Eliot A. Cohen: Will there be an Afghanistan Syndrome?
[Mr. Cohen was counselor of the Department of State from 2007 to 2009. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.]
In all of America's wars, we develop stories that help us explain and live with the outcomes. After Vietnam, for example, a consensus gelled: that the civilians in Washington had botched the conflict by micromanaging the generals. And after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush's administration developed another storyline -- that the nation had triumphed because the military had been given a clear mission, ample resources and the freedom to do the job right. "By God," Bush said, "we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all!"
The rise and fall of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal -- whom President Obama dismissed Wednesday as commander of the faltering U.S.-led war in Afghanistan after an explosive magazine article featured the general and his top aides deriding the president, vice president and other civilian leaders as well as foreign allies -- will no doubt play a major role in the stories we ultimately tell ourselves about the Afghan conflict.
These war stories are not just morality tales to be retold in high school history books or television documentaries. They can shape the way the United States fights its enemies in the future, and the way it settles disputes over war at home. The McChrystal saga, with its echoes of the Vietnam era's bitter civilian-military recriminations, threatens to do the same.
In Vietnam, as in the Gulf War, the old stories are, to say the least, radically incomplete. The civilians did not, in fact, micromanage most of the Vietnam War. President Lyndon B. Johnson restricted bombing targets in North Vietnam for the sensible reason that he did not want to bring China and Russia into a larger conflict. The campaign in the South -- including massive bombardment and search-and-destroy missions -- was the product of a conventional military that understood the war chiefly in terms of killing the enemy, not fighting an insurgency. Similarly, a truer tale of the Gulf War would emphasize the U.S. failure to shatter Saddam Hussein's power, which paved the way for years of blockade and sporadic bombardment, leading to a second and conclusive showdown more than a decade later.
However untrue, embellished and slanted, the war stories had real consequences. They helped account for the difficulties President Bill Clinton had with his military subordinates over the issue of whether to allow openly gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces, and during the conflicts in Serbia and Kosovo. They also help explain the scourging Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took for his intense vetting of the plan to invade Iraq in 2003, and the willingness of retired generals to denounce him in public when the war veered off course. The stories misled a generation of Army officers into thinking that there was a simple recipe for victory -- give us everything we ask for, a start date and a finish line, and get out of the way -- and they gave sanctimonious, militarily ignorant politicians talking points with which to belabor their opponents.
The wars the United States is now fighting will produce stories of their own...
Read entire article at WaPo
In all of America's wars, we develop stories that help us explain and live with the outcomes. After Vietnam, for example, a consensus gelled: that the civilians in Washington had botched the conflict by micromanaging the generals. And after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, George H.W. Bush's administration developed another storyline -- that the nation had triumphed because the military had been given a clear mission, ample resources and the freedom to do the job right. "By God," Bush said, "we've kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all!"
The rise and fall of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal -- whom President Obama dismissed Wednesday as commander of the faltering U.S.-led war in Afghanistan after an explosive magazine article featured the general and his top aides deriding the president, vice president and other civilian leaders as well as foreign allies -- will no doubt play a major role in the stories we ultimately tell ourselves about the Afghan conflict.
These war stories are not just morality tales to be retold in high school history books or television documentaries. They can shape the way the United States fights its enemies in the future, and the way it settles disputes over war at home. The McChrystal saga, with its echoes of the Vietnam era's bitter civilian-military recriminations, threatens to do the same.
In Vietnam, as in the Gulf War, the old stories are, to say the least, radically incomplete. The civilians did not, in fact, micromanage most of the Vietnam War. President Lyndon B. Johnson restricted bombing targets in North Vietnam for the sensible reason that he did not want to bring China and Russia into a larger conflict. The campaign in the South -- including massive bombardment and search-and-destroy missions -- was the product of a conventional military that understood the war chiefly in terms of killing the enemy, not fighting an insurgency. Similarly, a truer tale of the Gulf War would emphasize the U.S. failure to shatter Saddam Hussein's power, which paved the way for years of blockade and sporadic bombardment, leading to a second and conclusive showdown more than a decade later.
However untrue, embellished and slanted, the war stories had real consequences. They helped account for the difficulties President Bill Clinton had with his military subordinates over the issue of whether to allow openly gay men and lesbians to serve in the armed forces, and during the conflicts in Serbia and Kosovo. They also help explain the scourging Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld took for his intense vetting of the plan to invade Iraq in 2003, and the willingness of retired generals to denounce him in public when the war veered off course. The stories misled a generation of Army officers into thinking that there was a simple recipe for victory -- give us everything we ask for, a start date and a finish line, and get out of the way -- and they gave sanctimonious, militarily ignorant politicians talking points with which to belabor their opponents.
The wars the United States is now fighting will produce stories of their own...