Officers With PhDs Advising War Effort

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007; A01

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small
band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a
Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a
military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in
an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart
colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most
selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight
universities and combat experience in Iraq.
Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have
criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is
letting them try to wage the war their way.
"Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of
conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war," said a Special Forces
colonel who knows some of the officers.
But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its
specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the
battle of Baghdad.
"Petraeus's 'brain trust' is an impressive bunch, but I think it's too late to
salvage success in Iraq," said a professor at a military war college, who said
he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to implement a
genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States really has no
solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.
"It's too late to make a difference in Iraq," agreed Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown
University expert on terrorism who has advised the U.S. government on the war
effort.
Expanded Role for Academics

Having academic specialists advise top commanders is not new. Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., Petraeus's predecessor, established a small panel of
counterinsurgency experts, but it was limited to an advisory role. Also, Lt.
Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, created a "Red Team"
to examine his operations from the enemy's perspective and to report directly to
him.
Still, the team being assembled by Petraeus promises to be both larger and more
influential than anything seen in the U.S. war effort so far, both making plans
and helping to implement them. The group's members are very much in the
high-energy mold of Petraeus, whose 2003-04 tour commanding the 101st Airborne
Division in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, gave the U.S. military one
of its few notable success stories of the war. He also holds a PhD in
international affairs from Princeton University.
"I cannot think of another case of so many highly educated officers advising a
general," said Carter Malkasian, who has advised Marine Corps commanders in Iraq
on counterinsurgency and himself holds an Oxford doctorate in the history of
war.
As the U.S.-designed campaign to bring security to Baghdad unfolds, Petraeus's
chief economic adviser, Col. Michael J. Meese, will coordinate security and
reconstruction efforts, trying to ensure that "build" follows the "clear" and
"hold" phases of action. Meese also holds a PhD from Princeton, where he studied
how the Army historically handled budget cuts. He is the son of former attorney
general Edwin Meese III, who was a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group,
whose December critique helped push the Bush administration to shift its
approach in Baghdad.
Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for this
article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations an
outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David Kilcullen holds a PhD
in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic extremism in Indonesia.
Kilcullen has served in Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and East Timor and most
recently was chief strategist for the State Department's counterterrorism
office, lent by the Australian government. His 2006 essay "Twenty-Eight
Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" was read by Petraeus,
who sent it rocketing around the Army via e-mail. Among Kilcullen's dictums:
"Rank is nothing: talent is everything" -- a subversive thought in an
organization as hierarchical as the U.S. military.
Veteran Strategists

The two most influential members of the brain trust are likely to be Col. Peter
R. Mansoor and Col. H.R. McMaster, whose influence already outstrips their rank.
Both men served on a secret panel convened last fall by Gen. Peter Pace, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review Iraq strategy. The panel's core
conclusion, never released to the public but briefed to President Bush on Dec.
13, according to an officer on the Joint Staff, was that the U.S. government
should "go long" in Iraq by shifting from a combat stance to a long-term
training-and-advisory effort.
But to make that shift, the review also concluded, the U.S. military might first
have to "spike" its presence by about 20,000 to 30,000 troops to curb sectarian
violence and improve security in Baghdad. That is almost exactly what the U.S.
government hopes to do over the next eight months.
Mansoor, who commanded a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in
2003-04, received a PhD at Ohio State for a dissertation on how U.S. Army
infantry divisions were developed during World War II. He will be Petraeus's
executive officer in Baghdad, a key figure in implementing the general's
decisions.
McMaster's command of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq in
2005-06 provided one of the few bright spots for the U.S. military in Iraq over
that year. In a patiently executed campaign, he took back the city of Tall Afar
from a terrorist group, and he was so successful that Bush dedicated much of a
speech to the operation. McMaster, author of the well-received book "Dereliction
of Duty," about the failures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam
War, is expected to operate for Petraeus as a long-distance adviser on strategy.
He is based this year at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a
London think tank, but is likely to visit Iraq every month or two, according to
a top U.S. military officer.
Beyond those senior officers is a larger ring of advisers whose views already
are shaping planning for the coming operation in Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Ollivant caught Petraeus's eye last year by winning first
prize in an Army "counterinsurgency writing" competition, sponsored by the
general, with an essay that scorned the U.S. military's reliance in Iraq on big
"forward operating bases." "Having a fortress mentality simply isolates the
counterinsurgent from the fight," he wrote.
Ollivant, a veteran of battles in Najaf and Fallujah who earned a political
science PhD studying Thomas Jefferson, argued that U.S. forces should instead
operate from patrol bases shared with Iraqi military and police units. That is
exactly what Petraeus plans to do in the coming months in Baghdad, setting up
about three dozen such outposts across the city -- which isn't surprising,
considering Ollivant has become a top planner for the U.S. military in Baghdad.
Another adviser will be Ahmed S. Hashim, a professor of strategy at the Naval
War College who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then wrote
a book sharply critical of how the U.S. military has operated there. Hashim, who
holds a PhD from MIT, concluded his critique by arguing that the best course
would be to partition the country along ethnic and sectarian lines.
A Different ArenaOfficers With PhDs Advising War Effort

