Last summer I found myself in the military history and warfare section of a bookstore, looking for a particular book about Afghanistan. Instead of finding it, however, I wandered into a minefield of personal accounts from the Iraq War, a swollen stack of shelves bloated with book titles that either read like a series of neato radio transmissions or a string of dark, fatalistic omens.

Out of curiosity, I opened up a few of the books and scanned their back flaps looking for anyone or any units I recognized. Beyond the important-sounding titles, the parade continued: after the requisite spread of photos of the author and his peers brandishing Colt and Fabrique Nationale firearms, came an 8x10 style headshot and a palpably assured blurb about the author’s accomplishments in Iraq and the obligatory Ivy League graduate school he was attending at the time of publication; his limitless future on display for the world.


I haven’t read any of these books. Some of them probably contain good descriptions of what happened over there and surely a select few are excellent. Over the years I’ve read many veterans’ first-hand accounts that profoundly shaped my outlook on warfare and leadership, from With the Old Breed to The Coldest War. And furthermore, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t also fantasize about one day sitting down to pen my own memoirs, satisfied enough with my life’s accomplishments to think they warranted sharing.

But seeing these volumes of glossy, large type, self-love manuals made me think twice. And it also put me in touch with an aspect of being a veteran about which I had not been honest with myself: what we say when we’re asked about our own experiences in war.

When someone asks me about the war, I tell the truth, but I focus on what I want to hear coming out of my mouth: the rocket that missed me by a hundred meters, the IED holes I drove my convoy around, etc. My listeners are incredulous, but I know it’s bullshit. Because real warriors don’t tell their stories, because their stories, unlike the ones I’ve just delivered, are untellable. Or rather, unhearable. And even though my stories are real, I feel guilty for making that person think even for a minute that my experience in war was noteworthy for any reason. I was just another Leatherneck, one of thousands who still have Al Anbar dust mashed into the stitching of their pack straps, nothing more, nothing less.


Since I’ve been a veteran, there have been few things that have bothered me more than when a civilian asks me about a certain book some veteran has written and what I thought about it, nagging me about it for weeks, so that he and I can share some moment of perceived common ground. Without a doubt, few emotions have come close to the ignominy I felt when my great uncle asked if I had read a particular book by a Marine contemporary of mine. “It was excellent,” he said, “you should definitely read it.” Why do I need to read that guy’s book? I thought to myself. I’ve been there myself. Why is my uncle lecturing me about a book that describes, in large part, the life I’ve lived?

And this is why I don’t want to read these self-styled John Wayne journals.


My friend Matt, a Marine veteran who is actually a writer by trade (and an excellent one) started writing his Iraq book a few years ago, building on his journal notes from the 2003 invasion. I read the first act and it was exceptional. I began to push him on it, trying to give him the kick in the ass I thought he needed to get his manuscript published. “I have an agent,” he told me, “but it’s not ready yet.” When I joked that I didn’t want him to become another talented friend who sat on his gifts, editing his masterpiece over and over again till there was no opportunity left, he replied: “yeah, but I want to write a good book, not just rush to get another Iraq book printed.”

Looking at the bookstore shelf, I now understood what he meant. I had always respected the way, even as he would talk about fighting his tank to Baghdad, Matt would discuss his shortcomings and regrets. He did the job like a warrior and he’d publish his book when it was a good book, when he believed he had something to offer. Maybe he’d never publish it. But he didn’t need to see his picture on a dust jacket to know what his value was.


Some readers might find my criticism harsh or unfair, particularly given that I publish this web magazine or that I might write a book myself some day. Perhaps. But I would encourage those readers to validate such criticism by searching out the truly worthwhile books about Iraq and Afghanistan- the books that inform and enlighten, not simply recount. If you find one, send us a note. We’ll be wanting to read it as well.

In recent months, Chinese military officials have started showcasing their expanded naval power and new naval strategy. Their expanded power involves a rapid procurement program of advanced technologies including anti-ship ballistic missiles, continued development of an aircraft carrier strike group, and a new submarine base on the South China Sea, as well as the deployment of new capabilities such as anti-piracy forces. The technological leaps demonstrated are indeed impressive, and we must not forget that China is only the third nation to independently put a human into space. Simply put, they are not nearly as far behind as we have comfortably assumed. Need more proof? Look at your iPhone.

