Breaking Down the Surge

Westhawk has an interesting commentary on a piece in the most recent issue of The Weekly Standard. For the first time, the details of the surge's conception and delivery have been released in the mainstream media. The cast of characters should be fairly familiar to those who follow national security issues, and now it seems intriguing to go back and review the opinions that George Bush received in 2006, as the plan was being formulated.

Three figures stand out in this drama, all members of a NSC-convened panel in June 2006. Frederick Kagan and Robert Kaplan scarcely need introduction as prominent commentators and proponents of US power abroad. Michael Vickers held a much lower public profile, although his involvement with Afghanistan in the 1980's has since obtained some much overdue attention. These three men, along with State Department adviser Eliot Cohen, presented their perspectives on the situation in Iraq during a Camp David retreat with the president and his senior staff.

Kagan had already been developing a plan for securing Baghdad, and with his directive to "clear, hold, and build" he clearly articulated the basic principle of the eventual surge. Surprisingly, Robert Kaplan refused to take a firm position on the surge. Instead, Kaplan limited himself to a discussion of other counterinsurgency campaigns. Vickers objected, believing that Iraq could be won with even fewer units than were then deployed in Iraq. The original article does not explain Vickers' rationale behind such a proposal, but I concur with Westhawk in the belief that Vickers wanted to rely on better relations with the Iraqi tribes to ensure at least localized security.

Kaplan's refusal to advocate a solution is curious given his familiarity with irregular warfare in Afghanistan (he covered it in the 1980's) and his experiences as a journalist during the Iran-Iraq war. Kaplan has never made apologies for the use of US troops, and his recent books seem almost panegyric in their depiction of American servicemen. But here Kaplan chose to pass up an opportunity to support the surge. Why?

The answer may lie in Kaplan's beliefs about the future of warfare. Kaplan sees a long-term trend against the use of massive troop developments and in favor of smaller detachments of elite units (Kaplan's book Imperial Grunts prominently featured the SF community). The surge strategy was an implicit admission that counterinsurgency requires more than a token presence on the ground. Kaplan's transformative view of warfare, similar to the doctrine espoused by Donald Rumsfeld, could not account for this reality, and so even as Kaplan acknowledged the gravity of the situation he could not sincerely advocate an influx of additional forces.

Tracing the perspective of Vickers seems less problematic. His opinion was exactly in keeping with a veteran of CIA and SF operations. Given Vickers' success in Afghanistan, it would be hard to dismiss the opinion of a man who has proven so adept in using native social and political forces to his advantage. But here Vickers seems to have forgotten the difference between his Afghanistan experience and Iraq. In Afghanistan, Vickers was logistically supporting an insurgency; in Iraq, he was confronted with the theoretical challenge of stopping one. It appears that Vickers wanted to create a US-supported insurgency to fight the existing one; in effect, a literal "counterinsurgency". This would have the benefit of minimizing US troop presence (and casualties), but likely would have left the country in chaos, a chaos that likely would have borne a strong resemblance to post-Soviet Afghanistan. Vickers was correct in assessing the potential of engagement with the Iraqi tribes, but without a heavy US presence to maintain order the tribes would have only finished the job of tearing the country apart.

Ultimately, Kagan was the big winner. Even though his plan could never have succeeded on its own, he was the beneficiary of several contemporary developments, including the new COIN doctrine, Al-Qaeda's poor relations with the Sunni tribes, and Vickers' policy of engagement as eventually implemented by commanders on the ground. In this light, the surge stands as a masterful job of amalgamating various perspectives on successful COIN operations.

This episode should also temper enthusiasm for every new policy planner who suddenly gains recognition and credibility. This is not to suggest that Vickers is not an unusually productive and competent advocate of US policy, or that he lacks an impressive resume; it merely suggests that he has the same limitations of any observer with specialized credentials. Vickers (and to a lesser extent, Kaplan), struggled to adapt the situation to his previously established practices, rather than the other way around. The Pentagon is surely better off with Vickers in a position of real authority, but as we move forward his position and that of other irregular warfare practitioners should be balanced with more conventional minds.