Military Bureaucracy
Two separate reviews of The Fourth Star, a new book by David Cloud and Greg Jaffee, touch on a theme that has fascinated me since I wrote a dissertation on the subject. NYT foreign correspondent Dexter Filkins (via SWJ): “The Fourth Star” paints wonderfully dramatic portraits of the four senior officers highlighted here, but at its heart it’s a story about bureaucracy. ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 26, 2009 14:12
Kissinger on Afghanistan: More Troops
While the debate over Gen. McChrystal's recent comments to which James referred yesterday continues to rage, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has entered the lists in the policy battle over the strategy in Afghanistan: The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 6, 2009 12:34
McChrystal and MacArthur
Speaking at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies, Stanley McChrystal, the general in charge of the NATO mission in Afghanistan, said the Obama administration needs to make up its mind on quickly on a strategy — and rejected the idea of lowering the bar. In my writeup for New Atlanticist, "McChrystal: Biden Afghanistan Plan 'Short-Sighted," I observe that, This isn't exactly Douglas ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 1, 2009 14:38
Petraeus Air Force Joke
[caption id="attachment_41252" align="alignright" width="400" caption="Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, lectures in San Francisco. Justin Sullivan / Getty"][/caption] General David Petraeus made a funny at the expense of the Air Force in his remarks at the Marine Corps Association Foundation dinner last month: Come to think of it, in fact another bedrock element of the Marine Corps is unquestionably having ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 27, 2009 08:12
Brian Brennan – Curahee
This CBS News report on Army 1st Lieutenant Brian Brennan made the rounds over the weekend but I just got around to watching it over lunch: [video moved below the fold due to annoying auto-play feature] My smart alecky take: Is there nothing David Petraeus can't do? More seriously, there's a reason the combat arms spend so much time inculcating esprit de corps ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 11, 2009 12:46
Slouching Towards Islamabad
Fierce fighting continues between the Pakistani military and radical Islamist insurgents in the Swat Valley about 200 km northwest of the capital: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani Air Force fighter jets pounded militant positions in the Swat Valley on Monday as the military pressed its offensive on three Taliban-held districts northwest of the capital, the interior minister said. Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 11, 2009 08:39
Atlantic Council Awards: Bush, Kohl and Petraeus
I apologize for the dearth of posting the past couple of days. Much of yesterday was spent in preparation for the Atlantic Council's 2009 Leadership Awards, which were held last night, and this is my first break from the day-after followup on the website, which I've been working on since 6 this morning. As I explain in my roundup post, "Council ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on April 30, 2009 16:27
Byrd: Czars Executive Power Grab
Old Man Byrd is at it again: West Virginia Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving Democratic senator, on Wednesday criticized President Barack Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch. Byrd complained in a letter to the president that his decision to create White House offices on ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 26, 2009 08:38
Russia Outbids U. S. for Manas Air Base
Just about ten days ago CENTCOM head Gen. David Petraeus announced that he'd succeeded in negotiating new supply routes for Afghanistan through neighboring countries, former member republics of the Soviet Union. Apparently, this was premature. Yesterday Russia announced that the government of Kyrgyzstan had agreed to turn the Manas Air Base over to Russia: USA’s army base in Kyrgyzstan ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 4, 2009 09:17
What Big Stars You Have, General
One of my work colleagues, a serving officer, noticed something odd last night in General David Petraeus' turn as Super Bowl coin flipper: Rather giant-sized stars on his beret: [caption id="attachment_30954" align="aligncenter" width="340" caption=" General David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, looks on from the field prior to Super Bowl XLIII between the Arizona Cardinals and the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on February 2, 2009 13:28
Hillary Clinton, ‘Natural Diplomat’
Having initially been highly skeptical of Hillary Clinton's appointment as Secretary of State, partly on the basis that she had neither diplomatic experience nor a diplomatic temperament, I feel obliged to pass on this observation from Joe Klein (via Andrew Sullivan): Clinton, who can be spiky, has re-emerged as a natural diplomat. When she heard that Holbrooke and General David Petraeus ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 22, 2009 08:51
Finding Alternatives to Pakistan
The logistics of supplying a large military force in Afghanistan is a subject to which I've returned again and again. Afghanistan is landlocked. The people there barely have enough food to feed themselves and the country has little in the way of domestic industry to produces arms and armaments. That means that in order to supply a ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on January 20, 2009 09:55
Why Are You So Awesome?
Andrew Exum (aka "abu muqawama") offers a rather blistering review of Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. This, too, is hagiography. ("It reads as if ghost-written by Petraeus," one friend complained.) That wasn't my complaint, though. Maybe Petraeus, like Mandela, is a man worth all the superlatives. But ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on December 8, 2008 16:35
James Jones as National Security Advisor?
General James Jones, chairman of the Atlantic Council, is the leading candidate for National Security Advisor in the Obama cabinet, CNN and Politico are both reporting. Two sources close to the Obama transition team tell CNN retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones has emerged as President-elect's leading choice to become national security adviser in the White House. The sources said Jones has been ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on November 21, 2008 13:50
Petraeus at Atlantic Council
[caption id="attachment_26018" align="alignright" width="400" caption="Lt.Gen. Brent Scrowcroft, GEN David Petraeus, and Atlantic Council President and CEO Fred Kempe"][/caption] I had the privilege of sitting in on an Atlantic Council meeting with General David Petraeus this afternoon. He's making the rounds in Washington in preparation for taking over CENTCOM. He mostly came to listen to selected members of our Strategic Advisors Group ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on October 9, 2008 16:25
