McChrystal's Exit Strategy

I know very little about military matters.  In my short history of paying attention to politics in a country fighting two wars, I haven’t shown any gift for analyzing war strategy.  When I was 14, I supported the Iraq War.  A few years later I opposed the surge.  Last fall I supported Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan.  Conventional wisdom of today might say I’ve been wrong on all three of these, the largest military decisions of the last ten years.

But I’ve taken a great interest in General McChrystal’s comments and subsequent resignation, which has elicited diverse responses from different thinkers.  Tom Ricks, who wrote the fantastic account of the early Iraq War, Fiasco, wrote that McChrystal had simply been out in the field too long.  An article in the New York Review of Books suggested that McChrystal’s comments reflect the frustration of a general facing an impossible mission and an unwinnable war.  Another writer suggested that one should view McChrystal and his aides as a group of soldiers on shore-leave unwisely letting off some steam.  Fareed Zakaria characterized McChrystal as a great warrior and a charismatic leader, but a poor statesmen with little appreciation for the civilian side of the COIN strategy.  I’m skeptical of Zakaria’s portrayal since McChrystal helped design this strategy, and I don’t recall anyone questioning his suitability for its particular demands last fall.

My initial thought was how could any general make a mistake this big?  You don’t criticize your boss or your colleagues in public.  McChrystal--and any military officer--surely knows this better than anyone.  Plus this Michael Hastings, the writer of the expose, is from Rolling Stone Magazine, which has for fifty years divulged the private lives of rock stars and celebrities to its subscribers.  

Indeed, when my friend, Erin, and I first read the article here in Moldova, she immediately posed the question of what McChrystal could have been hoping to achieve in the article.  Thus arose the possibility that this was perhaps intentional, a way for McChrystal to signal something to the White House.  Few seem to have taken this line, except Rolling Stone Magazine itself.  The executive editor of the magazine said these weren’t “off-the-cuff remarks” and that the general and his aides “knew what they were doing.”  Likewise, in an interview with CNN Hastings says that McChrystal is a “risk-taker” who, he suggested, may have been “pushing an agenda” and simply “pushed the envelope too far.”  Hastings also said that he didn’t exactly have to dig for this information.  He landed on the ground, and the comments started flying.  I have to think that McChrystal at least partially knew what he was doing.  He may have miscalculated, but he could not possibly have said these things in front of a reporter without the expectation that they would eventually reach the American public and the president.  

So what was his calculation?  Based on his documented contempt for Special Envoy Holbrooke and Ambassador Eikenberry, and the documented pressure from soldiers to have freer rules of engagement, I think McChrystal may have been signaling to President Obama that he should either rein in the civilians or fire the general because the current balance of power was unsuitable.  If this was his intention he seems to have executed it poorly.  Even so I find this more plausible than the general and his aides accidentally confiding in a magazine known for reporting what happens behind closed doors and backstage.

This left President Obama in a difficult long-term political situation.  It capped a few weeks of negative reports about the Afghanistan War, and certainly provides ammunition against him for the next election.  

But Obam’s solution for the short-term seemed fairly clear to me.  Not firing McChrystal could have been justified, especially if McChrystal is as popular with the troops as reports say.  But Obama still would have appeared weak, and given that the media’s quickest analogy was President Truman and General MacArthur, keeping McChrystal would have gone against historical precedent as well.  

But he could have his cake and eat it too by firing McChrystal and replacing him with Gen. Petraeus.  Petraeus would meet approval from the troops, the Republican Party, the media, and the public.  Today Sen. Graham said that if Petraeus can’t lead the United States to victory in Afghanistan, “no one can.” And that’s exactly what Obama needed.  It won’t save his skin if the war ends in defeat of US interests, but he may be spared the sharpest criticism if the consensus is that the task he inherited was simply impossible.  

It remains to be seen what this episode has sown for the future.  President Obama was lucky to have a convenient exit strategy for this one.  That’s more than I can say for the United States military in Afghanistan.

Traveling Thoughts

Some observations while circumnavigating:

Overheard conversation in China:
Chinese girl: chinesechinesechinese--Obama--chinesechinesechinese?
American girl: chinesechinesechinesechinese--uhh, white guilt--chinesechinese.

I may have promised someone I'd help them emigrate to the United States for their travel help.

I'm no expert on women's fashion in the world, but Russian fashion has to be the worst.  It's routinely some combination of high-heel shoes entirely impractical for Eastern Europe's cobblestone streets, striking but off-putting colors like puke green, purses of black shiny leather, black tights, and a blouse or dress with leopard print.  It feels less like the modern world has been unleashed upon Eastern European women and more like Eastern European women have been unleashed on the modern world.

As for men's fashion, I'll just say that a wife-beater, track shorts, and flip-flops is not appropriate dress attire for public.

In any European airport, I inevitably see one or two people who look so obviously French they shouldn’t  need a passport.  Olive skin, a pursed mouth for making those narrow sounds, and a general air of condescension, all stylishly performed.  The moment of recognition in which I find one of these people is the highlight of any layover.  I never confirm my suspicions.  Their Frenchness is self-evident, and further investigation could reveal a kind of racial/ethnic/cultural profiling that is socially unacceptable.

