Admiral Fallon Versus General Petraeus

The bitter "sectarian" fight between End-The-War-Now! Democrats and There-Is-No-Substitute-For-Victory Republicans gets all the attention. It is front and center in both the mainstream media and the blogosphere.

There is another struggle in progress resting comfortably off the radar of MSM and the alternative media alike. It is probably--almost certainly--more important than the thunder and smoke in Congress.

The battle lines have been drawn and manned by two senior military commanders. One is George W.'s Man in Baghdad, General David Petraeus. The other is General Petraeus' superior, Admiral William Fallon, the Central Command commander (CINC/CENTCOM).

Admiral Fallon has a long (35 year) record as a man on the way up. He has made enemies along the way (as have all successful senior naval commanders). When he was the commander of Pacific Command, he showed a high degree of independence from the wishes of the neo-con core of the current administration when he promoted a policy of conciliation with the Peoples' Republic of China.

(Truth in blogery requires the Geek to state that his position regarding China was and is a lot closer to that of the neo-cons than to Fallon's.)

Fallon considers Petraeus a brown-nosing huckster for the current administration and has pulled no punches letting the General know it. What Petraeus says regarding the Admiral is less clear.

Now, the nitty-gritty. We need to get a grip on it.

Admiral Fallon wants to cut our force strength in Iraq to one-quarter of its present level by the end of 2009. This is scarcely a precipitous withdrawal. In the Geek's semi-military mind, the Admiral is a little conservative in his timeline. Provided the current indicators of developing Iraqi security force competence continue, the US should be able to take half its combat maneuver battalions out of Iraq by this time next year.

The reason Admiral Fallon wants US forces redeployed is this: He sees greater threats in the region for which he is responsible. In particular Fallon focuses on Pakistan.

The Geek is in tandem with the Admiral. The Islamist ideology may be world wide in distribution. Islamist groups may exist nearly everywhere. Nonetheless, Islamism has several important centers. One is Saudi Arabia. Another is Iran. The third is Pakistan.

At the moment, there is nothing the US can do about Saudi Arabia. At the present, the US would be ill-advised to do anything boisterous regarding Iran. But, Pakistan is a different affair.

If armed Islamism has a heartland, a vital center of command, control, and intelligence, it is located in the mountains of the Northwest Frontier area of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan and conveniently proximate to Iran. Beyond the tribal areas, Pakistan furnishes any number of safe harbors for Islamists.

And, as virtually everyone well knows, Pakistan is on the verge of becoming a collapsed state. The idea of a collapsed, Islamist oriented, nuclear competent Pakistan quite correctly bothers Admiral Fallon. (As noted in a previous post it bothers the Geek as well.)

The CENTCOM chief apparently has a strategic view of potential US operations in the region. His concept puts US forces, including ground troops, in the role of First Responder. Get in fast. Do the heavy lifting as quickly as possible. Get out. Leave behind a combination of non-US stability forces to back the locals.

The Geek took a similar position over ten years ago in lectures at various US and NATO venues. Historically, the US military is good at defeating conventional forces. It is good at destroying discrete high-value targets. It is not good at counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and similar long duration missions lacking clear phase lines of success.

Beyond that, the long term presence of US forces can be and often has been inherently destabilizing--even when there is good military reason for their presence. (Bear in mind that the presence of US forces and bases in Saudi Arabia during and after Operations Desert Shield/Storm provided most of the early propaganda fuel for bin Laden and al-Qaeda.)

General Petraeus has made it abundantly clear in both public and private that he favors a very long term continuation of a US role on the ground in Iraq. The ostensible justification for this position is that by doing so the security gains in Iraq might be assured. There is merit in this position.

But not at the expense of larger US interests. Not at the expense of mounting a successful Second Cold War. Not at the expense of lacking the means to intervene should the crash come in Pakistan.

General Petraeus (in common with many in the current administration) fails to acknowledge that the struggle in which the US now finds itself is not with guerrillas and terrorists in Iraq. It is not with terrorism per se. The burden is heavier than a mere repairing of the damage we have wrought in Iraq. The road is much longer than any in the current administration thought when they so blithely believed as Donald Rumfield put it,"shock and awe," would turn Afghanistan and Iraq into models of democracy, pluralism and free enterprise.

Admiral Fallon has a far more realistic view. He understands both the limits of the US military in numbers, resources, and public support. He sees Pakistan for what it is--a high potential candidate for intervention.

The Admiral is independent in his thinking. That's good. It's what We the People pay senior commanders to be. He calls matters as he sees them to the best of his knowledge and belief regardless of the effect on his career. That is very good. Too many senior commanders, as has been shown by the Iraq mess, put career ahead of the national interest.

Admiral William Fallon may have made enemies by the shipload on his trip up the chain of command. But, he's made another supporter and admirer by his stance on Iraq.

The Geek.