Tom Ricks lists the top 10 COINdinistas, and Schmedlap, not unreasonably, takes issue with the omissions.
My question, though, is this: who are the top practitioners of COINcraft — or whatever you prefer to call inventive soldiering these days — on the ground in Afghanistan right now? No, I don’t mean McChrystal and Rodriguez. Who — and where — are the McMasters and McFarlands of this war?
I am right here. there is only 1.
Given how often reshuffle the deck and how little time remains for a unit to make any progress in a given area – and given the effect that this has of sending a message that we will not stick around for long – I doubt that we have had the opportunity to identify the most resourceful leaders, largely because they have not had adequate opportunity to perform or be identified. Until recently, our operations have been characterized as “mowing the lawn.” Go in, clear, leave. The cream won’t rise to the top until you stop shaking and stirring.
I really get the impression from a distance to be sure…that this is a mini Brussels Bureaucracy at the top, worse than Iraq. It doesn’t help that the Ambassador and General in Charge don’t agree, and that there’s been some hesitation and political infighting at the White House.
Meanwhile in other earth shattering news.. Tom Freidman continues his string of strangely cogent, common sense articles…perhaps this is the end times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29friedman.html?_r=5&ref=opinion
It’s bad when T.F makes more sense the the US A.G.
McMasters is currently at TRADOC. I’d guess another year or so before he is back with troops.
The top practitioners of a theoretical way of battling a rebellion yet to be proven?
Hopefully the top counter rebellion people in Afghanistan would be Afghans. A clue to the weakness of the entire enterprise is that Afghans weren’t even considered in the question. The assumption was that the “best” must be Americans. If cultural awareness, area knowledge, language skills and continuity are factors in “getting” it then there should be hundreds or thousands of Afghans on the list ahead of the inhabitants of think tanks.