Overheard on the plane:
Man: “I’m headed to California for a half-marathon actually”
Woman: “Wow, do you usually run marathons?”
Man: “Not usually, but this is for charity”
Woman: “What charity?”
Man: “Ummm . . . Leukemia, or something like that”
Woman: “Wowww”

From Phoenix to Chicago there was a crying baby sitting behind me.  The mother could only calm the child down by singing “Old McDonald Had a Farm” over and over again.  As they say, out of the frying pan and into . . .

From Chicago to Brussels there was also a child crying, except this was like a 6-year old French boy. He won't be dispelling the stereotypes any time soon I suppose.

Flying from Tripoli to Bangui, Central African Republic, I of course couldn't understand the pilot's announcements in Arabic.  But I could understand "Inshallah" several times.  From the person responsible for my 700mph, 7-mile-high journey, more than one "God willing" becomes disconcerting.

In the last two weeks I have watched the World Cup commentated in four different languages, none of them English.

To be continued . . .

Remembering Turkey

I left Turkey on May 31, having spent nine months studying at Bogazici University in Istanbul.  I wanted to just share this list of what things I will always miss in Turkey, and what things I won‘t.  I’m leaving people off of this list.  If you’re reading this, you probably know me well enough that you would have been included.

Things I will miss from Turkey:

Et doner.  A great et doner (what we often call a gyro) is the final messenger of good street food in Turkey.  It costs about $2.50, unless you get ripped off.  The reward is inconsistent.  Sometimes the street vendor’s lamb meat has been out in the cold too long.  Often I would forget to say no lettuce and tomatoes (I make the same mistake at Burger King, probably 1/3 of my lifetime sandwich orders have been failures).  Somehow that all makes the excellent et doner that much more enticing.  It’s not just buying tasty street food; it’s hunting for that perfect one.

The Bosphorus.  Istanbul has one trump card over any other city on earth.  Flowing right through its center is the beautiful Bosphorus Strait.  It’s been sought for centuries by empires for its strategic value, but I can’t believe Mehmet the Conqueror didn’t have his eye on the remarkably blue strait for aesthetic reasons as well.  I was so lucky to attend Bogazici University, which means University in the Bosphorus.  Every day my walk to school included one of the best views in the city.

Bogazici University.  Bogazici is essentially the Harvard of Turkey, but I’m thinking of its beautiful campus.  There are a lot of beautiful universities in the world (ASU isn’t one of them).  But Bogazici possesses a special quality.  Yes, it looks a little like Princeton dropped into Turkey, as one of my friends said.  But actually it looks like Princeton if it were abandoned for ten years.  Grass shoots up between cracks in the sidewalk.  Vines conceal buildings.  Trees overhang the roads that are bound by unwieldy hedges.  The original concept of Bogazici--an American university plopped into the Ottoman Empire--might have been imposed on the city, but today the university feels embedded within it.

Turkish hospitality.  I’ve been given a free place to stay, free meals, and legal assistance from the kindness of strangers in Turkey.  Since I’m not really a people-person, most of the time I ignored people’s niceties, and occasionally I tired of them.  But honestly my year in Turkey was much more enjoyable because I was in a country with remarkably friendly and welcoming people.   

Natural Beauty.  The Bosphorus gives Istanbul its appeal, but most of Turkey is pretty stunning.  In the Northeastern region of Karadeniz tall hills line the Black Sea Coast, every one of them covered with the black tea that accompanies almost every meal in Turkey.  Drive or hike into the hills and you’ll find cliffs, waterfalls, like driving through the Rocky Mountains, but with more mist and jungle.  The southwestern coast of Turkey is Mediterranean beaches, the way I imagine Italy and the Greek islands.  The central Anatolian plain is gentle golden hills, less noteworthy but somehow very Turkish.

Things I will not miss from Turkey (this list is much easier to make, but also much less important):

Bargaining.  This is a process I despise just about anywhere in the world.  One only bargains in Turkey when buying knock-off products or touristy souvenirs.  Even so, bargaining in Turkey is more pleasant than in Mexico or China, based on my experience.

Public Transportation.  The occasional hot, rainy day on the 559C was enough for me to move from $200/month apartment to a $350/month apartment from which I didn’t have to take a bus.  When you’re standing in a crowded bus, it’s like God has vacuum-sealed you in a cage with two hundred other commuters.

Istanbul Traffic.  My particular personality is attracted to efficiency.  I dread transit times.  I think to myself: in 20 minutes I won’t be trapped in traffic anymore.  To escape the boredom and sickness, I imagine the life I am going to live after I arrive wherever I’m going.  Once my bus to school had such bad traffic that I got out and ran the rest of the way in heavy snow.  I hate running.  My feet froze for hours probably.  Whatever, worth it.

