Stabilization & Reconstruction – Public Intelligence Blog

2009/12/212009/12/21

Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Government), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, Research, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), History, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Peace, Poverty, & Middle Class, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Public Administration, Religion & Politics of Religion, Security (Including Immigration), Stabilization & Reconstruction, Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Truth & Reconciliation, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity

Phenomenal–Ref A Relevant to Everywhere Else

December 21, 2009

Ali A. Allawi

The author has achieved extraordinary synthesis and summation, with gifted straight-forward language.This book is not only a capstone reference, but demonstrates why we need to LISTEN–none of us could learn–in a lifetime–all that this author has in his head. That's why multinational engagement is a non-negotiable first step toward the future.

Key notes and quotes:

+ Bush Senior should not have left Saddam Hussein off the hook in Gulf I, should have finished off the regime while we had enough troops on the ground to make the peace.

+ US blew Gulf II from the moment of victory onward. “Incoherent” is a word the author uses frequently in describing virtually every aspect of US operations in Iraq. The one element that gets high marks from him is the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) but the fact that the bulk of the “reconstruction” money was mis-managed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) makes AID's excellent a footnote in this sorry tale.

+ Book covers 2003-2006; the author was Minister of Defense and then Minister of Finance during the reconstruction period.

+ “Too few Americans actually cared.” Fred Smith (parent agency not clear) gets high marks from the author for caring and competence as the CPA-appointed advisor to the Ministry of Defense in the 2004 timeframe.

Continue reading “Review: The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace”

2009/12/192010/02/21

Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)

4 Star, Insurgency & Revolution, Leadership, Stabilization & Reconstruction

Brilliant but Narrow, Simplifies A Bridge Too Far

December 19, 2009

Mark Moyar

EDIT of 21 Feb 2010: A colleague in COINSOC has pointed out that I missed one key aspect of this book and I hasten to add it: “Moyar's point that we are applying peacetime personnel policies by putting people in place based on factors other than their leadership ability and continuing to allow poor leaders even after their capabilities are apparent is a good one though. It's kind of like we are the Titanic and the inertia is too much.” It is an important point. It takes two years to weed out the unfit leaders in a real war, but first you have to admit you are in a real war, and the USA has still not gotten to that point so we are damned on both sides: not taking the fight seriously, and leaving the home front wide open to attack (see my review of Charles Faddis's two books, one on CIA and one on DHS).

I first encountered the author when I read and reviewed Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965, but in ordering this book, took no notice of who the author was, I rarely do, and thus was surprised to discover this is the second work by the author, now at the Marine Corps University where I served as Adjunct Faculty once upon a time.

This book is brilliant and unique in its chosen focus, but I have to leave it at four stars because it simplifies in a manner that is almost neo-conservative in its sharpness.

The single most important insight is that the single most important intelligence quesiton as we get into any insurgency or counter-insurgency is this: who are the elites on either side of the confrontation, how good are they, do they have the special character (that this book helps define), and what does this mean to us?

The problem I have with this book is that it dismisses legitimacy and morality, does not recognize the futility of being on the wrong side of the conflict (as we were in Viet-Nam and have been on hundreds of occasions) or on having ideological traitors or blatantly corrupt self-serving partisan hacks in the White House making decisions that are grounds for impeachment if our flag officers had more character and could remember they swore an oath to uphold the Constitution against all enemies domestic and foreign, not an oath to be blindly loyal to the craven and the corrupt.
Continue reading “Review: A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq (Yale Library of Military History) (Hardcover)”

2009/12/182010/09/03

Review: Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Paperback)

6 Star Top 10%, Military, Stabilization, Stabilization & Reconstruction, UN/NGO

Utterly Brilliant Synthesis, Vital First Step–US Violates Every Single Principle

December 18, 2009

United States Institute of Peace

This book is a six-star special and will be so rated at Phi Beta Iota, the Public Intelligence Blog, where I cluster like non-fictions books in 98 categories, one of which is Stabilization & Reconstruction.

At its most fundamental this is without question the most extraordinary sensible and useful synthesis of all possible documents devoted to the subject, offering up a truly remarkable–just an amazing–framework for study and for planning.

The publisher failed to make full use of the Amazon tools for showing the Table of Contents at a minimum, and this error should be corrected immediately. Inside the Book is also recommended. I would normally reduce the book to four stars for its failure include all those outside the “traditional” national security community; for its lack of an index, and for its ignorance of most relevant books outside the narrow circle of stabilization & reconstruction groupies. However, this is such an incredibly gifted, intelligent, and meticulous presentation of vitally important information that I leave it at six star special, beyond five stars.

Still, to not be able to see in an index every page for key words like “water” or “intelligence” is infuriating.

First, an overview of the contents, vastly more simple than the complex array of information presented in sub-sets of conditions, guidance, approach, and then elements.

+ Introduction
+ Strategic Framework for Stabilization and Reconstruction
+ Cross-Cutting Principles
+ High-Level Trade-Offs, Gaps, and Challenges
+ Fundamentals of a Comprehensive Approach
+ End States
—Safe and Secure Environment
—Rule of Law
—Stable Governance
—Sustainable Economy
—Social Well-Being
+ Appendices
A. Resources List
B. Participants in Review Process
C. Summary of Strategic Frameworks Surveyed
D. Snapshot of COmpoments from Overarching Resources
E. Acronyms and Glossary of Selected Key Terms (incomplete, another annoyance that needs to be corrected)

Continue reading “Review: Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Paperback)”