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 5, 2007; A01

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, is assembling a small
band of warrior-intellectuals -- including a quirky Australian anthropologist, a
Princeton economist who is the son of a former U.S. attorney general and a
military expert on the Vietnam War sharply critical of its top commanders -- in
an eleventh-hour effort to reverse the downward trend in the Iraq war.
Army officers tend to refer to the group as "Petraeus guys." They are smart
colonels who have been noticed by Petraeus, and who make up one of the most
selective clubs in the world: military officers with doctorates from top-flight
universities and combat experience in Iraq.
Essentially, the Army is turning the war over to its dissidents, who have
criticized the way the service has operated there the past three years, and is
letting them try to wage the war their way.
"Their role is crucial if we are to reverse the effects of four years of
conventional mind-set fighting an unconventional war," said a Special Forces
colonel who knows some of the officers.
But there is widespread skepticism that even this unusual group, with its
specialized knowledge of counterinsurgency methods, will be able to win the
battle of Baghdad.
"Petraeus's 'brain trust' is an impressive bunch, but I think it's too late to
salvage success in Iraq," said a professor at a military war college, who said
he thinks that the general will still not have sufficient troops to implement a
genuine counterinsurgency strategy and that the United States really has no
solution for the sectarian violence tearing apart Iraq.
"It's too late to make a difference in Iraq," agreed Bruce Hoffman, a Georgetown
University expert on terrorism who has advised the U.S. government on the war
effort.
Expanded Role for Academics

Having academic specialists advise top commanders is not new. Gen. George W.
Casey Jr., Petraeus's predecessor, established a small panel of
counterinsurgency experts, but it was limited to an advisory role. Also, Lt.
Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, created a "Red Team"
to examine his operations from the enemy's perspective and to report directly to
him.
Still, the team being assembled by Petraeus promises to be both larger and more
influential than anything seen in the U.S. war effort so far, both making plans
and helping to implement them. The group's members are very much in the
high-energy mold of Petraeus, whose 2003-04 tour commanding the 101st Airborne
Division in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, gave the U.S. military one
of its few notable success stories of the war. He also holds a PhD in
international affairs from Princeton University.
"I cannot think of another case of so many highly educated officers advising a
general," said Carter Malkasian, who has advised Marine Corps commanders in Iraq
on counterinsurgency and himself holds an Oxford doctorate in the history of
war.
As the U.S.-designed campaign to bring security to Baghdad unfolds, Petraeus's
chief economic adviser, Col. Michael J. Meese, will coordinate security and
reconstruction efforts, trying to ensure that "build" follows the "clear" and
"hold" phases of action. Meese also holds a PhD from Princeton, where he studied
how the Army historically handled budget cuts. He is the son of former attorney
general Edwin Meese III, who was a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group,
whose December critique helped push the Bush administration to shift its
approach in Baghdad.
Petraeus, who along with the group's members declined to be interviewed for this
article, has chosen as his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations an
outspoken officer in the Australian Army. Lt. Col. David Kilcullen holds a PhD
in anthropology, for which he studied Islamic extremism in Indonesia.
Kilcullen has served in Cyprus, Papua New Guinea and East Timor and most
recently was chief strategist for the State Department's counterterrorism
office, lent by the Australian government. His 2006 essay "Twenty-Eight
Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level Counterinsurgency" was read by Petraeus,
who sent it rocketing around the Army via e-mail. Among Kilcullen's dictums:
"Rank is nothing: talent is everything" -- a subversive thought in an
organization as hierarchical as the U.S. military.
Veteran Strategists

The two most influential members of the brain trust are likely to be Col. Peter
R. Mansoor and Col. H.R. McMaster, whose influence already outstrips their rank.
Both men served on a secret panel convened last fall by Gen. Peter Pace, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to review Iraq strategy. The panel's core
conclusion, never released to the public but briefed to President Bush on Dec.
13, according to an officer on the Joint Staff, was that the U.S. government
should "go long" in Iraq by shifting from a combat stance to a long-term
training-and-advisory effort.
But to make that shift, the review also concluded, the U.S. military might first
have to "spike" its presence by about 20,000 to 30,000 troops to curb sectarian
violence and improve security in Baghdad. That is almost exactly what the U.S.
government hopes to do over the next eight months.
Mansoor, who commanded a brigade of the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad in
2003-04, received a PhD at Ohio State for a dissertation on how U.S. Army
infantry divisions were developed during World War II. He will be Petraeus's
executive officer in Baghdad, a key figure in implementing the general's
decisions.
McMaster's command of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in northwestern Iraq in
2005-06 provided one of the few bright spots for the U.S. military in Iraq over
that year. In a patiently executed campaign, he took back the city of Tall Afar
from a terrorist group, and he was so successful that Bush dedicated much of a
speech to the operation. McMaster, author of the well-received book "Dereliction
of Duty," about the failures of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Vietnam
War, is expected to operate for Petraeus as a long-distance adviser on strategy.
He is based this year at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a
London think tank, but is likely to visit Iraq every month or two, according to
a top U.S. military officer.
Beyond those senior officers is a larger ring of advisers whose views already
are shaping planning for the coming operation in Baghdad.
Lt. Col. Douglas A. Ollivant caught Petraeus's eye last year by winning first
prize in an Army "counterinsurgency writing" competition, sponsored by the
general, with an essay that scorned the U.S. military's reliance in Iraq on big
"forward operating bases." "Having a fortress mentality simply isolates the
counterinsurgent from the fight," he wrote.
Ollivant, a veteran of battles in Najaf and Fallujah who earned a political
science PhD studying Thomas Jefferson, argued that U.S. forces should instead
operate from patrol bases shared with Iraqi military and police units. That is
exactly what Petraeus plans to do in the coming months in Baghdad, setting up
about three dozen such outposts across the city -- which isn't surprising,
considering Ollivant has become a top planner for the U.S. military in Baghdad.
Another adviser will be Ahmed S. Hashim, a professor of strategy at the Naval
War College who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then wrote
a book sharply critical of how the U.S. military has operated there. Hashim, who
holds a PhD from MIT, concluded his critique by arguing that the best course
would be to partition the country along ethnic and sectarian lines.
A Different Arena