Mr. Vietnam. part 2

[For part 1, click here.]

Appointing a "Mr. Vietnam" was an important part of the reforms designed to better prosecute the Vietnam War. Someone, below the level of the President, needed to coordinate and direct the efforts of the civilian and military bureaucracies waging that war.

Does the same idea make sense for the Iraq War? In some ways, yes; in a larger number, no. As vexing as the Vietnam War was, the Iraq War is harder to fix through bureaucratic reforms. Unfortunately, the reforms proposed for Iraq and Afghanistan are themselves a small fraction of the organizational and doctrinal changes the US government made in Vietnam.

The depth of reform
An important difference between Vietnam and Iraq is the depth through the organization chart through which the reforms penetrate. Even the most respected, seasoned national security professional in Washington will have no chance of success, if all the President does is turn responsibility over to that person. If the organizational reforms made in the late 1960s are the measure of what to do, the changes have to go very deep indeed.

Counterinsurgency, which requires an artful combination of politics and force, is the reason why this thorough reform is necessary. As Robert Komer indicated in his first-person account of some of these Vietnam-era reforms, encapsulated in the CORDS program, the line between the civilian and military bureaucracies needs to be very blurry:

How was CORDS different? First, it was a field expedient tailored to the particular needs as perceived at the time. Second, it was a unique experiment in a unified civil/military field advisory and support organization, different in many respects from World War II civil affairs or military government. Soldiers served directly under civilians, and vice versa, at all levels. They even wrote each other's efficiency reports. Personnel were drawn from all the military services, and from State, AID, CIA, USIA, and the White House. But CORDS was fully integrated into the theater military structure.

Contrast this truly integrated approach to counterinsurgency (or "pacification," to use the Vietnam-ism) with the organization that exists today in Iraq. While the Coalition Provisional Authority still existed, there was a clear split between the CPA and CENTCOM, the portion of the military bureaucracy waging the post-occupation war. The chiefs of CENTCOM and the CPA did little to coordinate their efforts, and at times (as documented in Thomas Ricks' Fiasco and other accounts of the Iraq War) did not even notify each other of important decisions or operations. Even with the CPA out of the picture, the CIA works on its own programs, often with little regard for the traditional military. The special operations forces (SOFs) and the CIA seem to have a better working relationship, but the SOFs are not the leading element in the Iraqi occupation.

In other words, appointing a "Mr. Iraq/Afghanistan" in Washington accomplishes almost nothing on its own. The US government would need to re-architect the entire war effort, from the "war tsar" on down, to achieve any noticeable results  from bureaucratic reform alone.

Dilution of effort
Arguably, the Vietnam War was really multiple conflicts. Not only were the United States and South Vietnam fighting National Liberation Front guerrillas, but they were also battling incursions from the conventional military forces of North Vietnam. Given the importance of the Ho Chi Minh trail and cross-border havens to which the NLF and NVA could retreat, the war necessarily involved Laos and Cambodia. While the factional conflict in Laos was settled in the early 1960s, to the benefit of the Communist Pathet Lao, the conflict in Cambodia was, by the mid-1960s, only just revving up. The other dimensions of conflict--ethnic Vietnamese versus the so-called "Montagnards," the Chinese and Soviet support for North Vietnam--made the war even more complex.

However, at bottom, there was still only one war for the United States. The conflicts in Laos and Cambodia were noteworthy, only as they affected the more important part of US theater strategy, the survival of an independent, non-Communist South Vietnam.

There is no such unity at the theater level in Central Asia. Iraq and Afghanistan are separate conflicts, each with its own set of participants, challenges, and goals. Conflating the two makes no strategic sense; making a single "war tsar" responsible for both only deepens the confusion. Since the proposed "war tsar" reports directly to the President, the priority is likely to be Iraq over Afghanistan, in which case Afghanistan may suffer from the same "attention deficit" problem it does today.

It's hard enough to write about Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. To avoid making this series of posts unreadable, I'm focusing on Iraq, because that's where the inspiration for this "war tsar" idea arises. In the process, I'm committing the same error of overlooking the urgent, independent needs of Afghanistan as the US government. In other words, I'm feeling a tiny fraction of the problem a real "war tsar" might face, trying to juggle Iraq and Afghanistan, and do justice to both.

The man on the scene
The other obvious problem with the "war tsar" idea is the distance from the battlefield. Another person responsible for Iraq or Afghanistan isn't necessarily going to make as much difference as someone stationed in one of those countries. (Again, it's obvious that trying to shuttle, physically or strategically, between both countries is impractical.) While it's always going to be necessary to have some presence in Washington, to kick the bureaucratic apparatus there into gear, or keep any political understandings between the White House and Congress working, the bulk of the war tsar's time must be spent in "in country."

Fortunately and unfortunately, a model for this kind of proconsular leadership already exists, the commander-in-chief (CINC) of the combatant command for the Middle East and Central Asia, CENTCOM. The fortunate part is, a model already exists for theater-level leadership that pulls together the efforts of different civilian and military bureaucracies. The unfortunate part is the Bush Administration's aggressive dismantling of the authority that the CINCs once possessed. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the curbing of the CINCs' power a top priority, and no one in the White House opposed him. For the US government to resurrect the CINCs' leadership role, the White House would have to make a very clear (and somewhat embarassing) reversal.

[This series continues in a future post.]

Comments

[Mojo]

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made the curbing of the CINCs' power a top priority
To the point that even the name "CINC" was outlawed.

[Mojo]

Is anything resembling a CORDS-like level of integration between military and civilian components possible in a coalition environment?