thedrifter
03-10-07, 12:32 PM
Petraeus strategy aims at post-Vietnam mind-set
By Jim Michaels - USA Today
Posted : Saturday Mar 10, 2007 12:01:23 EST
Twenty years ago, David Petraeus, then a young Army officer, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation for Princeton University, saying many of the lessons U.S. military leaders learned from the Vietnam War were wrong.
Generals had become hesitant to commit forces except when they could win conventional battles with superior American firepower. “The senior military have universally been more cautious since Vietnam,” Petraeus wrote.
That hesitancy posed a problem in Petraeus’ view. The U.S. military was turning away from the very fight — insurgencies — that it would likely confront. The United States’ enemies had also learned from Vietnam and would not want to confront U.S. military might head-on.
Now the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Petraeus is following his own advice. Since he arrived in Baghdad last month, U.S. troops are moving off large bases and into combat outposts in the city’s turbulent neighborhoods. Aides insist the new strategy is beginning to show positive results, particularly in the capital:
* Sectarian fighting between Sunni Arabs and Shiites is down by between 50 percent and 80 percent in some districts in Baghdad, says David Kilcullen, Petraeus’ senior counterinsurgency adviser.
* Between 600 and 1,000 families have returned to Baghdad in the past month, says Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer on loan to the U.S. military. Prior to that, about 20 families fled the capital daily.
* Sunni insurgent leaders have renewed talks with top U.S. officials about political accommodation, according to Jack Keane, a retired general and former Army vice chief of staff.
Keane is a longtime friend and mentor of Petraeus, and they shared numerous assignments during their careers. Keane also pushed a troop-escalation plan similar to President Bush’s plan to add 21,500 combat troops to Iraq. Keane recently spent two weeks in Iraq.
Petraeus, 54, has brought some of the Army’s top counterinsurgency experts to Iraq to make the new strategy work. ”We are doing something completely different,” Kilcullen says.
’Bigger bang for the buck’
At first, U.S. forces in Iraq focused on killing or capturing insurgents, Kilcullen says. The sometimes heavy-handed tactics angered ordinary Iraqis.
Then the Pentagon shifted its emphasis to training Iraqi forces to take over security operations and allow U.S. forces to leave. Many Iraqi units weren’t up to the mission. Sectarian violence in Baghdad exploded; some Iraqi forces were accused of siding with militias.
During his Senate confirmation hearings in January, Petraeus said Baghdad residents just want security, and they don’t care if U.S. or Iraqi troops provide it.
“One of the critical things that is different now is the way we’re using troops,” Kilcullen says. ”We’re getting a much bigger bang for the buck.”
Moving U.S. troops from heavily defended bases makes more of them vulnerable to attack. Even supporters admit the outcome is far from guaranteed. “It’s the right strategy and a great team,” Kilcullen says. ”Maybe it’s too late. We won’t know if it’s too late until we try it.”
Violence over the past several years has risen sharply. Iraqis are angered about a lack of security and basic services. Constant fighting between Sunnis and Shiites has made them less willing to settle their differences.
“The situation in Iraq is dire,” Petraeus acknowledged at his confirmation hearing.
’So far out of this business’
Violence since Petraeus’ arrival remains high. Two different attacks Monday killed nine U.S. troops outside Baghdad. Twin suicide bombings Tuesday killed 120 people in Hillah in southern Iraq. At least 30 people were killed by a suicide bomb in a cafe northeast of the capital Wednesday.
Petraeus doesn’t have much time. He said at his confirmation hearings that he expected to see positive results by late summer.
Petraeus has done two previous tours in Iraq. When he returned to the U.S., he began tackling a problem he first identified 20 years ago: the lack of strong counterinsurgency training and doctrine in the U.S. Army.
”We got so far out of this business when we got back from Vietnam,” says Andrew Krepinevich, a counterinsurgency expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We had no institutional memory, no doctrine.”
Petraeus oversaw the creation of a new counterinsurgency manual. ”He was the driving force behind it,” says Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, who wrote a book on insurgencies and now helps train military advisers. “He personally copy edited the field manual.”
The manual is an attempt to get past the post-Vietnam fear of insurgencies, acknowledging fighting rebellions are often lengthy and ambiguous affairs. They require an understanding of politics and economics in addition to conventional tactics.
