My Share of the Task(173)

                The view from the Pentagon, which I shared, was different. Forces are shaped and deployed in packages to ensure they have every capability required. Also, military leaders, many of whom were students of counterinsurgency, recognized the dangers of incremental escalation, and the historical lesson that “trailing” an insurgency typically condemned counterinsurgents to failure. From a military planner’s perspective, incremental decisions to provide forces over time are not the same as a clear decision up front that facilitates effective force employment.

                From ISAF headquarters in Kabul, there was likely another perspective. A commander analyzes the mission his team has been given; assesses the situation; crafts a strategy to accomplish the mission; and then identifies the resources, including time, needed to achieve the mission. Receiving only part of the forces, or even getting them in a series of decisions, requires a commander to modify his campaign strategy. If that threatens his ability to accomplish the assigned mission, the commander must request that mission be changed.

                In the end, the rising mistrust was disappointing. As an experienced soldier, I knew that any perceptions of military incompetence or manipulation were unfounded, and I believed that the intentions of leaders in the White House and across the government were equally focused on what was best for the nation. I saw good people all trying to reach a positive outcome, but approaching the problem from different cultures and perspectives, often speaking with different vocabularies. I hoped time working together would create more trust and a common picture.


* * *

                During the second week of May 2009, Chairman Mullen asked me to his office, an unconventional space I’d spent many hours in. Instead of the dark polished wood of Pentagon tradition, his office included a half-moon desk of white wood, a set of canted bookshelves evoking a sensation of being in a ship tossed at sea, and a small conference table. As usual, he came from behind his desk, and we sat at the table.

                “Stan, the secretary has decided to make a change in Afghanistan,” he began. “General McKiernan will be replaced. You will assume command of ISAF. Rod will go, initially as your deputy at ISAF, and then he will take command of a new three-star-level headquarters as soon as we can stand it up.”

                I had conflicting feelings. I was still interested in Afghanistan, and had hoped to replace Dave McKiernan in the summer of 2010 at the end of his standard two-year term. I was also happy to be paired with Rod. At the Joint Staff, I had kept a note in my desk that he had sent a young sergeant to give to me late one evening when we were both in Afghanistan in 2007. It quoted a line from a letter Sherman, in command near Memphis, wrote to Grant on March 10, 1864: “I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come—if alive.” Returning to Afghanistan, Rod would command the day-to-day battle, while I focused on strategic-level issues. I would also be a commander again, which I preferred.

                But I was uncomfortable with replacing Dave McKiernan—an officer whom I liked and admired, and whose command I felt had suffered from years of relative neglect due to requirements in Iraq. I’d developed a relationship with him over the previous year, trying to shepherd through the Pentagon’s bureaucratic maze actions he needed.

                I also knew I was taking command of an increasingly difficult and unpopular war. Given all the factors involved, I wasn’t sure a successful outcome was achievable, no matter what we did. Nations had dispatched more talented generals than I—Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Creighton Abrams—to command faltering wars that many thought were past saving. I knew many felt the same about Afghanistan. I’d watched the decision-making process that had transpired in D.C. over the past ten months, and knew it had been awkward at best. At worst, it reflected deep conflicts in U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. After eight years of combat, and a much improved, but still tenuous, situation in Iraq, I saw little enthusiasm among policy makers for what I sensed was going to be needed in Afghanistan. In the weeks before deploying, Rod and I talked nightly about the challenges ahead, often gauging our chances at fifty-fifty, and only then if we made serious changes.