Photo courtesy of http://blog.stevenpressfield.com
During the two month Presidential deliberation on whether or not to provide General McChrystal with the troops he requested, an after action report lit up the blogosphere. Steven Pressfield's "One Tribe at a Time" series has been cited numerous times on this blog and others. The centerpiece of the series was an after-action report written by Major Jim Gant. Today, Major Gant and his assessment were featured in the Washington Post.
It was the spring of 2003, and Capt. Jim Gant and his Special Forces team had just fought their way out of an insurgent ambush in Afghanistan's Konar province when they heard there was trouble in the nearby village of Mangwel. There, Gant had a conversation with a tribal chief -- a chance encounter that would redefine his mission in Afghanistan and that, more than six years later, could help salvage the faltering U.S. war effort.
The article continues...
A decorated war veteran and Pashto speaker with multiple tours in Afghanistan, Gant had been assigned by the Army to deploy to Iraq in November. But with senior military and civilian leaders -- including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command -- expressing support for Gant's views, he was ordered instead to return to Afghanistan later this year to work on tribal issues.
"Maj. Jim Gant's paper is very impressive -- so impressive, in fact, that I shared it widely," Petraeus said, while McChrystal distributed it to all commanders in Afghanistan. One senior military official went so far as to call Gant "Lawrence of Afghanistan."
For me, this is proof-positive of how important the blogosphere is in current COIN operations. Through "official" channels, it is highly unlikely that any aspects of Major Gant's assessments or experience would have been taken seriously or even read at all. But by releasing his views through Pressfield, public political pressures have forced leaders, decision makers, and their staffs to take his perspective and experiences into consideration. Furthermore, this public release generated the debate and discussion critical to formulating a functional strategy capable of defining and achieving victory.
Posts
