Day By Day

Monday, August 29, 2005

David Brooks on Winning the War in Iraq

David Brooks, writing in the NYT, summarizes the arguments put forth in Andrew Krepinevich's perceptive essay in Foreign Affairs titled "How To Win In Iraq."

Krepenevich's piece contains a great deal of wisdom, but as Brooks notes, there is little new there. The strategy he calls "Oil-spot" is in fact little different from that used in counter-insurgency campaigns for much of the past century and, I might note, is very reminiscent of the "hearts and minds" strategy employed in Vietnam. In fact, as Brooks further notes, it is what military officials say we are already doing in Iraq. So where's the beef?

Krepenevich denies in his article that standard counter-insurgency strategies are currently being applied in Iraq -- in fact, he goes so far as to suggest that there is no coherent strategy. He uses a standard journalistic trick -- quoting the President's statement to the effect that as the Iraqi military stands up we will stand down and then characterizing it as being nothing more than a "withdrawal plan." This ignores the richly detailed strategy that lies behind that statement. Statements are not policies, but pundits often pretend that they are and Krepenevich is doing so here. He is, however, right to note that the President's political critics are offering little more than an accelerated withdrawal plan.

In mischaracterizing the current situation Krepenevich is doing nothing more than following standard rhetorical conventions. Nearly every policy piece starts by declaring that everyone else is wrong, and ignorant to boot, so his sin is minor and can be discounted. The rest of the article does make some good points, especially with regard to the rotation of troops and officers, the metrics that should be used in analyzing progress, etc.

Brooks, however, does the original article a great disservice in his summary, which he twists into an indictment of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Brooks suggests that current officials are lying when they say they have already implemented most of Krepenevich's recommendations, otherwise, he states Baghdad would already have been pacified. This is a totally unwarranted assumption, but one necessary to his real purpose, which is to trash Rummy, to wit:
The fact is, the U.S. didn't adopt this blindingly obvious strategy because
it violates some of the key Rumsfeldian notions about how the U.S. military
should operate in the 21st century.

He mischaracterizes Krepenevich's argument to say a successful strategy requires a heavy troop presence, not a light, lean force when in fact it says just the opposite. Krepenevich actually wants to draw down the US presence by 20,000 troops. He further argues that we are not thinking long-term, when in fact the administration has consistently argued right from the beginning that this is a long-term commitment. Recent statements from field commanders regarding draw-downs are quite precisely in accordance with Krepenevich's recommendations. But Brooks isn't interested in the veracity of his arguments, he just wants to slander Rummy.

If Krepenevich's sins are minor and conventional, Brooks' are not. He wilfully mischaracterizes both arguments and facts in an attempt to tarnish the administration's efforts. It is likely that he is just repeating the rumblings of Pentagon dinosaurs who have as their main purpose in life the frustration of reforms Rumsfeld has been pushing.

In a recent TV interview [broadcast on UCTV, podcast here] Thomas P.M. Barnett talked about his experience as an employee of the Pentagon and noted that policy experts fulfill a very specialized function there. Their job, essentially, is to learn everything there is to be known about a specific program or weapons system in order to be able to shoot down alternative plans or proposals. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that he spent his time there trying to destroy the Marine Corps' view of the world. That was his job, just as it is the function of other experts to try to destroy Rumsfeld's view of the world.

This endless ideological warfare is a natural consequence of the relentless bureaucratic struggles that characterize not only the Pentagon, but all of Washington's permanent government. The conflicts generate a lot of fodder for journalists like Mr. Brooks, but an alert reader must always keep in mind when reading their product what are the likely sources on which the writer is drawing, and what are their agendas. Journalists are prisoners of their sources. It is unfortunate that Mr. Brooks in this instance has allowed his to misuse him so badly.

No comments: