Tom Donnelly & Tim Sullivan: McChrystal Lite; How to lose a war by splitting the difference
Tom Donnelly & Tim Sullivan: “… To the Washington punditocracy, half a loaf sounds about right; even if they don’t think it’s the right strategy, they think it’s what Obama will do AS A MATTER OF DOMESTIC POLITICS. BUT DOES IT MAKE ANY MILITARY SENSE?”
“A troop ceiling of 20,000 reinforcemtns wouldpresent McChrystal with painful choices. To begin with, it would sacrifice urgency, taking longer to achieve any decisive effects — and McChrystal’s assessment concluded IN AUGUST THAT THE COMING YEAR WAS CRITICAL. The president’s middle-way approach would also force McChrystal to revisit the balance between committing US troops to combat and to training Afghan Army and other security forces; and he might have to reconsider the trade-offs between formal school-house training, embedded training teams, and unit-to-unit partnerships, the approach that proved to be most effective in Iraq…”
[Read the rest of the problems that would follow according to Donnelly and Sullivan.]