Petraeus said, was no longer the blue team (the good guys) squaring off against the red team (the bad guys). He recalled the moment when he stood atop a Humvee outside Najaf in 2003 and realized that there were a lot more civilians on the battlefield than there ever were at the National Training Center. The business of nation building required patience, and the counterinsurgent needed to serve as a public ambassador for the mission. That meant explaining the mission to, and engaging with, the press. âItâs not optional to deal with the [press], just like itâs not optional to deal with the civilian population,â he said. âItâs not optional to work with local leaders. Itâs not optional to do nation building. Youâve got to do all of those, or you will not succeed at the National Training Center, and you will certainly not succeed in Iraq or Afghanistan.â
It was more than just an overhaul of training that Petraeus and the counterinsurgents wanted to impose on the Army. They wanted to develop a new generation of officers and soldiers who were comfortable with the chores of nation building, men and women who were willing to immerse themselves in foreign cultures, and who were as skilled at managing reconstruction funds as they were in sending tank rounds downrange. That would require a shift in the way that the military selected people for promotion. In colonial militaries such as the British Army, serving with âindigenousâ or ânativeâ forces was traditionally a prestigious assignment. In the U.S. Army, volunteering to serve on a Military Transition Teamâthe thankless, often dangerous job of mentoring Iraqi military units or training Afghan police forcesâwas still largely viewed as a professional dead end. It was in many respects a repeat of the Vietnam War, when the path to rapid advancement was having an assignment to a line unit, not a job as a district or a province advisor. And after Vietnam, those kinds of advisory jobs were largely relegated to Special Forces. Petraeus wanted to make sure that an advisory tour was no longer a bar to professional advancement.
Advisors, he said, needed to be given priority for âbranch-qualifyingâ jobs. They needed to be given preference for promotion to important leadership jobs: a battalion command or an operations officer or executive officer in a brigade.
We want to make sure that if someone volunteers to be a MiTT or a SPTTâa Military Transition Team member or a Special Police Training Team member or leaderâthat they are then rewarded for that. And in all the traditional ways that we reward people: They get their share of decorations and promotions and selection for command and everything else. So we have to insure that our personnel system, the Human Resources Command, rewards them by then giving them follow-on assignments that insure their upward trajectory.
But, Petraeus added, a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq would require a serious nonmilitary component. âSome of these are national issues. And I think the State Department is starting to look at the overall national government response to conduct of counterinsurgency.â
Later that month the State Department would be holding a conference on the subject, and he would be making a presentation. What Petraeus seemed to be driving atâalthough he was careful not to step âoutside of his laneâ as a general officerâwas that the United States might need an increase in the size of the diplomatic corps. âItâd be interesting to ask what the size is of the Foreign Service officer community in the State Department,â he said. âFar be it from me [to say]. I think people should ask: What is the capacity?â
And, Petraeus added: âI think you might want to go see the assistant secretary for pol-milââJohn Hillen, who was preparing the ground for the counterinsurgents in
It was more than just an overhaul of training that Petraeus and the counterinsurgents wanted to impose on the Army. They wanted to develop a new generation of officers and soldiers who were comfortable with the chores of nation building, men and women who were willing to immerse themselves in foreign cultures, and who were as skilled at managing reconstruction funds as they were in sending tank rounds downrange. That would require a shift in the way that the military selected people for promotion. In colonial militaries such as the British Army, serving with âindigenousâ or ânativeâ forces was traditionally a prestigious assignment. In the U.S. Army, volunteering to serve on a Military Transition Teamâthe thankless, often dangerous job of mentoring Iraqi military units or training Afghan police forcesâwas still largely viewed as a professional dead end. It was in many respects a repeat of the Vietnam War, when the path to rapid advancement was having an assignment to a line unit, not a job as a district or a province advisor. And after Vietnam, those kinds of advisory jobs were largely relegated to Special Forces. Petraeus wanted to make sure that an advisory tour was no longer a bar to professional advancement.
Advisors, he said, needed to be given priority for âbranch-qualifyingâ jobs. They needed to be given preference for promotion to important leadership jobs: a battalion command or an operations officer or executive officer in a brigade.
We want to make sure that if someone volunteers to be a MiTT or a SPTTâa Military Transition Team member or a Special Police Training Team member or leaderâthat they are then rewarded for that. And in all the traditional ways that we reward people: They get their share of decorations and promotions and selection for command and everything else. So we have to insure that our personnel system, the Human Resources Command, rewards them by then giving them follow-on assignments that insure their upward trajectory.
But, Petraeus added, a successful counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq would require a serious nonmilitary component. âSome of these are national issues. And I think the State Department is starting to look at the overall national government response to conduct of counterinsurgency.â
Later that month the State Department would be holding a conference on the subject, and he would be making a presentation. What Petraeus seemed to be driving atâalthough he was careful not to step âoutside of his laneâ as a general officerâwas that the United States might need an increase in the size of the diplomatic corps. âItâd be interesting to ask what the size is of the Foreign Service officer community in the State Department,â he said. âFar be it from me [to say]. I think people should ask: What is the capacity?â
And, Petraeus added: âI think you might want to go see the assistant secretary for pol-milââJohn Hillen, who was preparing the ground for the counterinsurgents in
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