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. As an institution, the United States Army has much more in common with, say, a giant corporation like General Motors than with a professional sports team like the New York Giants. You can’t cut players who don’t perform, and it’s hard to fire your head coach. Like General Motors, the Army changes very slowly, and once it does, it’s hard to turn it around again.

Actually, it’s arguably easier to “cut” bad soldiers than bad football players nowadays, since the latter often have huge signing bonuses and hold teams hostage in a salary cap era.  But, otherwise, Filkins is right.  While the military is relatively efficient, it’s not only a bureaucracy but the very thing bureaucracy was modeled after.  Which makes it amusing when conservatives simultaneously rant about the inefficiency of bureaucracy while extolling the virtues of military efficiency.  (The military, along with their brethren in the intelligence community and foreign service, does tend to be more motivated and obedient to orders from above than your average bureaucracy.)

New Kings of War blogger “Captain Hyphen.”

One of the most trenchant discussions of these wrong “lessons learned” post-Vietnam is General David Petraeus’ PhD dissertation, which the review of The Fourth Star mentions tangentially. While Petraeus might have “irritated many of his fellow officers on his way up,” he also identified an important bureaucratic reality, noting it in his dissertation: any serving officer who writes a PhD dissertation critical of the US Army as an institution and publishes it as a book will not rise to the ranks of the general officer corps. Petraeus, of course, heeded his own advice, as his dissertation remained safely tucked away in the Princeton library (until the age of scanning and posting to the Internet; h/t to Paula Broadwell for sharing the link). He was able to continue his upward trajectory, unlike such recent soldier-scholars as Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) John Nagl, whose Oxford DPhil became Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, arguably a self-inflicted career wound as an Army officer because of its coherent, incisive critique of the Army’s failures as a learning organization.

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, however, is the exception that proves the rule, because it was only the patronage of General Petraeus that made him a general officer after twice being passed over for promotion from colonel to brigadier general. McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty was the oft-cited, seldom-read mantra of senior officers in the last decade and appeared to be part of the hold-up for his advancement. Further compounding the delay, his successful counterinsurgency campaign as the commander of an armored cavalry regiment in Tall Afar made his conventionally-minded brigade commander peers look bad (or at least that’s one interpretation of how it was viewed within the Army).

How a bureaucracy without lateral entry promotes and selects its leaders is a vital issue with implications measured in decades, dollars, and lives. I look forward to reading how Cloud and Jaffe capture this dynamic in the US Army today.

One could argue McMaster exemplifies, rather than serving as an exception, to the rule. Generally, being passed over — let alone twice — for promotion pretty much indicates that you’re done.  Certainly as a prospective general officer.   Conversely — and I don’t claim to have any inside scoop here — Nagl certainly seemed to be an officer on a fast track who left the Army voluntarily to 1) so his family could settle down and 2) to take advantage of a flood of opportunities to apply his expertise in the think tank center.   It seemingly proved a wise choice, as he soon wound up as president of CNAS.

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 General McChrystal’s argument that his forces are inadequate for the mission, Obama will be blamed for the dramatic consequences. If he accepts the recommendation, his opponents may come to describe it, at least in part, as Obama’s war. If he compromises, he may fall between all stools—too little to make progress, too much to still controversy. And he must make the choice on the basis of assessments he cannot prove when he makes them.

He comes down along the lines that have been proposed by Gens. McChrystal and Petraeus:

President Obama, as a candidate, proclaimed Afghanistan a necessary war. As president, he has shown considerable courage in implementing his promise to increase our forces in Afghanistan and to pursue the war more energetically. A sudden reversal of American policy would fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos. It would raise the most serious questions about American steadiness in India, the probable target should a collapse in Afghanistan give jihad an even greater impetus. In short, the reversal of a process introduced with sweeping visions by two administrations may lead to chaos, ultimately deeper American involvement, and loss of confidence in American reliability. The prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.

He also urges a political offensive within Afghanistan, cultivating regional even local authorities, and a diplomatic offensive, an effort to get all of the major powers that border Afghanistan pulling the same way:

In a partly feudal, multiethnic society, fundamental social reform is a long process, perhaps unrelatable to the rhythm of our electoral processes. For the foreseeable future, the control from Kabul may be tenuous and its structure less than ideal. More emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia. This would also enhance our political flexibility. A major effort is needed to encourage such an evolution.

Concurrently, a serious diplomatic effort is needed to address the major anomaly of the Afghan war. In all previous American ground-combat efforts, once the decision was taken, there was no alternative to America’s leading the effort; no other country had the combination of resources or national interest required. The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighbors—Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.

