Don Rumsfeld and the Beginning of the End

Today's announcement that the Military Times publishing group will come out on Monday with editorials calling for Rumsfeld's firing/resignation mark the beginning of the end of a failed Iraqi policy, which had always been premised on too many false assumptions...and yes, one could argue the beginning of that failure was when we invaded in the first place.

The Army Times, the Navy Times, the Air Force Times and the Marine Times are essentially newspapers sold on our military bases and generally reflect the sentiments and opinions of our armed forces. The underlying message is, "don't blame us; blame the politicians." And, it is also an indictment of the Bush management style. Rumsfeld is only the "proxy." The Commander-in-Chief has failed to stay close to his generals.

Short of the resignations of those generals, the Military Times editorials will be as close to a revolt of the uniformed military as we shall probably see...it is that significant.

Coupled to the editorials is the desertion of several prominent neo-cons, Richard Pearle among them, and their recent comments regarding the incompetence of the Administration in implementing their own failed policies...i.e. "we have been right, but these boobs didn't execute our ideas correctly." I noted earlier the relatively silent departure of the neo-cons and suggested that this was an unstated White House admission of policy failure. Add to the departure of the neo-cons and the lack of military support, the forthcoming Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group Report and the President's recent disclaimer regarding "staying the course," and one could conclude that the President's campaign speeches are pretty much bravado, trying to hold things together through November 7th.

I never really disliked Rumsfeld. Never felt he was a dyed in the wool neo-con, although he apparently initially bought in to their arguments. Instead, Rumsfeld impressed me as a technocrat, similar to Robert MacNamara - i.e. "I can accomplish the impossible by applying the latest in technology along with pragmatic business management." And, the loyalty part also seemed to reflect the corporate world more than the political...Bush is the Chairman of the Board, Cheney, the CEO, and Rumsfeld the VP for Defense. And, like MacNamara, I suspect when the post-Administration books are written, Rumsfeld will emerge as something of a Shakesperean tragic figure. He is certainly wise enough to be fully aware of his own mistakes and failures. The same may not be true of Bush and Cheney.

Bringing Powell into the Administration may, in a curious way, have been a fundamental error. Not that Powell was incompetent, but as a military hero and strategist, he was from the beginning, also a "competitor." One suspects that he was included in the Administration because of two factors: 1) he was a potential political rival and 2) the old Texas adage, made famous by LBJ, "it is better to have someone inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."

Given the Administration's suspicions about the competency of the U.S. military, it is ironic they would attack Kerry recently over a bad joke and entirely probable that they were attributing to Kerry their own dark thoughts on military competence.

I also believe that while much of what Rumsfeld tried to do in "reforming" the services was positive, but that he failed to understand that changing minds was far more difficult than changing tools. Not too surprising, inasmuch as American business today rests on the same misunderstandings. Certain military maxims, like most of human behavior, do not change simply because of new technology. The Powell Doctrine was nothing dramatically different from the thinking of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, or the German military strategist Clausewitz, namely "victory goes to the side which can marshall decisive force at the decisive point."

The Rumsfeld/Tommy Franks strategy in Afghanistan and the March to Baghdad, incorporated this by substituting "technolgy" (in the form of air power and "shock and awe") for boots on the ground. And, in both cases, they did remarkably well in achieving their initial objectives: in Afghanistan, the destruction of the Taliban; in Iraq, the capture of Baghdad. Where they failed was in their assumptions (or lack thereof) regarding the post-war environment. And, in both cases, Afghanistan and Iraq, there was no substitute for fighting insurgent conflicts with boots on the ground to fullfill the old maxim regarding decisive force at the decisive point.

There is another Clausewitzian maxim: "War is a continuation of politics by other means." Insurgencies are exactly this. Failing to understand and plan for the possibility of post-war insurgencies was a critical, and possibily fatal, error. When Bush Senior/Cheney/Powell launched Gulf War I, with a strong coalition and 500,000 troops, they ensured the retention of "options" following the initial destruction of the Iraqi army. They had sufficient boots on the ground to take Baghdad. That they decided not to was recognition of the Clausewitzian maxim and the foresight to ask: "What then?"

In Gulf War II, by the time we fully realized the significance of the unexpected insurgency, we had also recognized that the principal reason for our invasion (WMD) was invalid. This new knowledge disillusioned the American people's support for the war and thus politically prevented any additional build-up of U.S./coalition forces necessary to provide for that decisive force at the decisive point.

I would suggest that there was a time period in early 2004 wherein we knew both of the above - i.e. no WMD, and the need for additional forces to overcome a growing insurgency and that additional troops were not deployed because of the 2004 elections. That policy-makers believed that if additional troops were called up and sent in, in view of the failure to find WMD and other intelligence errors then coming to light, Republicans would have lost the White House. The only other explanation would seem to be the argument Woodward makes, they were in a "state of denial."

[More in a subsequent Post]