Saturday, February 10, 2007
On the building of armies from scratch in times of war
Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (pictured with TigerHawk in October 2005 at right) has assumed command of Coalition forces in Iraq. His job is to give effect to the Bush administration's new plan for stabilizing Iraq sufficiently to allow for the further development of of its post-Ba'athist political and military institutions. General Petraeus deems the job "hard," but not "hopeless." Well, we've faced those odds before, not once, but several times.
As previously reported, I'm reading Mark Moyar's excellent revisionist history of the Vietnam war, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965
In comparison with other new countries, South Vietnam did not look bad at all. Of the numerous countries that had gained their independence from colonial rules after World War II, very few had developed strong military capabilities in their first decade. When Nguyen Anh attempted to create a unified Vietnam for the first time in the late eighteenth century, it may be recalled, he needed thirteen years to develop strength in southern Vietnam and drive the Tay Son out of northern Vietnam. Nguyen Anh's success owed much to external aid, and to foreign military advisers who sharply criticized him for passivity and excessive caution. When, during this same period in history, thirteen North American colonies formed a new and independent nation, they suffered from many of the same deficiencies as [Ngo Dinh] Diem's South Vietnam. The armed forces of both countries lacked adequate leadership and discipline at times, and the leaders of both countries sought assistance from military men out of military necessity.
The foreign helpers in the American case, of whom the most distinguished were Baron Friedrich von Steuben, Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette, and Baron Jean de Kalb, sometimes commanded units in addition to providing advice. These men often faulted America's leaders for the inability of the Continental Army to live up to the standards of more seasoned armies, just as the Americans of the 1960s would fault Diem and his subordinate leaders. Scathing attacks poured forth, for example, after the Continental Army suffered a calamitous defeat at the Brandywine River on September 11, 1777, two and a half years into the war. General George Washington rarely used the Continental Army against large enemy forces as he did at Brandywine, and the results of the battle showed why -- by the end of the engagement the Americans had suffered over twelve hundred casualties and had lost eleven cannons. After the fiasco, de Kalb complained that Washington "is too slow, too indolent and far too weak.... In my opinion, whatever success he may have will be owing to good luck and the blunders of his adversaries, rather than to his abilities." When von Steuben, on another occasion, went to a Virginia courthouse to lead five hundred American volunteers into battle and only five Americans showed up, the Prussian fumed, "I shall always regret that circumstances induced me to undertake the defense of a country where Caesar and Hannibal would have lost their reputation, and where every farmer is a general, but where nobody wishes to be a soldier." The Americans abundant problems did not drag them down to defeat in their war for independence, but they needed time and much outside help to improve their performance. Seven years of war were to pass and Washington's troops were to suffer many humiliating defeats before they won the climactic battle at Yorktown, a victory that itself would require the contributions of 7,800 French soldiers and a French war fleet.
The woman who took the picture of the General and me more than 16 months ago -- Jeanne Hull -- is a captain in the United States Army who served under General Patraeus in both Bosnia and Iraq, finally during his leadership of the "Transition Command," which was charged with re-establishing the training of the Iraqi army after it had failed miserably the first time. Tuesday night I saw Captain Hull speak at Princeton. She was careful to conceal her opinion of Petraeus's chances for success, but did say two things. First, she repeated the old saw that it takes "two years to destroy an army and twenty years to build one." Second, she pointed out to her skeptical audience that the practice of embedding experienced and highly trained American soldiers into Iraqi units is intended, at least, to cut that time considerably.
Good luck, General Petraeus. May you be Iraq's Marquis de Lafayette. You won't be, though, unless you find somebody, or several people, to be Iraq's Washington.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Feb 11, 01:56:00 AM:
I don't know who made that picture, but he either doesn't know how to make a picture, or he didn't care.
That "Restrooms downstairs" sign between your heads looks, well, you know.
Vilmos
PS. Keep up the excellent blog.
By , at
Sun Feb 11, 02:11:00 AM:
Or maybe (possibly) the third option. She didn't have much time to compose the picture.
Vilmos
By 
TigerHawk, at
Sun Feb 11, 02:13:00 AM:
The "third option" is the answer -- Captain Hull was moving fast and operating under pressure!
By Christopher Chambers, at
Mon Feb 12, 09:11:00 AM:
Tigerhawk--you may be ingesting/smoking theproducts of your biotech company. This guy isn't Lafayette. He isn't even Von Stueben, which would be more appropos (in a bizarro alternative universe, that is). It shows the extent to which the right is reaching, stretching, grunting and straining (Lord you people need a laxative badly), to justify this nonsense...
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Feb 12, 06:23:00 PM:
Mock opponent, discount opponent's opinion without explanation, then make a snide comment about how it demonstrates the inherent weakness in opponent's opinion.
Wow. Fresh stuff. Way to go, CC. Thanks for contributing.