The summit of neighboring (or near-neighboring) countries proposed by the secretary of state could, together with NATO allies, begin to deal with this anomaly. It should seek an international commitment to an enforced nonterrorist Afghanistan, much as countries were neutralized by international agreement when Europe dominated world affairs.

While I agree completely with the position that James articulated in his post, I would only add that I would hope that President Obama might arrive at his decision on how to proceed in Afghanistan and state that position unambiguously soon. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and the current ambiguity over the future direction of our policy in Afghanistan creates an opening for generals, politicians, and former secretaries of state to attempt to influence the direction of that policy. The situation in Afghanistan is probably as well understood now as it is likely to become and little good will come of further delay.

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 MacArthur territory.  Obama has yet to outline a competing strategic vision and McChrystal is essentially just making a full-throated defense of the doctrine he was sent to carry out.  But it does put his commander-in-chief in a rather awkward position.

His approach is at stark contrast to that of Kip Ward, commander of United States Africa Command, who repeatedly deflected questions about strategic priorities in his Atlantic Council appearance earlier in the week.  Each time such a query was posed, he simply noted that he takes his orders from the president and the secretary of defense.

Somewhere in between these tacks strikes me as the proper mode for four-star commanders. They should work within the commander’s intent — which in McChrystal’s case means that of CENTCOM chief David Petraeus as well as the president and SECDEF  — but also use their professionaljudgment in how best to carry out their mission.  When it’s obvious that the president and his senior advisors are seriously considering a major policy change, however, it’s probably best for the generals to provide their inputs in private to avoid giving the appearance of undermining civilian control of policy.

But maybe that’s outdated thinking in the age of Petraeus?

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, lectures in San Francisco. Justin Sullivan / Getty

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 the best recruiting ads on television. [Laughter] But this concept is not just an advertisement. The marines’ sense of toughness permeates the Corps’ lore as well as its reality. To recall an illustrative story, a soldier is trudging through the muck in the midst of a downpour with a 60-pound rucksack on his back. This is tough, he thinks to himself. Just ahead of him trudges an Army ranger with an 80-pound pack on his back. This is really tough, he thinks. And ahead of him is a Marine with a 90-pound pack on, and he thinks to himself, I love how tough this is. [laughter, applause] Then, of course, 30,000 feet above them — [laughter] — 30,000 feet above them an Air Force pilot flips aside his ponytail. [laughter, applause] Now — I’m sorry. I don’t know how that got in there — [laughter] — I know they haven’t had ponytails in a year or two — [laughter] — and looks down at them through his cockpit as he flies over. Boy, he radios his wingman, it must be tough down there. [laughter] Well, TV commercials and all joking aside, we’ve all seen that marines truly and consistently live up to their reputation.”

Some ponytailed desk jockey at the Air Force Association got his panties in a bunch, penning an editorial about how these remarks were “Beyond Outrageous.”  Not only does this joke hurt the widdle feewings of our boys in baby blue, “They are symptomatic of the long-held belief of many ground commanders that airpower is no longer, if it ever was, relevant.”

As SFC Hulka so aptly put it, “Lighten up, Francis.”

Matt Yglesias sees this as a “crisis” and foreshadowing a greater problem ahead.  Robert Farley says it shows “a certain insecurity” in the Air Force and Yglesias thinks it exists for good reason.  The service has always operated in relative safety — as Matt says, that’s rather the point of air power — and the increasing use of unmanned drones takes that to the ultimate conclusion.  Naturally, “A service that consists of guys sitting in cubicles playing video games is going to have trouble holding its head high amidst a warrior ethos.”

But most people in the Air Force have been office workers since its inception as a separate service.  Truth be told, most soldiers and sailors do non-trigger-puller jobs, too.  They maintain a warrior ethos by focusing on the team and the larger mission.  And the non-warriors tend to make fun of the warriors on different grounds entirely, as demonstrated from these comments taken from an Air Force website by TIME’s Mark Thompson:

“What an idiot,” one airman fumed on an unofficial Air Force website. “I vote that we should pack our [stuff] and come home. Let the Army march to where they need to go, use artillery for close air support, and medevac on Fed Ex.” A colleague agreed: “As the Big Guy he should be pulling us together, not widening the abyss.” But one contributor claiming to be a more senior officer dissented. “Believe me, if the military is dumb enough to make me a General, you can bet your ass I will be cracking jokes about homo Navy guys, criminal Army types and borderline retarded Marines,” he wrote. “It’s all in good fun, and I think his was, too.” Another poster concurred: “Remember, he is from the service that has to use comic books to teach soldiers how to do periodic maintenance.”