While the Chinese threat to American supremacy in the Pacific is mounting, the strategic implications of Chinese naval ambition are more vague. Their new strategy, entitled Far Sea Defense, places Chinese economic security in the hands of the Chinese navy. As The New York Times reported, “Chinese admirals say they want warships to escort commercial vessels that are crucial to the country’s economy, from as far as the Persian Gulf to the Strait of Malacca, in Southeast Asia, and to help secure Chinese interests in the resource-rich South and East China Seas.”

You don't have to be Alfred Thayer Mahan to understand the wisdom of such moves by the Chinese: as the world’s second largest oil consumer (behind only the United States), an increasingly prolific investor in Africa- with eyes on raw materials, and an economy that has grown rapidly on the exporting of manufactured goods, the defense of Chinese shipping only makes sense. Indeed, the birth of our own Navy in the 19th Century can be found in the need to defend commercial shipping from international rivals, external conflict, and regional pirates.

Whether Far Sea Defense truly is “a sharp break from the traditional, narrower doctrine of preparing for war…over Taiwan or defending the Chinese coast” as the NY Times asserts, remains to be seen. Certainly, China has begun projecting its force beyond traditional limits. In the past few years three ships have been in the Gulf of Aden assisting in anti-piracy operations, two warships recently visited Abu Dhabi, and, in mid-April, a battle group of ten ships, including two submarines, sailed unannounced through Japanese territorial waters en route to wargames in the Western Pacific. Certainly the idea of a blue water (forward deployed) naval force holds appeal to the Chinese and their spending and actions are commensurate with that goal.


But the analysts remain puzzled by the new Chinese naval posture, and have varying opinions. Some, like ADM Robert F. Willard [Commander, PACOM] and Gary Li of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, have issued significant concerns about Chinese intentions. China’s actions in April off Japan, Li stated, “send a very clear message to the region that it should be prepared to see a China unafraid to really test its reach and move into new areas." Conversely, Drew Thompson, director of China Studies at The Nixon Center in Washington, DC, stated that to call recent Chinese moves “a new phase is overly dramatic. [China] has been working for a long time on expanding their ability to operate farther from their shores and conduct joint operations closely coordinating air, land and sea platforms.” Far Sea Defense, then, is viewed as a mixed bag.

What does all this ambiguity mean for American defense priorities? Therein lies the rub. While we need to defend our economic self-interest, allies, and freedom of mobility in the Pacific, as elsewhere, to categorize Chinese developments as openly hostile, as some have, seems a bit of a stretch. It reeks of Cold War defense fears. Indeed, it’s easy to quantify, spend, and defend against submarines and aircraft carriers emblazoned with red stars bu it’s much harder to quantify, spend on, and counter disaffected tribesmen, Western affiliation backlash, and legitimate versus illegitimate relative economic opportunities posed by our two hot wars.

As we drive ourselves into debt to fund two “limited” wars, attempt to rebuild our own damaged economy, and make meaningful progress on issues like nuclear security and the Palestinian/Israeli stalemate, I find it hard to believe we need to dedicate the effort called for by those like Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center to spend loads of money on fifth- and sixth-generation fighter aircraft and "navy energy weapons". Our money can and should be used elsewhere.


In the 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor, a senior American intelligence official is asked if he misses the kind of action he saw in World War II. He replies, “I miss that kind of clarity.” Focusing our fears on China’s growing naval prowess, to me, seems to be an attempt to create “that kind of clarity” out of a vague Chinese doctrinal change that is emblematic of the ambiguity of the post-Cold War world.


Further Reading: NY Times On China's Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Asia Times Alfred Thayer Mahan

In 1981, Israeli aircraft successfully launched a surprise attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, Tammuz 1, south of Baghdad. The attack, justified using Israel’s right to self-defense, prompted international rebuke (including American disapproval), a UN Security Council Resolution condemning the attack and a UN General Assembly resolution. In light of recent developments in Iran, remarks by Israeli officials, and the Nuclear Security Summit, we need to look at the possibility of another "Operation Opera" and what it means to the United States.

The Nuclear Security Summit, held this past week in Washington, was a forum to reduce the nuclear threat worldwide. This threat broke down into several main areas:

1) Loose or uncontrolled nuclear fuels and fissile material in the hands of terrorists.

2) North Korea’s arsenal.

3) Iran’s nuclear ambitions and UN sanctions to the contrary.

4) Ongoing Chinese, Indian and Pakistani production of bomb fuel.

Tied into these issues is the ongoing relationship between Israel and America. As General Petraeus remarked this past week, "Israel is - has been, is and will be a - an important strategic ally of the United States." Despite outright tension and stalling on the path to peace with the Palestinians in the last few months, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently reaffirmed that America’s support for Israel was “rock solid, unwavering, enduring and forever.” Such continual affirmations in the face of ongoing Israeli recalcitrance pose problems to American policy and security by tying us to Israel, right-or-wrong, and reducing our ability to pursue meaningful steps towards peace in the Middle East and credibility in nuclear negotiations.

