?

Ukraine

 Lots of media coverage of the 1-year anniversary of the Russia invasion into Ukraine.

In general I've been in favor of the Biden policy, supporting Ukraine against Russia but avoiding committing US troops. I still am.  But I remember in the early days after 9/11, I had some doubts,never expressed, about the Bush policy. He seemed to have called it right for some time, but now the conventional wisdom says it was a mistake.

In the case of the Ukraine, we forget Russia invaded in 2014, took Crimea and a good portion of eastern Ukraine. Why the new invasion--was it because EU/NATO/US didn't support Ukraine that much in 2014?

My bottom line--it's complicated and I don't see an easy ending.  Biden's making his calls; they seem reasonable today, they may or may not be the right ones when looking back at it from 20 years on.

The Crystal Meth of Purpose

 Elliott Ackerman in his book Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning, uses the phrase:

"the crystal meth of purpose".

The book is a group of essays on his trips to Iraq, Turkey, Syria, getting close to the ongoing fighting among Syrian rebels, ISIS, Kurds, Iraq forces, and remembering his days as a Marine in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 

His point is that combat with your unit provides a purpose which, at least in his experience, is both addictive and not to be found in civilian life.

I never was in combat. Over my life I've known times where I did have a purpose, one which was at least somewhat addictive.  I suspect I'm easily addicted,

Afghanistan and US

 Just finished Elliot Ackerman's "Act Five, America's End in Afghanistan". I liked it very much. While the title might imply it's all about the exit from Afghanistan, it's not, not entirely. The construction is different: the thread which drives the narrative is a series of attempts at coordinating through calls with friends and strangers the permissions and logistics of getting Afghans who worked for America and their families onto the planes after the fall of Kabul.  The desperation of the efforts contrasts with his description of the vacation trip with wife and children. 

Another thread is composed of episodes from his tours in Afghanistan (serving first as a Marine officer with the 1-8 (regiment), then as an officer working with paramilitaries (Afghan troop and US special forces), and finally as a CIA paralmilitary officer doing the same. A third thread covers episodes from his life outside of Afghanistan. These threads provide context for his calls.  He weaves his threads together into a nice tapestry, colored with thoughts on America's two wars (he served five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan).

He's critical of all the administrations--Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden for their decision, but most of all critical of Americans for the growing separation between society and the military, and the growing inolvement of the military in partisan politics.  It was published in this summer, when we still feared the outcome of the 2022 elections, which went better, more quietly, than we thought then.  

The Future of the Chinese Military

 Putting together this Powerline post, which includes a graph projecting China's population to 2100, which shows it crashing.  Meanwhile Mr. Kilcullen in his book notes the "little emperor" syndrome, with parents and grandpartents focusing attention on their one child/grandchild. He argues that it will make China's leaders very reluctant to incur casualties in a war. 

Am I Addicted to Porn, War Porn?

 I'm not addicted to porn, not sexual porn.  I'm trying to avoid being addicted to what I call "war porn", which I consider some of the reporting from war fronts to be.  In some ways it's similar to sportscasters/writers who are "homers". It's seductive to go all in on supporting one party in a conflict, but too often when you look back on them they turn out to be mistakes. 

War Porn

 As I sometimes do, I created this blog post  a few days ago, but with no text--just as a reminder to myself that I might have thoughts on the subject.

But I delayed, so I think Jack Shafer covers part of the topic--journalists like war partially because their audiences like war.  It's a good narrative, particularly David versus Goliath. 

Trustworth Stats?

I'm basically skeptical of the statistics being reported from Ukraine. Too much confusion in the early days of a war--everyone gets excited and succumbs to the temptation of believing what we want  We saw that in WWII particularly with aerial combat in all theaters. 

Willie and Joe--Showing My Age

I was born before Pearl Harbor.  After the war was over I got a compilation of Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, depicting GI's in a picture of combat and service life that was more realistic than anything seen before,  A tweet yesterday evoked this memory.

Suicides and War

This fact was noted in one of the newspapers but I found this at the USO site. 

In 2021, research found that 30,177 active duty personnel and veterans who served in the military after 9/11 have died by suicide - compared to the 7,057 service members killed in combat in those same 20 years. That is, military suicide rates are four times higher than deaths that occurred during military operations.

Master of the Game

 Reading Martin Indyk's "Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger: the Art of Middle East Diplomacy.  Just got through the Yom Yippur War, the one where the US went to Defcon 3 while Nixon was melting down with the Saturday Night massacre. The one where Brezhnev was apparently addicted to drugs and drink.  