Petraeus’ joke is straight out of the senior officers’ playbook.  (Some more off-color versions are available in Farley’s comment section.) I’ve heard retired Marine General Jim Jones tell similar jokes at the Air Force’s expense with retired USAF Lt.Gen. Brent Scowcroft in the room, to the approving laughter of the latter.  Why?  Because Scowcroft and Jones obviously hold each other in the highest personal and professional esteem and understand that these jokes are told in good fun.  Let some outsider make fun of the Air Force in his presence, though, and Jones would be sure to set them straight.

The warrior culture is similar to that found in a locker room. It uses brutal humor to lighten the tension and test the mettle of one’s fellows.  Airborne troops make fun of dirty nasty legs. Combat arms troops crack jokes about REMFs, the rear-echelon so-and-sos.  The Army disparages the Marines and vice versa.  In the Air Force, it’s pilots and everybody else.  In the Navy, it’s Line and other.  But anyone much above the level of an entering recruit understands that it’s all one big operation.

Nobody appreciates the value of the support team more than a combat infantryman.  They’re utterly dependent on everyone else for sustaining their lives and achieving their mission.  As a rocket artillery officer during Desert Storm, I can assure you that every soldier to a man I talked to was happy for every Navy and Air Force sortie flying over us during the opening weeks of the war.   Yes, we made fun of them because they got to go back to their air conditioned comfort when their mission was over while we were sweating it in the desert heat.  But every bomb dropped or missile fired saved the lives of countless soldiers and marines.

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 and stressing the warrior ethic.  It’s easier to find the courage to deal with adversity — and harder to give up — if others are counting on you.

Others with a take:  This Ain’t Hell, Ace of Spades, Instapundit, The New Editor

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 minister, told reporters in Islamabad that 700 militants had been killed in the last four days of intense fighting — a far higher figure than has been reported by the military. No official reason was provided for the discrepancy.

At the weekend, the military put the number of killed militants at around 140 and has reported additional militants killed since then. The Taliban have not commented on their own casualties since the start of the latest offensive, and the death toll cannot be independently verified because aid agencies and journalists are barred from the conflict areas.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the fighting.

Meanwhile, CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus notes that we have accomplished the objectives we had initially when we invaded Afghanistan:

The head of U.S. Central Command said Sunday that Al Qaeda is no longer operating in Afghanistan, with its senior leadership having moved to the western region of Pakistan.

Gen. David Petraeus said affiliated groups have “enclaves and sanctuaries” in Afghanistan and that “tentacles of Al Qaeda” have touched countries throughout the Middle East and northern Africa. But he said the terrorist group has suffered “very significant losses” in recent months, and agreed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s recent assessment that there is no Al Qaeda based in his country.

That the stateless Al Qaeda should have pulled up stakes, crossed the border into Pakistan that we’re hesitant to cross ourselves, and set up shop there should have come as no surprise. Some criticize the Bush Administration for the situation in which we now find ourselves, pointing out that the resources which were deployed in Iraq could have been used in Afghanistan. That’s true as far as it goes but in my view it only means we’d have gotten to where we are now sooner.

Max Hastings writes in the Financial Times:

The Bush administration’s policies were dominated by a crude belief that democracy in itself promised Arcadian outcomes for Muslim societies. London and Washington now agree that this was a foolish delusion. But western governments find it extraordinarily difficult to define an acceptable alternative to, or modification of, democracy.

None of this is intended to suggest that either the Americans or British want to pack their bags in Afghanistan. On the contrary, there is agreement that the restoration of Taliban rule there would hasten an implosion of Pakistan. But even those of us who share this view are dogged by fears that US and British forces are fighting in support of an unsustainable Afghan political construct.

The allies’ enthusiasm for “putting an Afghan face on the campaign” must be right. But where are the uncorrupt, administratively competent Afghans to make this happen? Washington and London agree that “saving” Afghanistan requires a long-haul commitment, which may prove tough with flagging domestic enthusiasm for the war.

Unless some visible progress is achieved within, say, two years, all bets are off. Sufficient Afghans watch CNN and al-Jazeera to perceive this for themselves, whatever the British and American message on the ground.