The Summit, on the heels of a Russo-American agreement to nuclear reduction, and a stage for discussion of terror-based nuclear fears, also served to refocus attention on Iranian ambitions. Nearly simultaneously, American intelligence officials presented to Congress a timeline of one to five years for a working Iranian atomic weapon. In short, I see a small window for decisive action to preclude what Einstein termed “catastrophe beyond comparison” towards which we risk drifting.

The Israelis, it would seem, offer a convenient solution to the Iranian atomic problem: bomb the Iranians. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has remarked that Israel “still faces threats” and specifically referenced Iraq’s former nuclear ambitions in a speech Wednesday. The Jerusalem Post remarked in a recent editorial that “Israel should do nothing to calm fears that an IAF attack is a real possibility. It might be the only hope of stopping Ahmadinejad’s Iran.” Given Israel’s history, another counter-proliferation strike seems a distinct possibility, if not probability in the near future.

Indeed, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution held war game simulations in December that presumed a successful Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear targets. The results were divisive between the role-players representing America and Israel. The United States felt “Israel had opened a potential Pandora’s Box” with their strike. Israel, in their minds, had acted brashly and trapped the United States in a corner with regards to action against Iran. Successive turns resulted in massive Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza, as well as Iranian strikes into Israel itself while luring the United States into ‘stopping the war.’ The end result was “the United States having given up on its efforts to engage Iran, having begun a massive military reinforcement of the Gulf region, and having committed itself (including publicly) to clearing the Strait of Hormuz and protecting Gulf oil exports, by force if necessary.”

To an America still involved in two wars flanking Iran, the idea of being dragged into another one by Israeli intemperance and action poses a distinctly frightening challenge. While Osiraq Redux poses a decidedly bleak picture (one admittedly dark and potentially doomsday-ish), it does present Americans a view of the potential of the likely actions by one of our ‘rock-solid’ allies.

A recent article by The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran came the closest I’ve seen to really “getting“ what the Marine Corps is all about, only to retreat into the confused morass of media commentary that will never accurately depict what it truly means to be at war.

His piece, “At Afghan outpost, Marines gone rogue or leading the fight against counterinsurgency?” succinctly describes what has always made the Marine Corps very good at what it does, while completely missing the point that the Marine Corps is also very good at knowing what to do without anyone giving it a road map. He describes a political power struggle between those who we’re expected to believe are the cooler and wiser heads in Washington, and the Marines in Helmand Province who’ve staked out a claim in the Afghan War and are prosecuting their current successes with a strong resistance to reassignment elsewhere.

The argument presented is not about what good is being done or who is doing what is necessary to achieve victory, but rather about who is most closely adhering to the policy goals of men half a world away with no mud on their boots.


Case in point: the Post article paints us a picture in which the Corps may have “gone rogue,” holding fast in a large, rural part of Afghanistan where mines are planted and poppies grow – far away from the urban enclaves like Kandahar where Obama administration officials seem to think the enemy’s center of gravity lies. “It's [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar's capital. If you want to stuff it to Mullah Omar, you make progress in Kandahar,” the article quotes a senior official.

These are the same Taliban with whom we will be forced to negotiate, should the eighteen month deadline of Afghanistan “success” be upheld, unless the State Department is prepared to “stuff it” to the Taliban through peace talks hosted in an active urban battleground.


The thing is, the Marine Corps is doing it right this time. An eighteen month occupation in urban areas does not threaten what could loosely be called the “power elites” of the Taliban, and would seemingly give no pause to individuals who are more than willing to play nicely (enough) until U.S. forces return home, fair or foul, to the administration’s back-slapping. Winning small victories in the hinterlands, however, as limited in scope as they may seem now, positions the Marine Corps for success no matter what becomes of the Afghan landscape. For the reality is clear – arbitrary timelines on military performance will not make the Afghanistan problem easier to solve, and they will not press even the most hardened troops to fight fiercely enough to quickly dislodge so culturally entrenched an enemy as the Taliban. As a military and as a nation, we have two options for “success” in Afghanistan if forced to operate under the administration’s current stopwatch – and neither of those options is victory.


