At the end of September, when the national humiliation in Afghanistan at the end of August was still fresh in everyone’s mind, the 4th Great Power Competition Conference took place. The sub-title of this year’s conference was “Two-decade 9/11 Anniversary Conference: Gathering Wisdom from Experience.”
Well, be careful what you ask for.
The line up of speakers that you can see at the link above was an almost spoofable collection of the quasi-swampish usual suspects in the national security permaculture.
One of them was LTG H.R. McMaster, USA (Ret.). His session was remarkable in a variety of ways. He came ready, and he brought receipts.
A link to the full video can be found here and embedded below. To give you a flavor, let me pull out a bit that begins at the 34:54 point.
Some of this is boilerplate, but he is speaking to not just himself, but to who he knows is in the audience and part of the conference; those who more than anyone else are responsible for creating the conditions that led to the complete failure of our national security apparatus this century.
McKenzie, Petraeus, Crocker, Flournoy and others – they’re there. They, and McMaster, own part of the leadership and intellectual failure that was brought out in stark relief at the end of August. In the video, you can see McMaster’s passion. He knows who he is talking to and the venue. Considering the sleep inducing monotone speakers and panel discussions that usually characterize such gatherings – again – this is exceptional, especially when you consider he is putting himself and the other participants on report.
War is human, and we don’t consider it. We engage again in this self-delusion … this mirroring … … we fall in to all these cognitive traps of optimism bias, of confirmation bias, of group think. …
Think about how we waged the war in Afghanistan. In 2009 we reinforced the effort and then gave the Taliban and everyone the timeline for our withdrawal and then said we’d like to talk to you on our way out and work out a deal. How the hell does that work? …
Bingo. That is a point right at President Obama’s December 2009 West Point Speech – the day we culminated in Afghanistan that was clear in its implications the day it was given.
War is a contest of wills. And you hear these days, “The American people didn’t support the war.” … Well you know, three Presidents in a row told them it wasn’t worth it. Right? What do you think the American people are going to say?
With the exception of the August 2017 South Asia Strategy, that’s the only time we had a sensible, reasoned policy in place. …
We are not serious people … because we lack basic competence. And there are a number of reasons for this.
This next part is where people need to pause and ponder for a day or two. People are policy.
The institutions we get our people from and send them to matter. The intellectual training and pedigree that we value over others matter. If we had the right institutions, systems, and concepts of value – we should get a corresponding excellence from it. Shouldn’t we? If we want to do better than we have the last few decades, should we just try harder doing the same thing relying on our own self-created system of sub-optimization – or do we need to look somewhere else?
I think there are a lot of people in senior positions in government who have never led anything, right, they’ve never done anything except maybe be in academic environments or write policy papers, you know. But when you write a policy paper … this paper, what is it going to do? You can’t hit the enemy over the head with it. They have no real idea about execution, implementation.
Have we willfully forgotten the fundamentals of success in war – or have they become too inconvenient for the moment, second order effects on someone else’s PCS cycle be damned?
And the other example of our strategic incompetence has to do with our failure to integrate all elements of national power with the efforts of like-minded powers orientated on objectives and goals in war, an outcome. … It’s almost as if we don’t deserve to win wars. …
What is this phrase “responsible end?” When did that come in to vogue? I guess we don’t need to win wars any more.
I will tell you, that is not only counter-productive, because as Clausewitz said, ‘In war, each side tries to outdo the other,’ and if you are just trying to get to the ‘responsible end,’ you’re going to get your ass kicked.
This next point hit home because I know a lot of people who have invested a lot of time and money is various security studies programs. They are smart people. Many are good people. How often have you heard, “PersonX is a graduate of the YYYYY school at ZZZZZ where he got his Masters/PhD.” Are they and the training they’ve received really fit for purpose?
McMaster, someone who received his PhD in history from UNC-Chapel Hill, goes there about our legion of nomenklatura who are graduates of various security studies programs.
(they) …teach international relations theories that … graduates try to fit situations in to. They only give a veneer of understanding, and they lay a deceptive rationale for folly and failure.
We have only started our national conversation about the causes of our abject failure in Afghanistan where in over two decades of effort and hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed in the name of American children yet unborn, we produced a less effective Afghan civil society than the Soviet Union built before they left in shame a generation earlier.
McMaster does not have the exactly correct understanding, but neither does anyone else. He did have a front row seat. He was at the very top of the leadership responsible for its execution. His point of view is something anyone interested in helping the future avoid similar failures should hoist onboard – along with other’s. Only by doing that, can we get closer to better understanding how we find ourselves here.
If the below embedded video does not come up, you can get it here.
If nothing else, you have to give him credit for remembering perfectly one of the best quotes from the great American George Schultz.
“Negotiation is a euphemism for capitulation, unless the shadow of power is cast upon the bargaining table.”
– George Schultz
