Waging Modern War

Sunday 1/14/07
2000

This week I passed the three month mark on my tour in Kuwait. Assuming I’m here for exactly a year, that means I’m 25% finished. Someone sent me an elaborate Excel spreadsheet as a joke. You put your arrival date and your return date in it, and it tells you how many days, hours, and meals are left to go. It has a pie chart that starts off showing a barren desert and gradually changes to a tropical paradise as the time goes by.

It’s amusing, but I don’t really look at it that way. How long I’m going to be here and when I go home are the last thing on my mind 99% of the time. Usually we’re so busy that I’m focusing on solving the issue of the moment. When there aren’t any “issues of the moment”, I’m trying to make some progress on longer term projects. And when I’m not doing that, I’m dealing with all the normal life maintenance tasks like eating, laundry, sleeping, communicating with friends and family, and occasionally even managing to study for my military education.

Actually I kind of like it here. Perhaps not the environment per se, but that goes with the job. What I like is being a part of the war, and being able to contribute to it. Despite all the debate at home, there’s a clear sense here that what we are doing is important and that it has an impact on American security. This theater is the center of gravity for the Army right now, and it’s where I belong.

There was an outstanding editorial in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago by Daniel Henninger. He explained in clear, concise terms the origin and importance of the new strategy in Iraq. Far from being an off-the-cuff desperation political move by President Bush, it’s the result of a lot of very serious thinking and analysis by a lot of very smart people, and it’s been coming for a long time. The approach is not new – people have been advocating it for years. It just took until now for their views to gain enough widespread attention and acceptance within the military and the rest of the government for it to reach the tipping point and get the policies implemented. It’s no accident that General Petraeus literally “wrote the book” on counterinsurgency. (well, not exactly wrote it, but he oversaw the production of the new Field Manual on Counterinsurgency.) It was published in December and now he’s coming here to put it into action.

The title of this entry comes from a book I’m reading for my military education. It’s by General Wesley Clark, and is about the NATO operation in Kosovo in the late 1990’s. It’s interesting, but I would not have chosen to read it right now if it was not required. There are at least a half-dozen more current and relevant books I’d like to read right now about counterinsurgency and the current war. But since I have to write a paper on this I’m reading it.

So far it has mainly been a primer in organizational politics, with the war in Yugoslavia as a backdrop for his political and bureaucratic maneuvering. It’s interesting in that light since many of the problems he faced are similar to the ones I face here, albeit on a much smaller scale and involving more mundane issues. Serving multiple masters, competing (and sometimes incompatible) priorities, complex organizational relationships in which people with differing agendas have influence or control over key factors to your success, and different perceptions of what constitutes success are just a few of the similarities.

It’s also interesting from the standpoint of the use of military forces to achieve political goals, without necessarily going to war per se. That’s the heart of the book, and probably where the most salient take-home lessons will come from.

For those of you who have an interest, here are a couple pictures of me in my room today spending some time reading the subject book. (And yes, that’s my Christmas tree, and no, I don’t plan to take it down soon. Just call me a redneck, I guess). But I like the soft light. I don’t usually have the overhead lights on at all except when I need them to read.


Waging Modern War I (blog)
Originally uploaded by hkp7fan.

Waging Modern War II (blog)
Originally uploaded by hkp7fan.

There’s not much new to report here other than passing that milestone. I’m now definitely one of the ones who’s “been here”. I more or less know my way around and can get my job done. When I first arrived everyone’s face was new, but now there are many familiar faces and names. I can spot the new people rotating in. In some ways the time has gone quickly, but in other ways it seems like I’ve been here a lot longer than three months. It probably has something to do with the fact that for so many years my work was just the same thing day in and day out, with the variety in my life coming from my personal circumstances. Now it’s just the opposite. The personal side of my life is very constrained and mostly monotonous, but the professional side is full of variety, things to learn, and new challenges every day.

So here’s to the next nine months – I have a lot I hope to accomplish in that time.

Mood: Relaxed
Music: Ten Years After - A Space In Time