Surge by P. Mansoor (2013)--

I’ve finished reading the book, Surge. Some comments:

1.       P has a direct staff of perhaps a dozen+ with distinct duties, and those duties take up all their time. Little overlap. There are as well protective staff, etc.

2.       Yes, it is a matter of Anbar Awakening and P’s COIN strategy, and of course luck and …  That it was not permanent, with Maliki going back to his ethnosectarian roots is a problem. The US is a remarkable country in its believe that none of those should define loyalty. We’ve worked hard of late to make that case for Muslim US citizens.

3.       People worked very hard, subordinates were inventive, Odierno was a good complement to P, and lots of work needed to be done in DC so that the strategy was not undermined. It’s important to realize that just because you have the President on your back, does not mean subordinates with power will follow through. Admiral Fallon was especially difficult for the first half at least.

4.       This is not a history. It is a memoir and chronology. Mansoor is now a professor of military history, but this would not quite qualify as such. There is no attempt to be unbiased.

5.       Anyone who works for P, or for folks like him, should read this book. P is hard driving, hard working, and unrelenting, it would seem. He must have a flaw, but none revealed here. (The Paula Broadwell stuff does not count in my book—other than why do it on your office computer and file. Telephone from payphones, please. I have nothing to say about faithfulness, given what people do.)

What’s also interesting is that they went for three years without a successful strategy, until P offered one up. When you think about innovation and adoption, keep that in mind.

Yes, this was people intensive. But it depended on having all the best technology, MRAPs, communication gear, and various experts. I read an article recently that transformation was successful, in the initial taking over of Iraq. It then said the COIN failed since the subsequent years, post P, things fell apart again. I suspect this is not a good judgment. No one claims to be able to get rid of tribal and ethnosectarian conflict with COIN. You are just trying for  some order and security. It took many wars and many dead for the Catholics and Protestants to make a peace in Europe, and in Ireland that is still shaky.

Stephen Biddle: Military Power (2004)

The "modern system" of battle and strategy is meant to prevent offenses from destroying too many of your troops and materiel, to make it difficult for them to advance, to make it hard for them to locate their concealed and covered and dispersed opponents. And if you are an offender, you want to penetrate the defense to cut off the defense's supportive troops and logistical support so starving them in place. And in any case suppress fire, or make it much less effective if there is enough dispersion of defenders or focus of offense.

So roughly argues Stephen  Biddle in Military Power (2004), through case studies, statistical analysis, and gaming simulation. It's detailed interesting argument, and there has been substantial criticism and support (for example, in about 2006 in the Journal of Strategic Studies). But in reading it, the argument is impressive, the care is impressive, and the scholarship is methodologically catholic.