Take Down of O’Hanlon (and an Aside on Petraeus)
Some great comments from Armchair Generalist:
As for Michael O’Hanlon’s comment in the NY Times:
“I don’t think I can defend [President Obama] for being out of touch with his commander [McChrystal],” said Michael E. O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “He has other people who advise him. But there’s no one else with the feel on the ground that McChrystal has.”
Seriously, Mike? F___ off.
….
Third, the situation in Afghanistan requires more than a military expert opinion. Does McChrystal have the answer to fixing a corrupt Afghani government? Can he get the Afghani warlords to support Karzai? Is he up on all the international and US aid going into the country? How about the counternarcotics efforts? Can he get Pakistan to actually keep the Taliban and AQ out of Afghanistan? If not, then really, f___ off. You’re the one who’s “out of touch.”
This is exactly right. There is literally nothing more infuriating to me than the fact that none of these COIN supporters seems to have any idea of the limits of their own knowledge. They seem to think that anti-corruption measures and economic development are easy and will somehow flow organically out of the provision of security.
BTW, Exum has praised O’Hanlon’s comment (Indefensible | Center for a New American Security) and I responded in the comments thread with this:
Odd comment. Should he be on weekly VTC with Odierno as well? Who else? Petraeus too? If possible, Ex, would you lay our your list of people you believe the president should talk with on a regular basis? You’ve clearly given this issue a lot of thought.He meets with Gates and Mullen regularly. If I understand correctly there are a whole slew of people in DC who are part of McChrystal’s daily VTCs. Is there is problem with information flow? Or is this just another cudgel to beat conformity out of the entire system, to make national strategic decisions be responsive to tactical and operation considerations rather than the reverse?
Giving a theater commander a direct line into the Oval office is hardly an obvious call, and btw Petraeus’ intervention in domestic politics during the Bush years was close to unprecedented in American politics. And it was dangerous. And instead of trying to institutionalize the Petraeus aberration, we should be on the look-out to prevent its recurrence.
Ultimately, the notion that Obama has to have weekly VTCs with McChrystal is about perpetuating the personality cult of Petraeus by suggesting that anything he did must be replicated forever into the future.
I think your last point is probably the key. Guys like Exum, and frankly large swaths of the punditocracy, have tried to create the same sort of hagiography around McChrystal as they did around Petraeus. I think that’s more what you’re seeing than some weird sinister attempt to insert the military as Presidential veto power.
McChrystal does not have the answers to the issues that Armchair Gen listed, but he does have all of the manpower and equipment to sustain and support any of our efforts in the country and the C2 infrastructure to coordinate it all. In short, it seems highly unlikely that any progress can or will be made without significant coordination of military and non-military assets by McChrystal. I suspect that O’Hanlon could give an equally good or better explanation to the questions posed. Generally, one should wait for an unsatisfactory answer to one’s questions before directing the interrogee to “F off.”
I think O’Hanlon has more than demonstrated he deserves this… but on to the substance…
>>In short, it seems highly unlikely that any progress can or will be made without significant coordination of military and non-military assets by McChrystal.<<
Well, of course. But that has NOTHING to do with Oval Office VTCs. No one is denying that Afghanistan is important. No one is denying that Obama should keep informed. No one is denying that we need to coordinate our response.
What many of us are pissed off about is the notion that McChrystal should have a direct, weekly line into the Oval Office and that a failure to ensure such access is “indefensible.”
I guess not, though it was a response to the questions posed by AG in his rebuke of O’Hanlon. I guess I would just say: if the response answers AG’s question and if the answers have nothing to do with Oval Office VTCs, then what was the point of his questions?
In regard, specifically, to direct comms between President and Gen McC, it seems reasonable for the President to keep in closer contact with a General who is responsible for an undertaking of such enormous magnitude. Whether that should take the form of weekly VTCs is doubtful – I would be surprised if meeting so often would be necessary. But “more frequent” contact, relative to other commanders, seems reasonable. I don’t think it would have been unreasonable for FDR to communicate directly to Ike on occasion (did he? I don’t know) or Lincoln to communicate with Grant on occasion. The situation in Afghanistan isn’t quite a battle of as much consequence as the Civil War or WWII, but it’s pretty darn important.
And to be fair to O’Hanlon (not that I’m a fan of his), he stated that nobody else has as good a feel for the situation as McChrystal. I think that’s a good point to consider. If true, it suggests that maybe the President might want to talk to him more often, at least until he makes a decision regarding troop deployments and what type of commitment we are willing to make as a nation.
[...] Bernard Finel, ASP, defended the President: He meets with Gates and Mullen regularly. If I understand correctly there are a [...]
[...] Bernard Finel, ASP, defended the President: He meets with Gates and Mullen regularly. If I understand correctly there are a [...]