A year or two ago I read a new book on the coming of WWI tracing the network of misunderstandings and wrong assumptions which led to the war. That's what came to mind as I read--the Soviets, the Egyptians, the Israelis, the Syrians--all were flawed players in the game. 

I doubt there's much chance of improving the rationality of our leaders--they're human after all. 

(After finishing the book, which covers Kissinger's successful negotiations to calm the area, and take advantage of opportunities to stablize the situation, laying the groundwork for Carter's Camp David establishment of peace between Israel and Egypt.)

I came away with an appreciation of Kissinger's abilities and even more appreciation of Indyk's approach: he's clear on the aims and tactics of the various players and their misjudgments.  Anwar Sadat comes off well as a statesman, amazingly for someone who was pro-Hitler during WWII.  The other leaders seem capable--no villains, just quirky people.

Malkasian's Afghan War

 I commented earlier on Carter Malkasian's "The American War in Afghanistan". 

I've now finished the book and have some more comments:

• overall he judges our war to have been a failure.
• he notes that GWB had the most freedom to manage the war. Bush focused on Iraq and let Afghanistan slide, particularly on building up the armed forces. Rumsfeld is credited for being prescient as to the problems, but debited for resisting the mission.
• Obama felt he was rolled by the Pentagon at the beginning of his term. Malkasian agrees, suggesting with the benefit of hindsight he should have endorsed a change of goal and a smaller investment of forces. 
• Trump is credited for being able to say "enough".  He's dinged for "the Sword of Twitter (not Damocles)", being erratic in his decision making, and endorsing a one-sided peace agreement.

As for causes of our failure he touches on corruption and poor government, the existence of Pakistan as a safe haven and supporter of the Taliban, multiple missed decisions by all the presidents. etc.  His emphasis though is on the idea that the Taliban most closely represented the "real Afghanistan": Islam, and defiance of foreign influence, meaning that Taliban fighters were more inspired by jihad than the government fighters were by their paychecks.

It seems like a good analysis, though I also take from the book the idea that the government and society were never united, never resolving tribal rivalries, often with problems working with the US. Karzai was able to unite the factions early on, but he and the American forces gradually lost their unity.

I also note support for a pet idea of mine: the problems created by rotating troops and commanders through the country.  These problems diminished over time, as more troops and especially the special forces served multiple tours, and as commanders returned in higher positions.

[update--so far Malkasian's earlier book, "War Comes to Garmser", which is focused on the area in Helmand province where he worked for 2 years, seems better written.]

The Afghan Learning Curve

 Carter Malkasian's "The American War in Afghanistan" has gotten some good reviews and a lot of attention, since its publication coincides with the end of the war as far as the US is concerned.   

I'm most of the way through it. It's good, though it gets criticized on Amazon for the writing.  I'm not as critical as the reviewer--Malkasian likes simple subject-verb-object sentences which usually are clear and give at least the aura of objectivity. He overuses them. I'm more bothered by some of his tics: like using "assessed" as a synonym for "judged,..." and by converting nouns to verbs (which these days seems to be considered as good writing by some).

One thing which is striking about the content: the complexity of Afghan society, about which I may write more later.  When you imagine our military in 2002 trying to understand what they're dealing with, you get a sense of the difficulty of their job.

To Start a War

 I like this book by Robert Draper.  A 3-star review on Amazon says there's no new stories in it, which may be true.  We know the outline of the decision to go to war, true enough.

I like these things:

• the book covers a broad area, but it doesn't sprawl.  Draper seems to do it by focusing each chapter on a key play so you get a balance of characters and narrative flow.
• Draper goes deeper into the bureaucracy than just the major players at the Cabinet and subcabinet level.  
• it comes off as a balanced appraisal, sympathetic to the players but appropriately critical.  (That means I don't see any intentional villains, just humans operating with their preconceptions and priorities which often led them astray.

The Importance of Weather and Farming in the Civil War

 John Fea at Way of Improvement posts an interview with Kenneth Noe, author of a book on how weather impacted the Civil War, both directly and through its impact on farming. Seems interesting. Likely a similar book could be written on any war of years, for example the American Revolution. 

18 One-Year Wars?

The Washington Post Magazine has an article on Afghanistan by a correspondent who had been there several times.  A quote:

Brian Glyn Williams, a University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth professor of Islamic history who worked with the U.S. military in Afghanistan in the summer of 2009, witnessed how the rotation affected operations. He was working with an information operations cell in Kabul when half the team rotated out. “We had personal relations with the gray beards,” Williams said, referring to Afghan elders. “We sort of had a rapport with them. A rhythm. It took a long time to build up that institutional memory for our team. But part of my team switched to Iraq. You’re calibrated to work in one environment, and then they’re deployed to Iraq. All of that institutional knowledge was flushed.” The United States, in short, fell into a pattern of one-year deployments, meaning the war started over every 12 months. America’s longest war turned into 18 one-year wars.

