View Full Version : Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
This one is likely to shake some branches - the fallout should be interesting.
Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
LTG Daniel Bolger
Over a thirty-five-year career, Daniel Bolger rose through the army infantry to become a three-star general, commanding in both theaters of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. He participated in meetings with top-level military and civilian players, where strategy was made and managed. At the same time, he regularly carried a rifle alongside rank-and-file soldiers in combat actions, unusual for a general. Now, as a witness to all levels of military command, Bolger offers a unique assessment of these wars, from 9/11 to the final withdrawal from the region. Writing with hard-won experience and unflinching honesty, Bolger makes the firm case that in Iraq and in Afghanistan, we lost — but we didn’t have to. Intelligence was garbled. Key decision makers were blinded by spreadsheets or theories. And, at the root of our failure, we never really understood our enemy.
http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Lost-Generals-Afghanistan/dp/0544370481/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400722034&sr=8-1&keywords=Why+We+Lost+%3A+A+General%27s+Inside+Acco unt+of+the+Iraq+and+Afghanistan+Wars
Richard
Tree Potato
05-22-2014, 06:02
Interesting choice for a release date... 11 Nov (Veteran's Day, and after mid-term elections).
Bolger's the man!! I worked for him when he was COS at 2ID. He is a good man - Honorable.
Tree Potato
05-22-2014, 10:57
The problem is not all soldiers are suited to this type of interaction. While it looks good on paper in reality it does not work. They have known this since WWII and that is why the created the OSS and later SF and other types of SOF forces. The standard military is very black and white mentality and many very good soldiers have a hard time with grey areas. SOF soldiers excel in working in the gray areas where the average infantry officer may or may not get it.
Shack.
From the perspective of a minimally trained Air Advisor to the IqAF, we would have made better progress if more of the team had an SF mindset. As it was, the size of the mission greatly exceeded AFSOC's personnel numbers so it was handed to the conventional side; half of our team were non-vols, and of the half that volunteered maybe a quarter "got it." This made functioning in the gray zone very difficult and slow.
Please note this isn't an indictment against anyone serving as an Air Advisor on a MiTT or the CAFTT as training consisted of a couple months a Camp Bullis, far short of anything resembling an SF pipeline, and was inadequate to give any semblance of language proficiency. Nearly everyone gave it their best shot, but those best efforts were based on the experiences and training each person brought with them and varied widely.
Scimitar
05-22-2014, 13:52
You also have to be willing to fight dirty. It is not Marcus of Queensbury.
Brush Okie, could you expound on this, I'd be interested in understanding more. Not saying you're wrong at all, just interested in how an SOF unit may imploy tactics that a regular line unit might not think of.
S
Good stuff but its frustrating that so many senior leaders dont seem to be able to articulate this type of shit until AFTER they retire.
Where are all the guys that are able to find solutions for strategic problems while they are still on active duty? If they are out there NOW why do they always wait until after retirement to say something?
Streck-Fu
05-23-2014, 05:52
Good stuff but its frustrating that so many senior leaders dont seem to be able to articulate this type of shit until AFTER they retire.
Where are all the guys that are able to find solutions for strategic problems while they are still on active duty? If they are out there NOW why do they always wait until after retirement to say something?
That is the thought I had. I don't get it.
Strategic policy is set by folks very high in the food chain.
Vary from that and the officer career you'd prefer to have is put into jeopardy, and in a high profile way.
Go along to get along.
True, however that is what's ending us up in these "win less" situations.
There was a day we didn't "Go along to get along"...
That's what made us "Special" per sey
Strategic policy is set by folks very high in the food chain.
Vary from that and the officer career you'd prefer to have is put into jeopardy, and in a high profile way.
Go along to get along.
I dont disagree with you...
My frustration is that many of these folks want to be seen as visionary leaders with earth shaking discoveries when the fact is, when the lives of their men were at stake they went along to get along.
They 'self served' their own career until they were "safe", THEN they grew balls and spoke out against the boss.
...could have been the greatest guy ever. Finding his conscience after retirement doesn't inspire me.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, time to break out ye olde Official Secrets Act to once again squealch anything that contradicts the 'official' version of history?
And so it goes...
Richard
Mike Martin, An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict, 1978-2012 (Oxford University Press, 2014)
“Fury Over MOD’s bid to ban Book”, “Captain resigns over Afghanistan book.”