I’m left with a host of questions. Will the Pakistani government try to subdue the ironically named Federally Administered Tribal Areas? Or will it be content to stop the current offensive? Defeating the insurgents in open battle won’t stop their insurgency. The typical practice of insurgents is to confront the military in open battle, conventional military conflict, when they’re strong enough to do so only to return to nonconventional strategies if they’re defeated. Can Pakistani officials be fool enough to believe otherwise?

Can Afghanistan produce a force of its own strong enough to prevent Al Qaeda and the Taliban from reasserting themselves in the country in our absence? Can we prosecute an effective offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan without further weakening the Pakistani government? Or forcing their hands against us?

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 Awards Gala: A Night to Remember,” it’s been worth it.   Last year’s dinner, my first, honored Tony Blair, Rupert Murdoch, Admiral Mike Mullen, and Evgeny Kissin.   We managed to top that this year, recognizing the contributions of President George H.W. Bush, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, General David Petraeus, Sam Palmisano, and Thomas Hampson to the transatlantic community.   Short of resurrecting Winston Churchill, Dwight Eisenhower, Henry Ford, and Ludwig Beethoven, we’re not going to get a more distinguished group of honorees.

Petraeus argued in his speech that “NATO faces a very urgent moment” with the war in Afghanistan.  He’s confident that recent steps will ensure that war does not become Americanized.   As I explain at the link, I’m not so sure.

Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, introducing his former boss, said he’d walk through fire for President Bush and delivered a tribute that was alternately funny and touching.  As per usual, Bush used his speech to praise others and poke fun at himself.

We finished the night off in the bar where I had the great pleasure of having a cold one with Hampson and a few others, including my boss, Fred Kempe.   If you’re under the not unreasonable impression that a world renowned opera singer widely considered to be America’s greatest baritone is not a guy you’d like to have a beer with, you’d be wrong.    Even better, Fred was buying.

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 health care reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change “can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

You’ve got to hand it to the man:  He’s at least consistent.  While I’m often critical of him, not least for his own “power grab” in bringing home to West Virginia much more than its fair share of federal taxpayer money, he is in many ways exactly what the Framers envisioned when creating the Senate.  He is keenly interested in protecting his own power base, jealously guarding it from encroachment.  That’s exactly as James Madison intended (see Federalist 10).

In this particular case, Byrd’s probably wrong. I’m not a fan of “czars” to deal with public policy problems, either.  But, despite their unfortunately autocratic nickname, the problem is actually precisely the opposite:  They have too little power to get anything done.

When was the last time you heard from Doug Lute, the 3-star “war tsar” that Bush appointed and Obama has retained?  Compared to CENTCOM honcho David Petraeus, JCS chair Mike Mullen, SECDEF Bob Gates, SecState Hillary Clinton, NSA Jim Jones, and others, he’s got no budget, no staff, no authority, and no access to the president.

So it goes with “tsars.”  They need the cooperation of cabinet level officers who actually control the necessary resources.  Given that they’ve typically got huge egos and have given up much more lucrative gigs in order to make a difference in public policy, they tend not to be very cooperative with people who don’t answer to the name “Mr. President.”

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 (an Asian republic of the Soviet Union) will be closed. The adequate agreement was achieved as a result of the talks between the presidents of the two countries, Dmitry Medvedev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev. It is worthy of note that the Kyrgyz administration previously announced that there would be no such statements made in Moscow.

“The government of Kyrgyzstan decided to cease the use of the Manas base by the armed forces of the coalition,” Itar-Tass quoted the Kyrgyz president as saying. The president added that the decision was based on economic issues and the generally negative attitude to the operation of the base in the country.

The Kyrgyz president reminded that his nation signed the agreement regarding the army base in 2001, when Afghanistan was in a state of war.

“Kyrgyzstan met the wishes of the United States and offered its territory for the anti-terrorist struggle, which was a serious contribution to the struggle. We talked about a year or two, but now it has been eight years. We have repeatedly discussed the questions of the economic compensation to Kyrgyzstan with American partners, but have not been able to come to understanding at this point,” the Kyrgyz president said.

“All of that echoed negatively in the society, and people started to question the operation of the base. The government of Kyrgyzstan decided to stop the use of the base, and you will see the government taking adequate measures soon,” Bakiyev said.

Itar-TASS has announced that the U. S. forces will will begin departing almost immediately:

BISHKEK, February 4 (Itar-Tass) — The United States will withdraw its troops from the Manas airbase in Kyrgyzstan within 180 days, Secretary of the Kyrgyz Security Council Adahan Madumarov said on Wednesday.