”These wars are long, messy and slow,” Nagl says.
Ellie
By Jim Michaels - USA Today
Posted : Saturday Mar 10, 2007 12:01:23 EST
Twenty years ago, David Petraeus, then a young Army officer, wrote a Ph.D. dissertation for Princeton University, saying many of the lessons U.S. military leaders learned from the Vietnam War were wrong.
Generals had become hesitant to commit forces except when they could win conventional battles with superior American firepower. “The senior military have universally been more cautious since Vietnam,” Petraeus wrote.
That hesitancy posed a problem in Petraeus’ view. The U.S. military was turning away from the very fight — insurgencies — that it would likely confront. The United States’ enemies had also learned from Vietnam and would not want to confront U.S. military might head-on.
Now the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Petraeus is following his own advice. Since he arrived in Baghdad last month, U.S. troops are moving off large bases and into combat outposts in the city’s turbulent neighborhoods. Aides insist the new strategy is beginning to show positive results, particularly in the capital:
* Sectarian fighting between Sunni Arabs and Shiites is down by between 50 percent and 80 percent in some districts in Baghdad, says David Kilcullen, Petraeus’ senior counterinsurgency adviser.
* Between 600 and 1,000 families have returned to Baghdad in the past month, says Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer on loan to the U.S. military. Prior to that, about 20 families fled the capital daily.
* Sunni insurgent leaders have renewed talks with top U.S. officials about political accommodation, according to Jack Keane, a retired general and former Army vice chief of staff.
Keane is a longtime friend and mentor of Petraeus, and they shared numerous assignments during their careers. Keane also pushed a troop-escalation plan similar to President Bush’s plan to add 21,500 combat troops to Iraq. Keane recently spent two weeks in Iraq.
Petraeus, 54, has brought some of the Army’s top counterinsurgency experts to Iraq to make the new strategy work. ”We are doing something completely different,” Kilcullen says.
’Bigger bang for the buck’
At first, U.S. forces in Iraq focused on killing or capturing insurgents, Kilcullen says. The sometimes heavy-handed tactics angered ordinary Iraqis.
Then the Pentagon shifted its emphasis to training Iraqi forces to take over security operations and allow U.S. forces to leave. Many Iraqi units weren’t up to the mission. Sectarian violence in Baghdad exploded; some Iraqi forces were accused of siding with militias.
During his Senate confirmation hearings in January, Petraeus said Baghdad residents just want security, and they don’t care if U.S. or Iraqi troops provide it.
“One of the critical things that is different now is the way we’re using troops,” Kilcullen says. ”We’re getting a much bigger bang for the buck.”
Moving U.S. troops from heavily defended bases makes more of them vulnerable to attack. Even supporters admit the outcome is far from guaranteed. “It’s the right strategy and a great team,” Kilcullen says. ”Maybe it’s too late. We won’t know if it’s too late until we try it.”
Violence over the past several years has risen sharply. Iraqis are angered about a lack of security and basic services. Constant fighting between Sunnis and Shiites has made them less willing to settle their differences.
“The situation in Iraq is dire,” Petraeus acknowledged at his confirmation hearing.
’So far out of this business’
Violence since Petraeus’ arrival remains high. Two different attacks Monday killed nine U.S. troops outside Baghdad. Twin suicide bombings Tuesday killed 120 people in Hillah in southern Iraq. At least 30 people were killed by a suicide bomb in a cafe northeast of the capital Wednesday.
Petraeus doesn’t have much time. He said at his confirmation hearings that he expected to see positive results by late summer.
Petraeus has done two previous tours in Iraq. When he returned to the U.S., he began tackling a problem he first identified 20 years ago: the lack of strong counterinsurgency training and doctrine in the U.S. Army.
”We got so far out of this business when we got back from Vietnam,” says Andrew Krepinevich, a counterinsurgency expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “We had no institutional memory, no doctrine.”
Petraeus oversaw the creation of a new counterinsurgency manual. ”He was the driving force behind it,” says Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, who wrote a book on insurgencies and now helps train military advisers. “He personally copy edited the field manual.”
The manual is an attempt to get past the post-Vietnam fear of insurgencies, acknowledging fighting rebellions are often lengthy and ambiguous affairs. They require an understanding of politics and economics in addition to conventional tactics.
”These wars are long, messy and slow,” Nagl says.
Ellie