These are just some of British newspaper headlines that preceded the publication of An Intimate War: An Oral History of the Helmand Conflict last month. If you don’t know the story, here it is in brief: a former Territorial Army Captain, Dr Mike Martin, was actually commissioned by the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to read for his PhD at King’s College, London. In his final thesis he was to provide them with an independent view of the Afghanistan campaign; that thesis has since become this book.
Whilst the MOD’s official objections concern the alleged use of classified information in the book, one can’t help but presume that this is a mask for the real source of anger, which is just how far Martin goes in criticizing the Ministry’s involvement in Afghanistan. ‘Killing the wrong people’, ‘complicity in corruption’, ‘indirectly funding their enemies’ and ‘sponsoring some of the most despicable people in Helmandi society to rise to the top’ are just a few of the charges being levelled at their door. Perhaps most cutting of all, however, is the underlying suggestion that this was all the result of a conceptual void which did not allow British military leaders to understand the type of conflict they were engaged in.
(Cont'd) http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/an-incompetent-war-britain-in-helmand/
As an O who's guile and independence has already raised eyebrows, I couldn't agree more.
Where does the culture change begin, though? I'm thinking it would start with the civilian leadership, since that's the dog that wags the military tail, but that arena needs more individuals with balls plus integrity, too. So... don't know.
True, so...we can probably expect that to never happen...
Scimitar
05-23-2014, 18:22
Good stuff but its frustrating that so many senior leaders dont seem to be able to articulate this type of shit until AFTER they retire.
Where are all the guys that are able to find solutions for strategic problems while they are still on active duty? If they are out there NOW why do they always wait until after retirement to say something?
General Shinseki
Nothing but great word on LTG Bolger, yet why does it seem that so many of these former, retired Commanders or leaders come out swinging once there out. I never heard of LTG Bolger while I was on vacation in Afghanistan, so I can't say anything.
But I feel these Commanders would have better if the would have spoke out more while on active duty. Heck look at Gen Mattis and how out spoken he was.
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
Even if we're not aware of it, I think a lot of these guys like LTG(R) Bolger do speak out while on AD (within their circles of influence and the accepted protocols of the profession) and are busy "fighting the fight" from within. Once they retire and have the time to reflect both personally and professionally, they seem to want to seek a broader audience, both within and outside their respective branch of service and outside of the various branches of the services themselves, and pass on their views and lessons learned to a much greater audience, including John Q Public, our political leadership, etc. Books like LTG(R) Bolger's are a proven way to do that.
One thing I learned as a commander, your focus on preparing and leading your unit to carry out its assigned missions forces your 'world-view' to become necessarily self-limiting and, therefore, limited, and it isn't until months or even years after relinquishing command that you become far enough removed to realize it, and can then reflect back with a deeper sort of "couldawouldashoulda" self-assessment that re-establishes that broader sense of context and greater understanding. Anectdotal, but my experiences and MOO.
Personally, I'm looking forward to reading LTG(R) Bolger's reflections.
Richard
Even if we're not aware of it, I think a lot of these guys like LTG(R) Bolger do speak out while on AD (within their circles of influence and the accepted protocols of the profession) and are busy "fighting the fight" from within. Once they retire and have the time to reflect both personally and professionally, they seem to want to seek a broader audience, both within and outside their respective branch of service and outside of the various branches of the services themselves, and pass on their views and lessons learned to a much greater audience, including John Q Public, our political leadership, etc. Books like LTG(R) Bolger's are a proven way to do that.
One thing I learned as a commander, your focus on preparing and leading your unit to carry out its assigned missions forces your 'world-view' to become necessarily self-limiting and, therefore, limited, and it isn't until months or even years after relinquishing command that you become far enough removed to realize it, and can then reflect back with a deeper sort of "couldawouldashoulda" self-assessment that re-establishes that broader sense of context and greater understanding. Anectdotal, but my experiences and MOO.
Personally, I'm looking forward to reading LTG(R) Bolger's reflections.
Richard
It should be a good book.