“The withdrawal procedure has already been worked out; the Americans will leave Manas, as our president stated about it,” he said. This question should be settled “within 180 days,” he added.

According to him, Kyrgyzstan is planning to use the airbase for its own purposes. The use of the airbase by the rapid deployment forces of the CSTO states or Russia is not on the agenda, Madumarov said.

Earlier the Kyrgyz government submitted to the parliament the documents denouncing an agreement with the United States envisaging the deployment of an airbase of the international anti-terrorist coalition at the Bishkek airport Manas, a source in the Kyrgyz government staff told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.

The MPs are expected to debate this issue during a parliamentary

The Associated Press notes the incongruity:

During his visit last month, Petraeus said that Manas would be key to plans to boost the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. He also said the United States pumps $150 million into Kyrgyzstan’s economy annually, including $63 million in rent for Manas.

Russia agreed Tuesday to provide Kyrgyzstan with $2 billion in loans plus another $150 million in financial aid.

Central Asia is key to U.S. efforts to secure an alternative supply line to forces in Afghanistan. The main route, through the Khyber Pass in Pakistan’s northwest, has occasionally been closed in recent months due to rising attacks by bandits and Islamist militants.

How can we explain the discrepancy?

1. Gen. Petraeus was mistaken or misled.
2. After Gen. Petraeus’s announcement the Russians upped the ante and made the Kyrgyz an offer they couldn’t refuse.
3. There’s more going on here than meets the eye.

I think probably #2 or, possibly, #1 and #2.

The Manas air base is the U. S.’s only base in central Asia. Losing it would make supplying our forces in Afghanistan, particularly if we increase the number of those forces, much more dependent on the Khyber Pass supply route through Pakistan. That, in turn, would strengthen the hand of the Islamabad government in dealing with us.

I don’t see this as particularly good news.

UPDATE (James Joyner): I wrote a piece on this earlier this morning for New Atlanticist titled “Kyrgyzstan Closing U.S. Base Key for Afghanistan.“  Dave beats me on the headline front.

The picture above is a screen capture from the Russian language news channel Vesti.

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:

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 Pittsburgh Steelers on February 1, 2009 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. (Getty Images)

I’ve had difficulty locating similar shots of other 4-stars, since most tend to be photographed either sans headgear or wearing a soft cap or service cap.   But, for example, this 2-year-old photo of Petraeus’ CENTCOM predecessor, John Abizaid, shows four stars fitting almost entirely within the beret’s flash:

Has the Army come up with bigger rank insignia for its general officers?  Or is Petraeus going George Patton on us?

UPDATE: A helpful commenter points out that,

“General officers are authorized three different sizes of stars–5/8″, 3/4″ and full 1″ … Most GO’s choose the smaller insignia because, as you point out, the larger stars look outsized when you get enough of them.  I think it’s more common to see Brigadier Generals and Lieutenant Generals with the full-sized stars.  But General Petraeus is certainly within regulation.

At least it’s easy to know what the man’s rank is at a distance, something that’s not true of senior NCOs with recent uniform iterations.

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 had never met, she invited them over to her Washington home on a Friday night before the Inauguration. The two men spent two hours in front of a roaring fire with Clinton, getting to know each other, talking about the diplomatic and military division of labor in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clinton’s was an Obamian gesture — enticing the lion to lie down with the lion — the sort of attention to detail that seems to have been replicated across the policymaking spectrum during the Obama transition.

One fireside chat with elite Americans does not a foreign diplomat make. But it’s one bit of evidence that she may have the right temperament after all.  Which would be a good thing, seeing as how she was confirmed easily yesterday.

Photo from Reuters Pictures

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 fighting force in Afghanistan everything has to be brought in, either overland through a neighboring country or by air.

As I’ve noted before supplying a substantial force in Afghanistan solely by air would be difficult, dangerous, and expensive. Consequently, most of the supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan have been coming through Pakistan, a route which has been closed several times over the last few months and, as Pakistani government forces are moved from Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan to its border with India, becomes increasingly chancy.

Apparently, this isn’t lost on our military. We’ve succeeded in negotiating routes through Russia and other members of the USS-were that would allow us to supply NATO forces by a route that doesn’t go through Pakistan:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – The U.S. has struck deals with Russia and neighboring countries allowing it to transport supplies to American troops in Afghanistan through their territory, the head of U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.

Currently, most supplies for U.S. and NATO troops must first pass through northern Pakistan via the Arabian Sea port of Karachi, a treacherous route sometimes closed due to attacks by Islamist militants.

