Inside the Pentagon, the U.S. troop cap in Afghanistan of 101,000 was highly unpopular, viewed as a seemingly arbitrary political restriction on forces available to the field commander. It grated badly especially on the Army and Marine Corps. I think that Obama and his ever-suspicious staff welcomed the numbers approach—and a cap—because it gave them a mechanism to prevent the military from sneaking in more troops under the guise of “enablers.”
For me, managing the troop cap was just one more challenge in trying to achieve military success in Afghanistan. Every week after the Afghan surge began, I met with the chairman and Joint Staff to ensure that we would not exceed the number of troops the president had approved. This accounting process became a huge chore, consuming countless man-hours, and commanders felt their hands were tied by a political decision on troop levels. I was convinced, however, that without these controls, the number of deployed troops would steadily inch upward, not as part of some military ruse to get more troops but because of the inexorable pressures from commanders as other assets were required. (I remembered vividly how Bush’s surge went from 21,500 to 30,000.) Virtually every military commander in history has wanted more troops to enhance the prospect for victory—and to reduce his forces’ casualties through overwhelming power (as happened in the Gulf War). Given this reality, and the level of mistrust of the military at the White House, including by Obama, I believe the cap was the only way to avoid having the president wake up one morning and discover there were 130,000 troops in Afghanistan rather than the 101,000 he had approved. Of course, this added to hard feelings in the Pentagon about Obama and the White House.
The outcome in Afghanistan remains to be determined. By most accounts, the training of the Afghan military is going well, and security responsibility is steadily being transferred to them. But how the endgame plays out after more than a decade of war will determine whether there is a good prospect of success in achieving our now-limited objectives, or whether the entire effort and all the sacrifice will have been for nothing. Contrary to popular belief, the Afghan government and army held together pretty well for nearly two years after the Soviets withdrew, but civil war began when Russian aid ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. For us, the chance of success will be significantly enhanced with a modest continuing NATO military presence after 2014 for training, logistics, intelligence, air support, and counterterrorism—along with financial support for the Afghan security forces. If we signal early that we will support such a role, it will inform friends, foes, and those on the fence that we will not repeat our strategic mistake in the early 1990s of abandoning Afghanistan. We know all too well the consequences of that mistake.
THE CIVILIAN-MILITARY RELATIONSHIP
The relationship between senior military leaders and the civilian commander in chief—the president—is often a tense one. This was true of my experience under both Bush and Obama (as it has been true pretty much throughout American history). A major task of the secretary of defense is to help manage that relationship and to ensure that the president listens to professional military advice that he may not want to hear, and that the senior officers offer their best and most candid advice and obey loyally, especially when they are overruled.
In wartime, disagreement is inevitable because the president is ultimately accountable for success or failure and must sustain at least some level of public and congressional support. At the end of 2006, Bush overruled the field commander, the chairman and all the Joint Chiefs, and the Middle East and Central Asia regional (Centcom) commander in ordering the surge. He replaced the secretary of defense, the Centcom commander, and the field commander essentially at the same time. The war in Iraq was going badly, and he acted courageously and boldly to change course. Obama similarly acted courageously and boldly at the end of 2009 when he ordered the Afghan surge, the impetus for which came from the military. In so doing, Obama overruled the policy and domestic political concerns of his vice president and virtually all the senior White House staff. Then, contrary to the advice of his generals, he imposed timelines to avoid the impression (and potential reality) of endless war and to sustain political support in Congress and among the public. Both presidents were willing (at least on my watch) to replace commanders they thought were not succeeding.
During my tenure as secretary, Bush was willing to disagree with his senior military advisers on the wars, including the important divergence between the chiefs’ concern to reduce stress on the force and the president’s higher priority of success in Iraq. However, Bush never (at least to my knowledge) questioned their motives or mistrusted them personally. Obama was respectful of senior officers and always heard them out, but he often disagreed with them and was deeply suspicious of their actions and recommendations. Bush seemed to enjoy the company of the senior military; I think Obama considered time spent with generals and admirals an obligation.
While I was secretary, senior officers greatly added to the inherent tension with both Bush and Obama by all too frequent public statements that were seen by the two presidents as unnecessary and inappropriate, creating unwanted (and sometimes unnecessary) political problems at home, limiting options abroad, and narrowing the commander in chief’s freedom of decision. Bush was repeatedly angered by public statements from Mullen (on Iraq and Afghanistan), Fallon (Iran), and others, as Obama was repeatedly critical of Mullen, Petraeus, McChrystal, and others. Congress demands that senior officers provide their “personal and professional military opinion” on issues when requested during testimony. Although sometimes what they said aggravated Bush and Obama, it was only rarely that I heard either criticize an officer testifying under those circumstances. It was when those opinions were offered to the press or in public speeches that the presidential blowtorch came out.
Generals and admirals speaking out and angering a president is nothing new. (George Patton and Douglas MacArthur come to mind.) I believe the country and public support for the military and its missions are well served by hearing firsthand from our senior military leaders. But I think the frequency and number of officers speaking out has been steadily increasing, and unwise decisions about content, timing, and specific forums have unnecessarily aggravated their always-delicate relationship with the president.
For some reason, more and more senior officers seem compelled to seek a high public profile and to speak out, often on politically sensitive issues or even on matters beyond their area of responsibility (not to mention expertise). Some in the military establishment appear to have embraced the notion that modern military leaders should also be “strategic communicators.” This trend accelerated when Petraeus achieved superstar status during the Iraq War. The increasingly accepted theory is that “getting the message out”—in television profiles, op-eds, speaking tours, think-tank speeches—is part of the duties of high command. Interestingly, when Petraeus arrived to take command in Baghdad, he corrected a member of his staff who complained of a “strategic communications problem.” No, we have a “results problem,” Petraeus said, and when the violence in Iraq declined dramatically under his leadership, the strategic communications problem took care of itself.