Turkish Conspiracy Theories.  I feel like people in the United States usually accept the narrative of events we’re given by the media and the government (see: Noam Chomsky).  In Turkey, by contrast, they seem to revel in counter-narratives and secret stories.  A remarkable amount of Turkey’s history is wrapped up in secret plots, military coups, ideological movements supported by mysterious foreign interferences.  When I explain to a Turk that this isn’t how things work everywhere, their response is that I’m obviously naïve.  I suspect somewhere in the middle is true, but it’s extremely annoying.

These are the complaints that make everyday life in Istanbul sometimes miserable.  Of course, after one leaves, these drift from memory.  Overall, Istanbul is an incredible and beautiful city.  I’m just very glad I lived there.

Governmental Mystique

Recently for a class I read an article about public sector bureaucracies that do surprisingly well in developing countries that are otherwise rife with corruption and incompetence. The article, “Divergent Cultures? When Public Organizations Perform Well in Developing Countries” by Merille S. Grindle of Harvard University, argues that these organizations defeat the odds and overcome the norms of their societies through organization culture, or mystique.

According to Grindle, members of these high-performing bureaucracies generally believe that they follow professional norms with universal validity. They believe their organizations are unique—particularly responsive, ethical, or efficient. There is a respected meritocracy, in which good work is rewarded. Finally, these employees feel a sense of service, that their contributions help their organization, which in turn helps their community.

As I read Grindle’s article, I thought about my own experiences in organizations. For example, in high school I was extremely proud to be a marching hawk—a member of the Rio Rico High School Marching Band. I believed our band was unique because of its small size, our loud uniforms, and our commitment to the “fundamentals.” I thought I was an important role model for younger students. I held my horn high and stood up straight in the Arizona sun with many material incentives—social approval, something to do, good for my resume—but also out of reverence for the organization itself.

Likewise, in college my most important extracurricular activity has been AIESEC, a non-profit that helps college students intern in foreign countries. In AIESEC we explain ourselves as unique because we are a campus club with both a passion about global issues and a businessy focus on the bottom-line. Our executive board positions have an internal mythology to give them mystique—AIESEC leaders aren’t necessarily the smartest and most qualified, but the most passionate and eager. Finally, we have a “myth of creation”—students came together from the ashes of World War II to make the world a better place. These narratives collectively give “AIESECers” a purpose worth working to fulfill.

These aspects of organizational mystique pervade every major company. Uniqueness is communicated in mission statements and logos. And it’s increasingly clear that a sense of service, however mythological and transparent, is important for companies in the form of corporate social responsibility. Visit the website of any Fortune 500 Company or sports team and I expect you’ll find a category for the environment, ethics, involvement in the community, etc.

So why is it news when a scholar tells the world that government institutions operate more effectively with organizational mystique? I think it’s because the dominant view of government in the last few decades is of plain, incompetent, and corrupt people wasting time and taxpayer money.

Speaking (too) broadly, the conflict of individual freedom and state power has been constantly renegotiated in the age of liberalism. The “myth of creation” for the United States is that of a free people earning liberation from a foreign and illegitimate regime. The founders of the United States were famously skeptical of human beings in positions of power and protective of individual freedoms. But importantly, the Founders did not disparage government’s usefulness. After all, most of them helped create two federal governments, in addition to their own state and local ones.

This anti-Statism may be more a product of the current (or subsiding) era of Neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism, in reaction to the growth of the welfare state after the Great Depression, essentially prescribes a smaller state and more freedom for individuals in the economy.

Politically, the economic model of Neo-Liberalism was adapted to criticizing the state as the source of evil in society a la Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. President Reagan famously said, “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” And in his first inaugural address, he called 1980 “the time to check and reverse the growth of government.” Politics in the United States have been embedded in this rhetoric for the last several decades. President Bill Clinton assured anti-government skeptics that “The era of big government is over.” Obviously, this same rhetoric and the paranoid fear of big government pervades the Tea Party Movement of today.

My argument is that government has been deprived of its organizational mystique. It has been degraded as boring, incompetent, and wasteful. But government bureaucracies, just like campus organizations and private companies, can be successful and efficient if they have a strong culture. By relentlessly criticizing government—and not just a government, but all government—we unleash a vicious cycle in which talented people eschew the scorned life of public service. Those who do join the government have only low expectations to live up to, and successes will be overlooked as the exception, not the rule. From a citizen’s perspective, a belief that “government is the problem” makes us less able to distinguish between good governance and bad governance because we are uniformly hostile to all governance. That’s quite a problem for a democracy.

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama said he’d make government cool again. He doesn’t seem to have succeeded. But this week in two commencement speeches to university graduates, he defended the legitimacy of government, saying “When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us.”

There must be a golden mean in the power of government and the freedom of individuals. Likewise, there must be a balance between our skepticism of the current government and our faith in the larger regime. Rarely in history, circumstances change so quickly and dramatically that a full revolution against the regime is necessary, but now—I would argue—is not that time. My hope is that with the Obama Administration, we can escape the paradigm of bad government and shift state-ward. It would make government institutions more prestigious, more responsive, and better-staffed. That would give my statist inclinations thirty years or so to relax, until those government fat-cats get too big for their britches and it’s time for the mean to be adjusted again.