The popular option would seem to be kinetic and occupational in nature, the type of operation the Army is very good at and very much prepared to execute. US Army General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, seems to favor the “surge” mentality that has so entranced the civilian leadership of America’s military since its limited successes in Iraq. The conventional wisdom being that if any conflict involves X number of enemy combatants, we need simply deploy 2X number of troops to kill them, scatter them, or force their capitulation.

This is the type of thinking that seemingly views the lives of American troops as variables in a zero sum game, a “military” solution that offers all the tactical complexity of “Connect Four” and the moral rectitude of slot machine.


The Marine Corps’ approach? Hold fast its position, the dusty hovels and “unpopulated” rural strongholds from which the Taliban draws its popular support and much of its financial solvency. Earn ground with the poor poppy farmer who knows no alternative but Taliban rule, and the zealously loyal peasantry whose eyes widen in amazement as Marines patrol through their villages on foot. This approach is not anything new for Marines, at least in the genetic sense. For we, as Marines, tend to view ourselves as humble descendants of those who have already done it smarter and harder.

In this case, the Corps looks in part to its successes in the Banana Wars of the 1920’s, a forgotten spate of conflicts that helped define the Marine Corps’ expeditionary ethos long before the Second World War. In securing American economic interests throughout Mexico and the Caribbean (aims that are perhaps more contested today than our reasons behind the Afghan Campaign), the Corps employed an Occam’s Razor, “get to know the locals” approach that eventually became codified in The Small Wars Manual, which has since become one of the Marine Corps’ holy texts. In the early years of the “War on Terror,” this book was oft quoted by top brass as the “back to basics” guidance a post-Cold War military needed; it furthermore became a driving influence behind a more current iteration, the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.


Mao Zedung’s oft-quoted guidance that insurgencies should "move through the people like a fish moves through water" is given a direct response in Small Wars, one that earned the Marine Corps great tactical success in the Banana Campaigns. These types of successes followed during the Vietnam War through the Combined Action Platoon program, which stationed Marine Corps units in and among the peasantry of South Vietnam - until 1971, when the program was dismantled in favor of the more kinetic and politically expedient “free fire zones.” I think most of us have learned, know, or remember how that turned out. A generation of Vietnamese peasantry certainly does.


One would expect the current administration to know better. The National Security Advisor is, after all, a blooded Vietnam war hero and former Commandant of the Marine Corps, and it is clear he knows the real score. Our president is a sagacious man and can clearly learn - as he so effortlessly seemed to learn to salute (flawlessly) – to greet our fallen brothers in Dover last year. (To wit: Such things are not missed by Marines, though neither is a mispronunciation of the name “Tarawa,” or “Corpsman” with an extraneous embedded vowel.) Or perhaps the problem lies with middle management, the font from which many an unexceptional mindset erupts. Regardless – the Marine Corps way is, simply, the Marine Corps’ way. Heads shaken in disbelief at its “roguish” successes in Afghanistan do less to discredit the Corps, and more to discredit its apostates.

The Obama administration has already proven that it knows how to appeal to Americans’ sense of righteous warfare, if nothing else. The Iraq War was sketchy from the start – even the most lead-bellied chicken hawk would agree – and in its earlier stages it was easy for most of us to ignore its apparent contradictions the way we might rationalize our drunken Friday ramblings while we await an inevitable Saturday afternoon satori. Politically speaking, the Obama administration had to sew up the Iraq conflict, or at least appear to, without seeming as if it was shuttering the War on Terror business that has so foundationally changed the transnational landscape. Essentially, President Obama had to choose “his” war – the war in Afghanistan, as the war he would support, largely because this conflict has become accepted as the answer to that brutal question Osama bin Laden’s pseudo-henchmen asked on September 11, 2001: what is America made of. It is a just war, a righteous war, a war of revenge against the closest thing most people can consider to be a legitimate military adversary. The Iraq War has been messy, fraught with continuous moral switchbacks, and is still hard to justify; it is a “postmodern” war in perhaps every sense. The Afghanistan crisis, however, is to all appearances a drama that unfolds very easily to civilian eyes that have never seen the world through iron sights. The enemy has a name, and the battlefield has boundaries - or so many would like to believe.

These parameters are seen very differently in the eyes of the military, and perhaps even more differently by the Marines who at this very moment “swim” among the ramshackle huts of Helmand Province. These are Marines who may or may not have been to Iraq but are certainly familiar with the tenets of the Small Wars Manual, and for whom surges, political turf wars and “chiseled in stone” deadlines are as abstract and meaningless as the latest episode of American Idol. They are the ones who have done their homework, and who are living up to their institutional ancestors. Perhaps their leadership back home could take a lesson from them, before attempting to teach one.


