Tue Sep 30, 2008 at 12:44:07 PM EDT
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I'm not sold on Robert Gates yet, and, frankly, after the last six years, I'll never fully trust anyone associated at a high level with the Bush administration. That said, Secretary Gates continues to present himself as a beacon of sanity in Bush's seemingly endless sea of stupidity. Ann Scott Tyson of the Washington Post reports:
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday criticized the shock-and-awe strategy of the 2003 Iraq invasion and said the Pentagon's narrow focus on conventional combat operations proved costly when U.S. ground troops had to switch gears to try to stabilize that country.
The Pentagon bureaucracy failed to respond quickly enough to the military's need for innovative counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates said, and he called for reforms to make the institution more agile and flexible.
The military's struggle to adjust to the counterinsurgency mission in Iraq "came at a frightful human, financial and political cost," Gates told an audience of military officers at the National Defense University here. "For every heroic and resourceful innovation by troops and commanders on the battlefield, there was some institutional shortcoming at the Pentagon that they had to overcome," he said.
While having a military skilled in fighting major conventional ground wars is essential, Gates said, such a war is unlikely in the near future. Yet the Pentagon has placed comparatively too much emphasis on developing high-technology weapon systems aimed at potential state adversaries such as China or Russia that take years to develop, he said, noting that the 2009 budget contains more than $180 billion for such conventional systems.
Such weapons often envision a computerized, idealized version of warfare that Gates suggested is unrealistic.
"Be skeptical of systems analysis, computer models, game theories," he warned, adding that officers should "look askance" at notions of future conflict that imply "adversaries can be cowed, shocked or awed into submission, instead of being tracked down, hilltop by hilltop, house by house."
Having participated in counterinsurgency operations in both theaters, I'm continually not disappointed with Gates' view on how the U.S. military should be oriented. Remember, this guy faces a withering barrage of high-tech, high-dollar defense contractors on a daily basis. So credit where credit is due.
My only concern is that he addresses the failures in process, but never touches on the prudence of starting the war in Iraq in the first place--or any future wars for that matter. However, my hope is that this is because it's simply not his job to formulate policy. As Defense Secretary, his job is to manage the military and implement those policies emanating from the White House and Capitol Hill. And within that narrow context, he's doing a fine job so far as I can tell. |
| Brandon Friedman :: Gates Continues to Make Sense |
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