Let's talk "strategy"...

That was a good post. I certainly don't want to impugn Rummy's character or personal conduct while he was SecDef... I'm sure he was honest and following what he felt was the best course of action in his time as the chief architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are, however, certain facts that are unavoidable. One is that history is going to look at the manner in which the US has conducted the war to date, and will determine what has and hasn't worked according to the goals and objectives laid down by those that started the process in the first place.

Our goals and objectives in both Iraq and Afghanistan were fuzzy, to say the least. We wanted to remove the threat of Osama bin Laden and his support within the Taliban government by completely removing and replacing the "bad elements" in Afghanistan, and we wanted to do the same with the very dangerous Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athists in Iraq because of suspected MWD development and deployment. Authors and historians the world over refer to this sort of plan as "grand strategy" in that it defines the goals and objectives the the broadest manner. Our success in both these endeavors were rapid and unarguably achieved with minimum cost to the US and her allies.

No one here will argue that the failings don't really come into play until we work down to a theater-level strategy implementation and a post-invasion planning schedule. Rummy (and Cheney, in my opinion) fail at this portion of their jobs... and thus Bush does, too. The (seemingly) main objective as defined by Bush and Co. was to oust the Taliban and Ba'athists, then walk away while the Iragis and Afghanis put things back together to our satisfaction, with little to no risk for US assets while they were doing this.

My point here is that, in an ideal world, the leadership of our nation comes up with the Grand Strategy, and the military planning and logistics that make up the theater-level strategy and tactics of the effort is left (mainly) to the military. We (civilians) tell them what they are working towards, and they (military) tell us what they need to achieve those goals and how long they think it will take to get there.

Cheney-Rummy (and by extension, Bush) failed because they let the military tell them what could be expected as "grand strategy" and they either ignored or failed to implement the more detailed aspects of the effort at a smaller scale... meaning the details of a post-invasion effort to put a functioning government in place once the "bad guys" were gone. When things were going sour on the ground in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the solution was to "fire" (and I still think that is what happened) and replace the military commanders in-theater until someone was found to finish the job to everyone's satisfaction (at least until the end of the Bush terms). THAT is exactly what cost the Union so much in the first two years of the Civil War (from a Republican President, no less), that is what made for such trouble and suffering in the First World War (thanks to Wilson), Truman saw the same thing in Korea when McAuthur was dictating "strategy" rather than tactics in regards to the Chinese, and that is exactly what was NOT working in the Johnson-Nixon years of the Vietnam war.

And, yes... Reagan did it too. Reagan failed to resolve the issues that led to the death of more than 200 Marines in Beirut in 1983, and removed all US forces there within 90 days as a result of one of the most horrific terrorist attacks on US personnel EVER. He had a "grand strategy" in place, but didn't want to pay the price that strategy demanded according to his commanders in the field. I think Rummy and Cheney brought that same kind of thought process with them from the Reagan years into the Bush Administrations.

Too many people have forgotten the lessons of WWII... that there is no guaranty of victory when the planning goes no further than "low risk-high return" in regards to military costs in lives and material.