Popular generals in unpopular wars attract attention. Gen. David Petraeus has already inspired two biographical accounts of his successful leadership of the Bush troop surge in Iraq. Paula Broadwell and her collaborator, Washington Post metro editor Vernon Loeb, employ a similar format to examine his implementation of the Obama surge in Afghanistan.
Embedded in Petraeus’s Kabul headquarters, Broadwell was uniquely positioned to describe its byzantine political and military environment. While her book is long on detail, it is short on unexpected insights or unvarnished opinions. It is as if Petraeus could instantly visualize how whatever he said would appear in print and self-censor accordingly. Personal interviews run in lock step with the general’s public policy statements, congressional testimony and news releases, which are also quoted at length. We learn nothing of Petraeus’s political views, his relationship with George W. Bush or his candid assessment of the war. We do, however, learn about the complexity of the Afghan situation and are introduced to a not-easily-categorized strategy that attempted to adapt to Afghan realities.
(The Penguin Press) - ’All In: The Education of General David Petraeus’ by Paula Broadwell with Vernon Loeb
Petraeus did not expect to command American troops in Afghanistan. Gen.Stanley McChrystal was to run that campaign, but he was abruptly sacked in June 2010 after making published statements that the White House deemed insubordinate. President Obama then turned to Petraeus, who immediately decamped for Kabul after his appointment was confirmed. Petraeus made it clear that he had not come to lose, and his confidence quickly permeated the entire command staff. His arrival also reassured the Afghans. Certainly the Americans would not have sent their best general if they intended to desert the country.
Petraeus stepped up the pace of operations throughout Afghanistan. He loosened restrictions on the battlefield use of force, including airstrikes. He expanded the number and frequency of Special Forces night raids against the Taliban command structure, a constant source of contention between him and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. In the east, he withdrew stationary outposts from remote valleys and redeployed their troops to interdict insurgent supply lines and better protect population centers such as Kabul. Surge forces expanded into the southern Taliban heartland around Kandahar at a rapid rate. These changes put the Taliban on the defensive in the south by the summer of 2011.
The Taliban retuned its own strategy in response. It resorted to more roadside bombs, high-profile assassinations and attacks on symbolic civilian targets in Kabul that attracted international news coverage. Like Petraeus, the Taliban believed that public perception drove political decision-making in Afghanistan. But unlike Petraeus, who served only a year in Afghanistan, the group did not have a timeline. The question this account cannot answer is whether the Afghan National Army can maintain the gains Petraeus made as the transition date of 2014 approaches.
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