An observation from my perspective; GO's are surrounded by retards. Here is how I've seen it, take a Division like 1st CAV, have numerous Brigades from all over the Army supporting that Division with each Brigade sending their top mouth breather (O-3 to O-5) up the DIVHQ at BAF to work as the LNO for their Brigade. Simple, top commanders are surrounded by the worst officers (and often times NCO's) from a huge mixed bag of units most of which do not fall under that command stateside. I've been doing the advisor thing now for 10 years in both Iraq and Afghanistan (where I am right now), from Division down to squad, and it has been hard to watch or to understand the breaks between the different levels of command. I've watched time and time again LTC's and COL's outright LIE to their commanders with absolutely no repercussions. I don't know Bolger or whatever the hell his name is but it's unimportant, they come, make big plans, rarely to never make good on those plans, leave and the next guy does the same. I was just a team guy, maybe I'm just not capable of fully appreciating the awesomeness that is command level occurrences but I do look forward to never seeing it again.
To get back on track for this thread, we lost because we fought 1 year wars while our enemy has continued to fight the entire time. We've used Infantry units to guard FOB's and Field Artillery units to conduct DA operations. We used MiTT teams to do SF missions and SF teams to do Ranger platoon missions. We do change of command ceremonies half way through a rotation so that no officer is left behind. This guy writing a book on why we lost....how the hell would he know?
One thing I learned as a commander, your focus on preparing and leading your unit to carry out its assigned missions forces your 'world-view' to become necessarily self-limiting and, therefore, limited, and it isn't until months or even years after relinquishing command that you become far enough removed to realize it
No argument there. That speaks to my original question though...
...after ten years of the same war, why aren't there any senior leaders at the GO level that don't need "years" of reflection to realize that the frontal assault was in fact an attack and not a ruse?
...Hacksaw, you are right on the money.
This guy writing a book on why we lost....how the hell would he know?
I suspect he might know a thing or two about it all from a synthesized tactical, strategic, and national policy perspective.
http://www.isaf.nato.int/about-isaf/leadership/lieutenant-general-daniel-p.-bolger-usa.html
Anyway, whether one will agree with his view(s) or not, it should be an interesting read.
Richard
I remember an officer saying almost the same thing about Vietnam in a book once. He said we did not fight there for ten years but we fought there for a year ten times. That may not be exact but close.
Sounds like COL Hackworth. Not sure the opinion of the board members, but to me it showed that if someone speaks out in the public arena, a cruxification awaits them.
I suspect he might know a thing or two about it all from a synthesized tactical, strategic, and national policy perspective.
He may well have some interesting things to say and I'm sure he and the guy helping him write it will make some insightful and well fused observations, however; the odds that he, as a general officer, had a decent understanding of what the ground truth was on his watch is unlikely. I have seen a couple GO's go down to the ODA or platoon level to get an honest perspective but that is literally a couple....two, MG Allen and MG Townsend (and I mean they went and sat with the soldiers without their entourage and personally took notes). It is easy to disparage those at the top or the bottom, I'm fortunate in that I've been able to see and be a part of both at least in Iraq and Afghanistan. Watching yet another retired GO come out and tell everyone what went wrong after years sitting on his hands means little to me. It would be great if there is another COL Hackworth out there ready to give some insight on what happened in Iraq or Afghanistan but I'm not going to hold my breath.
I was in the same IOBC as 2LT Dan Bolger. Out of a circa 200 man class, i seem to recall he graduated within the top few - and deserved it. All that said, the below quote places a decision to delay publishing until 35 years into a wee bit of context....just sayin'.....
"Before the law was changed, typical retired pay for a four-star was $134,400. Now, a four-star retiring in 2012 with 38 years of service gets a yearly payment of about $219,300, a jump of nearly $85,000. A three-star with 35 years gets about $169,750 a year, up about $39,000."
"Why We Lost".....
Because we try 'nation building' in places where they don't even understand what a Nation is.
Because there is no real central power to address or influence.
Because we have no clue as to the motivating factors in an Islamic/mafia run country (term used loosely to describe a geographic entity).
In an environment like Astan you kill all the bad guys with extreme prejudice and leave...you just fking leave.
We win.
If they start down the same path again you return and kill them all again and their goats.
They understand that.
We win, and save our soldiers and our wealth.
The SF hearts minds crap is wasted there....seeds cast on concrete...maybe a weed will grow in a crack but that is it.
Our nation building worked in Japan/Germany due to educated societies that could reason.
If the General doesn't say something similar then he's an idiot too.
"Before the law was changed, typical retired pay for a four-star was $134,400. Now, a four-star retiring in 2012 with 38 years of service gets a yearly payment of about $219,300, a jump of nearly $85,000. A three-star with 35 years gets about $169,750 a year, up about $39,000."
I may have just thrown up in my mouth a bit.
PRB..spot on.