Opening up supply lines in the north is seen as especially important now because the United States is expected to nearly double its number of troops in Afghanistan to 60,000 over the coming year to battle a growing Taliban insurgency.

“It is very important as we increase the effort in Afghanistan that we have multiple routes that go into the country,” U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told reporters in Pakistan.

Petraeus said he had reached transit deals with Russia and several other Central Asian states on a recent tour of the region. He gave few details, but NATO and U.S. officials have often said they were close to inking agreements with those countries to open up supply lines.

Afghan-based U.S. and NATO forces get up to 75 percent of their “non-lethal” supplies such as food, fuel and building materials via routes that traverse Pakistan, a volatile, nuclear-armed country believed to be a possible home of al-Qaida’s top leaders.

We can only speculate on the terms that were exacted for the routes. Under the circumstances supplying our troops through Iran probably isn’t on.

I don’t know whether this move signals a lack of confidence on our part with Pakistan’s reliability or, prospectively, a greater willingness on our part to put pressure on Islamabad. Whether Islamabad can or would respond to pressure is another subject entirely.

However, finding alternatives to Pakistan for supplying our troops in Afghanistan is a Good Thing.

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 every U.S. officer in Robinson’s narrative is shown in only the most positive light. Officers are invariably “tough” and “resourceful” and “bright” and “hard-working” and “intelligent.” (”Surely there are a few s***bags left in the Army,” I found myself asking halfway through.) So like one narrative of the Iraq War — in which U.S. efforts went from “awesome” (in 2003) to “awesomer” (in 2005) to “awesomest” (in 2007) — officers are only varying shades of ass-kicking in Robinson’s account.

There’s a bit of that in Robert Kaplan’s books, too, although I find his analysis nonetheless interesting.

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 given the impression by the President-elect that the job is his if he wants it. But the officials said there are still private discussions underway and no final decision has been made. The discussions are focused on precisely how much power Jones will have in the staff job since he is used to being in a command role. Among his many posts, Jones served for several years as the operational commander for NATO.

In the third and final presidential debate, Obama noted that he deeply values advice from Jones, who has four decades of military service.

One person close to the transition noted Jones is a bipartisan figure who has warm relationships with both current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may stay on the job for at least a brief period, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is now on track to be nominated as Secretary of State after Thanksgiving.

I’ll demur on commenting on the merits of my boss’ boss for the job.   I will, however, note that the chatter thus far on Memeorandum is quite positive.

Joe Klein (TIME): “General Jones is universally respected. He refused a series of major positions offered by the Bush Administration, presumably because he opposed the policies he would have been expected to implement. He did agree to study the security situations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Bush Administration, and came back with reports that were embarrassingly candid. If appointed, he–not David Petraeus–will be the most important (former) general in the Obama Administration, which will help tilt power back toward the President.”

Spencer Ackerman (Washington Independent): “If so, it would be a good choice. [...] Also, Jones would be reflective of two huge Obama priorities. First, Afghanistan. As NATO Commander, Jones ceaselessly lobbied the European allies for greater assistance in the Afghanistan war. Second, energy security. Jones is widely known to be an advocate of alternative energy sources, and, as Politico notes, chairs an energy task force for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And of course there’s the good optics of such a well-respected general being Obama’s closest White House aide on foreign policy.”

Steve Benen (Washington Monthly) and Adam Serwer (American Prospect) seem favorably disposed as well.

I’ll be interested to see the reaction from the Right; thus far, there’s been none. [UPDATE:  Tom Maguire's on board.]

As an aside, I’m always amused by the use of obviously outdated file photos.  Jones retired from the Marine Corps two years ago and Michael Hayden retired from the Air Force over the summer.  Yet virtually every story about them shows them in uniform.

Aside #2:  So long as I can recall, the informal title of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs has been National Security Advisor.  Over the last couple of days, however, I’m mostly seeing it spelled Adviser.   Odd.

Aside #3:  There have been several jokes about the name “Jim Jones” and “James Jones,” noting other famous people with those names, but none that I’m seen invoking the Rev. Jim Jones of Jonestown fame.  This is truly disappointing, given all the “drinking the Kool Aid” jokes we’ve heard about Obama.

Lt.Gen. Brent Scrowcroft, GEN David Petraeus, and Atlantic Council President and CEO Fred Kempe

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 but he also shared his thoughts with us on the important challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he termed “the long theater in the Long War.”

The bottom line is that winning in Afghanistan will require “sustained commitment” from the United States and NATO on the military front but, far more importantly, on the diplomatic and development fronts.