Reading the article, particularly that paragraph, reminded me of how we lost the war in Vietnam, and didn't win in Korea.  The same mistakes, the same NIH bright new ideas and concepts, only to be replaced by the bright new idea of the next bright new big shot commander seeking glory.

(Can you tell I'm bitter.)

I wasn't blogging in Oct 2001, so I have to rely on memory.  I think I was dubious about going into Afghanistan, remembering all the history of that country. But I recognized the feeling in the country so doing something violent was inevitable.  I was surprised by the ease with which the military gained dominance in the country.  Foolishly, like the rest of the country and the Bush administration, I ignored the long term.

At this point I'm somewhat haunted by the memory of the Nixon-Kissinger negotiations over Vietnam and the eventual outcome there.  If the same occurs in Afghanistan, I only hope we're as willing to admit refugees from Afghanistan as we were from Vietnam.

This Kind of War

This Kind of War is by T.R.Fehrenbach.  The Kindle version was on special the other day, so I bought it.  The Korean War was the first war I experienced, through the newspapers, the newsreels, and magazine articles.  The book was written in 1963, long enough after the war's end for some perspective, long enough ago to offer some insights.  (Fehrenbach was an officer in the 2nd Division, a unit which features prominently in the book, but he doesn't cite his experience explicitly.) I've read something about the war since, especially a bio of the general commanding the 1st Marine Division focused on the battle of the Chosin Reservoir.

He alternates between a focus on individual battles and individuals and a broad general picture of the war.  It's still recommended by figures like Sen. McCain and Gen. Mattis.

Some things which struck me:

• the learning curves of the various militaries involved. The North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans and US all came into the war with different backgrounds; the first three were able to learn  from the experience while the US was handicapped by the rotation policy.
• the writer's surprise at the ability of Japan to rehabilitate American equipment, a reminder of how far Japan has come since my boyhood when they made cheap toys.
• serious omens for our experience in Vietnam.
• [updated: the author's prediction South Korea would forever be a basket case dependent on US, although that's more definitive than his actual words--a reminder of how limited our vision of the future can be]

Deja Vu All Over: India vs Pakistan

It was 40+* years ago that India and Pakistan last fought a war,, but in my youth such conflicts, and the rumors and threats of conflicts, were a constant in international affairs. 

*  It turns out it's just 20 years, at least according to Wikipedia--there was a 1999 conflict in Kargil.  They count 4 wars, and innumerable confrontations and conflicts of a lesser nature.

It seems there are fewer such conflicts since the end of the Cold War--not sure there's any causal relationship but 1989 is a convenient date.  Obviously there's Iraq I and Iraq II and Agfhanistan forever but I buy Steven Pinker's thesis of a gradual decrease in violence over the ages.

Korean War--Who Fought

Feeling nitpicky today so this Times piece upset me.  It's a discussion of Vietnam and Korea relationships, quite good in most resspects.  But this:

Vietnam’s ties with North Korea were strengthened during the Vietnam War, when North Korea dispatched dozens of fighter pilots to combat the Americans. At least 14 North Korean military personnel were killed in action in Vietnam. (About 300,000 South Koreans fought on the American side.)

What's wrong? The last sentence.

Those of us old enough to remember know that technically the United Nations fought against the North Koreans and later the Chinese.  (The Soviets had been boycotting the Security Council so were not around to veto a resolution authorizing UN action against the invaders.)   It was a UN coalition fighting, including British and Turkish troops as I remember it.  (Wikipedia) 

But what really jars is the idea that South Korea fought on the American side.  The war was sold to the U.S. and UN as a fight against the North Korean invaders in which the UN was coming to the aid of South Korea, so we were fighting on South Korea's side.  Since then there have been challenges to that narrative by some historians, but I think the consensus still generally supports the original take on the situation.

Prima Donnas: Trump and MacArthur

I don't think many people would dispute that our president is something of a prima donna.  (See the internet's definition below.)   The question is who in American history is his peer in this regard?

Have I mentioned I'm reading "World War II at Sea"?  It's quite good and comprehensive.  Of course the author has to mention Douglas MacArthur.  I'd put his ego up against Trump's any day of the week, although he had more genuine accomplishments than Trump.



The internet says a prima donna is:

"a very temperamental person with an inflated view of their own talent or importance.

synonyms:

ego, self-important person, his nibs, temperamental person, princess, diva, pooh-bah; informaldrama queen "a city council filled with prima donnas"