General Scales is Wrong about General McChrystal and ISIS by Larry Johnson

Let me state at the outset that I think Bob Scales, a retired Army major general and former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, is a good, honorable man. But he is wrong in his latest analysis suggesting that another recently retired Army General, Stanley McChrystal, is a "prophet." Another full disclosure re Stan McChrystal--I am a big fan. He does not know me, but I did work with him indirectly during his entire tenure with the Special Ops community. He and I passed each other at his base in Balad in May of 2006--he was headed to the JOC and I was searching for the latrine. We nodded gravely at each other.

I agree with General Scales that McChrystal is a genuine visionary who transformed the Special Operations community and its approach to terrorism. But the SOF approach will not defeat ISIS. 

Let's fist consider "http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-only-way-to-defeat-the-islamic-state/2014/09/05/4b2d7bd4-3459-11e4-a723-fa3895a25d02_story.html"General Scales' position on the matter: 

Enter a new prophet, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former head of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Over the past 20 years, McChrystal and his teams have developed another uniquely American method of war by substituting skill, information and precision for mass, maneuver and weight of shell. We first watched the McChrystal method at work in Afghanistan following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when small Special Forces units and the Afghan Northern Alliance teamed to destroy the Taliban using precision strikes delivered from aircraft high overhead. 

 

But the secret of this new method is in people, not technology. McChrystal’s success proves that small units of superbly selected, trained, educated, led and bonded soldiers can kill much larger aggregations of enemy while holding the deaths of friendly forces and innocent civilians to a minimum. . . . 

In many ways, the McChrystal method is the opposite of shock and awe. It is often painfully deliberate, fed as it is by the patient collection of intelligence wrung from sources as disparate as informants and the big ears of the National Security Agency. Nothing happens without repetitive, realistic planning and rehearsals. No operation goes down without involving many layers of “enablers.” Intelligence officers feed information constantly to teams as they move to the fight. Armed and unarmed drones feed video of enemy movements. Some of the killing is done up close, to be sure, but most comes from precision aerial weapons that obliterate the enemy in the dead of night. 

The day will inevitably come when the McChrystal method is employed against the Islamic State. But crushing the group will require a scaling-up of the method, never attempted before. The Islamic State is huge, and, sadly, the men and machines necessary to do the job are too few and have been terribly overused. To succeed, the McChrystal method will have to be cloned to a degree as yet unimagined within the Defense Department. 

Bob Scales is right about Stan's emphasis on people. What Stat McChrystal did, first at JSOC, and then on the ground in Iraq, was to commit to a full, genuine integration of all military and civilian organizations involved in the terrorist fight. The Joint Operations Center he created contained representatives from the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, NSA, DIA, CIA, FBI, Treasury and others. He did more than talk about sharing information and working together, he demanded it. He led by example. And it proved effective to a point. 

General Scales cites as a model the "success" of the SOF forces under Stan's command in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in September 2001. I recommend three books for your background and consideration--

Daulton Fury's, "http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Bin-Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Man-Commanders-Account/dp/0312547412/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410213890&sr=1-1&keywords=kill+bin+laden

"Kill Bin Laden, Sean Naylor's, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Not-Good-Day-Die-Operation/dp/0425207870/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410214011&sr=1-1&keywords=not+a+good+day+to+die

"Not a Good Day to Die:The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda</a> and Gary Bernstsen's, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jawbreaker-Al-Qaeda-Personal-Account-Commander/dp/0307351068/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410214209&sr=1-1&keywords=Gary+Berntsen

"Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander. These three books give the best, most accurate account of the capabilities and limitations of the US Special Ops Forces. 

Gary Berntsen's book spells out very clearly his frustration in the failure to nab Bin Laden. Why? He needed boots on the ground. At least a company size element (i.e., 150 men) and probably more in order to prevent Bin Laden from slipping across the border. Here is what Bob Scales fails to capture or acknowledge--while SOF forces were great in helping conduct precision air strikes, they did not have super human powers. They also needed the mass of conventional forces in order to stop Bin Laden. 

A similar result occurred in Iraq. By May of 2006, Stan McChrystal's forces were operating like a nuclear powered Swiss watch. Stan's boys were carrying out as many as 18 hits a night on a variety of terrorist attacks. They were grabbing genuine bad guys and bringing them back to the base for interrogation. Intelligence gleaned from those urgent interrogations was immediately shared with other elements in the JOC and new missions planned and executed within hours. It was amazing. 

Only one little problem--despite capturing and killing up to a hundred real and suspected bad guys a day, the level of terrorist attacks agains US forces in Iraq continued to soar. The intel pointed to a solution that had nothing to do with SOF power--many of the bombs were being planted by disaffected, unemployed Iraqi men who were being paid to plant mines. Someone finally woke up and acknowledged this fact. That's what inspired the so-called "Sunni Awakening." Once US Commanders interceded with Sunni Sheiks and started paying them to keep their boys at home providing security for key roads and other lines of communication. Guess what? The level of violence started falling. That had little to do with Stan McChrystal's vision.