Further Reading: Washington Post

We live in a freer-market society. For all the shortfalls of capitalism, we’ve embraced its upside- merit-based rewards, innovation, sustainable economic growth, government that relies on society for wealth creation, not society that relies on government for the same.

In the outrage over bonuses paid to executives at companies that received federal loans or investments- “the bailouts”- American politicians are leveling their potato guns and attempting to out-faux-populism each other by indicting the companies that they chose to bail out. They are wasting their time. They are manipulating American citizens who need actual market recovery, not theatrics. And they are damaging much more than simply AIG- they are corroding the concept of the market, merit-based reward system.


An oft deployed 2008 campaign slogan from right of center was that the Obama ticket represented some kind of Marxist Utopian nightmare- even now as the administration attempts to open a discussion about the best way to make sure Americans get adequate health care, the accusation of Socialism is as popular and uninformed as it was pre-November. Stating that it ought to be the responsibility of our nation to ensure the sick receive care is as fundamentally obvious as stating that it is the government’s responsibility to protect our citizens from attack by use of military force. Logic links these arguments together, and only a true Libertarian would be willing to deny them both. But faux Libertarians these days are as popular as faux Populists, and amazingly, despite all the scare about Socialism, you can’t shake a stick without hitting a faux Populist.

Which is why it is altogether bizarre that in spite of the is-it-or-is-it-not-Socialism debate about nationalizing banks or about health care, the Obama administration and both parties in congress have picked a hollow ideological battle with industry and demonized our “free” market entrepreneurs as villains. Komrad?

"It's almost like these guys should have gotten the Nobel Prize for evil," said White House Council of Economic Advisers member Austan Goolsbee. Senator Chuck Grassley [R–IA] said that AIG executives should “resign or go commit suicide”. Really?


If you want to talk about anger over the finance and housing industries digging a bottomless well of wealth by tunneling under the savings of regular Americans or hoodwinking others into crooked mortgages they couldn’t afford, ultimately imploding our economy from within, show me to the picket lines. I don’t need any more convincing, and I don’t think any Americans do either.

Exhibit pitfall of Capitalism 101: failure to regulate can be hazardous to your health. Wall Street goes gangbusters selling toxic debt, no one understands why and no one wants to ask because “a rising tide lifts all ships”. All of a sudden your house is worth less than what you’ve paid into your mortgage and your IRA has lost half its value. “Wall Street got greedy”, Tavis Smiley said on Meet the Press this week. Got greedy? What is the finance industry if other than a vocation for greed? It’s a business that makes money out of money. It’s the definition of greed. No shocker there.


But those are the crooks that ripped us off.

Maybe. These people get paid to manage risk for their stakeholders. If the market did well, do they deserve their bonuses? What if the market did terribly, and they were able to limit losses? Do they deserve bonuses then? I have no idea what the AIG contracts stipulated, and I couldn’t care less. When a company enters into an agreement with its employees, those employees are entitled to what they signed up for, unless it was illegal.

But the taxpayers bailed out AIG.

So what? The Fed bailed out AIG because AIG was considered an essential part of the apparatus that keeps credit and capital moving through our economy. Broadly speaking, it benefits the credit-seeking taxpayer but not necessarily the bailed-out companies to have been bailed out.

What is our endstate from the bailout- what change do we want to effect? What we want is for these companies (in which we taxpayers are now stakeholders, i.e. investors) to do well. We want to rebuild confidence in the financial industry. And Republicans and Democrats alike want Americans to loosen their grips on their wallets and push money back into the economy. To do that, we need the right mix of ingredients, and one of those ingredients is talent.


Right now we’ve got the heads of the biggest banks in America working for free despite the magnificently miserable nature and high risk of said job. We’ve got the heads of the car companies car-pooling to DC for hearings because some congressman thinks that day-long journey is worth the symbolism. We’ve got AIG executives getting death threats, along with recommended suicide from a US senator. We’ve got a bill passing the House yesterday (328-93) that will tax the AIG bonuses at 90%. Does any of this sound American to you?

Leadership is about making hard decisions and having the discipline to implement them effectively. AIG and its peers screwed up. If we wanted them to fail, we should have let them go bankrupt, and kept our tax dollars in the Fed. If we wanted them to succeed, then we should have had the willpower to forego this bogus Wall Street punishment catharsis and the wherewithal to recognize that they will need talented people to get them back on track- talent best engaged through free market, merit-based rewards.

Capitalism needs to be regulated. Not dismantled.


Further reading: Friedman at NYT Nocera at NYT