 So now we face the threat of ISIS. I'm sure there is a role for SOF forces. Hell, they are already in the field helping in the same way that Daulton Fury and his men in Afghanistan guided planes to attack Al Qaeda caves. There also is a need for a new Sunni Awakening. But neither are sufficient to defeat ISIS. That's going to require conventional forces on the ground capable of destroying the ISIS fighters and restoring order to the communities terrorized by this army. It is clear that neither Obama nor his advisors understand this point. It also appears that Bob Scales does not understand. Too bad.

Comments

[Peter C]

In Stars and Stripes today was an article laying out how Contractors will be used instead of Boot On the Ground. The political calculus is that Contractors ave viewed differently politically by the voters.

[ToivoS]

Interesting analysis by Larry Johnson. I disagree with his last two sentences. I do believe that Obama understands that extensive ground forces are going to be needed to destroy ISIS. I think Obama also understands that it should not be US ground forces that do so. Obama is a skilled politician and he must know, by now, that the American people will not support sending US forces into Iraq to destroy ISIS.

If the goal is to destroy ISIS, there is really only one thing the US can do. And that is to provide tactical air support for those countries willing to send in combat troops to take on ISIS. As far as I can see is that finding those ground forces will be difficult. Iraq, of course, but their military has been so degraded it might take months if not years to develop effective units. The Kurds are another source but they will need to develop a military that engages in conventional warfare, so far they have fought as guerillas against conventional forces. Syria has the experience, but right now they are occupied in Western Syria suppressing US, Turkish, Saudi and Qatar backed rebels. This leaves the Iranians. They might very well be able to provide the needed infantry.

On this last point: Now wouldn't that be ironic?

[crf]

Regarding the Sunni Awakening: the first one succeeded because the Iraqi government (with the US standing behind it) promised to make an effort to accomodate Sunni interests in the government. Sunni militants were convinced to open their mouths and take this made-in-america medicine.

The medicine didn't work. They are not going to be convinced to take it again. The Iraq government isn't likely to offer it either.

ISIS cannot be destroyed. ISIS can only be contained.

[b]

McCrystal and his methods created more terrorists than they killed. His mass introduction of torture (the CIA wasn't even allowed to visit his jails because the torture there was too endemic) and killing of whole families on someones say-so is what gave new life to the Taliban and what fed AQI and now ISIS.

McCrystals method have proven to be unsuccessful in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere. Despite his mass killing the situation in neither of this countries is any better than it was before McCrystal's campaign. In each of this countries are now more enemies than before.

How can anyone believe that more of the same would do ANY good?

[jonst]

TS, my two cents. Relatively amateur as it is. There is NO force, none, other than US forces, that will GO INTO THE DESERT AND SEEK THESE GUYS OUT TO KILL THEM. There may be, repeat, may be, groups that will fight ISIS, if and when ISIS comes to them, and they have to fight. Some in this group will fight better than others in the group. i.e. the Syrians and Hezbollah.

There are many groups that will join us in seeking ISIS out in their territory. But only if there are lots and lots of US military on the ground.

[RetiredPatriot]

@PeterC, Mercenaries ARE viewed differently. As they should be. That said, the public will soon be far less enamored with the full-on mercenary approach once the bills start piling up. And the warnings of those of us about not relying on mercenaries will begin to come true.

RP

[Dubhaltach]

In reply to Peter C 08 September 2014 at 10:59 PM

The word you're looking for is mercenaries. The reasons why it's a very bad idea to use them are too well known and have been for centuries for me to waste everyone's time repeating them.

Dubhaltach

[Fred]

b,

'endemic torture'. Do you have anything to actually substantiate that allegation?

[The beaver]

Fred

Article in The Atlantic circa 2009:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2009/05/who-is-stanley-mcchrystal/201850/

What happened at Camp NAMA?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/international/middleeast/19abuse.html?_r=0

[Fred]

Beaver,

As bad as the conduct of the task force was "Endemic" and "killing of whole families on someone's say so" are not supported by either article.

[Peter]

In reply to RetiredPatriot, that was my thoughs also when I read that the use of Mercenaries would be the Boots On The Ground force paid for by the U.S. taxpayers and borrowed monies. Since hindsight is a powerful tool, I do think that there were no lessons learned from the imidiate past about using hired guns and support systems.

What will happen if hundreds of U.S. hired mercinaries get shot up, dead, and captured in a full on confrontation. It will happen the way ISIS apears to be capapble of.

[Dr. K]

When those Blackwater mercenaries were killed on the bridge in Fallujah they got what all mercenaries deserve.

[Fred]

Dr. K,

How insightful. The many Americans and Iraqi's who wound up dead after the Blackwater response to those four men getting killed is just one more thing for people like you to be self rightous about. Wait for Obama's speech tonight and let me know your thoughts when he continues the Bush era regime change mandate for Syria as a solution to ISIS.

[Tyler]

Dr. K,

Those aren't the meatheads that gave you wedgies in high school and college. You should let it go.

[Mark Logan]

Larry,

The lack of public support for another US occupation in the ME and the political suicide it would be to openly advocate for Assad to win is cause to question your last conclusion.

Perhaps they do know.