Matthew Yglesias (August 27, 2007) - The Banality of Counterinsurgency (Foreign Policy)

an exercise in saying nothing at extraordinary length.

And this differs from most dissertations how?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 27, 2007 12:57 PM

This reminds me of Pauli's comment: 'It is not even wrong.'

Posted by bbartlog | August 27, 2007 12:58 PM

Are you suggesting that Petreus may not be the all-knowing, all-powerful warrrior-scholar that Michelle Malkin told me about?

Posted by Mike | August 27, 2007 1:01 PM

Did anyone out there make it through that paragraph without yawning?

The guy sounds like a dimwit.

Posted by Jim W | August 27, 2007 1:01 PM

SCMT is funny, but clearly off message.

You are supposed to be undermining Petraeus, SCMT, not undermining the underminers!

Posted by Al | August 27, 2007 1:06 PM

Matt, have you read the dissertation?

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 27, 2007 1:07 PM

The dissertation may have other bad points, but it is unfair to pick on a rather uncontroversial lead-in paragraph to his conclusions chapter. I mean, it hardly separates him from other Ph.D. students when he does something like this.

Posted by Tyro | August 27, 2007 1:08 PM

At the risk of needlessly defending Gen. David 'Pericles' Petraeus, isn't it the rare PhD which is NOT an exercise in saying nothing at extraordinary length?

I mean, it's not like anyone who read Newt Gingrich's banal PhD on the Congo (I did) found anything impressive in it.

And I fear that were I to have pursued a PhD, only luck and advice would have kept me from the same fate.

Posted by El Cid | August 27, 2007 1:09 PM

I've read through the entire "conclusions" section, plus some other random bits. Brian's done the same, but with other random bits. Neither of us can find anything interesting.

It may be, as some people are saying, that it's entirely typical for dissertations to basically say nothing.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | August 27, 2007 1:13 PM

Good point Al, about SCMT being off-message. Brian Beutler's tack of dinging Petraeus for his academic background is novel, but doesn't seem especially promising. Even those commentators who resent Petraeus's good press and who have been critical of the war in Iraq usually have good things to say about other Army officers with social science Ph.D.s, e.g., McMaster and Nagl. To flip the script now and say these guys are dolts because of their doctorates seems odd.

Posted by Fred | August 27, 2007 1:17 PM

Dissertations also have to satisfy a committee. Did he publish his dissertation as a book or article anywhere? What did THAT version say?

Posted by Dr. Eckhart | August 27, 2007 1:19 PM

Fred, your doctorate is supposed to say something. A dissertation isn't like a diploma-- it's a document entirely constructed by the student and, thus, fair game for criticism beyond its mere existence.

Though in fact many of them just serve as proof that the student has read everything there is to know about the dissertation topic with some measurements/evidence used to back up an argument being made as sort of an afterthought.

It is, in fact, fair to criticize Petreas if his Ph.D. dissertation stinks, of course. That's why they're public, easily accessible documents. And that's why, in this case, I'm commenting anonymously. :)

Posted by Tyro | August 27, 2007 1:21 PM

When Petraeus' report is released youre going to have to come up with a better excuse for ignoring it than 'his dissertation was boring'.

Posted by pimp hand strikes! | August 27, 2007 1:28 PM

Hey look:

In thirty seconds of perusing Petraeus's Doctoral Dissertation, I found something interesting that Beutler and Yglesias didn't mention. Check page 9, kids, to see which prominent authority on the Israel Lobby helped advise Petraeus on writing his dissertation.

Posted by Fred | August 27, 2007 1:32 PM

Petraeus is writing a report? Really? Will that be released before or after the White House report that they are trying to pass off as the "Petraeus report"?

Posted by Steve | August 27, 2007 1:33 PM

Tyro,

Check out Petraeus's acknowledgments section. He spreads the credit (or blame, if you prefer) for his finished dissertation liberally. If the dissertation is crap -- and I have no intention of reading the whole thing to find out -- this doesn't reflect well on the school that a) approved Petraeus's thesis and b) approved the dissertation. Perhaps it's a social sciences/Ivy League thing. A friend of mine was a Ph.D. student in a hard science at state university, and he got kicked out of the program after his Ph.D. thesis was twice rejected for being too broad. They gave him an M. Phil. as a consolation prize and sent him packing.

Posted by Fred | August 27, 2007 1:47 PM

"isn't it the rare PhD which is NOT an exercise in saying nothing at extraordinary length?"

That's bizarre. In physics, if you're taking on a problem in a new field, one of the things you do is find a PhD dissertation on the topic and try to understand it. Dissertations generally go into excruciating detail so that you can get up to speed more easily than you could from just studying journal articles, which might assume knowledge you don't have. Your dissertation damn well better say something.

Posted by Njorl | August 27, 2007 1:54 PM

The people who kicked the ass of a global, nuclear superpower in Vietnam followed the precepts of a Chinese strategist circa 400 BC named Sun Tzu.

1) Sun Tzu ,unlike PhD candidates, cut through the bullshit. In HIS opening statement, he explains WHY:

"War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied."

2) Re Petraeus's "10 years in Iraq" Sun Tzu noted
"Thus, while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged..

For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted...

..Those adept in waging war do not require a second levy of conscripts nor more than one provisioning ...

..When a country is impoverished by military operations it is due to distant transportation; carriage of supplies for great distances renders the people destitute ...

..With strength thus depleted and wealth consumed the households in the central plains will be utterly impoverished and seven-tenths of their wealth dissipated ...

...Hence what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations."

3) In fairness to Petraeus, he is simply trying to execute orders from morons.

4) Certain groups in Washington sneer at the Jarheads, but it was a combat Marine named Samuel B Griffith who translated "The Art of War" from the Chinese and gave it to Washington circa 1963.

But the "Perfumed Princes" of the foreign policy establishment --who never get within a 1000 miles of combat --were too fucking stupid to appreciate his gift. As a result , a friend of mine died needlessly in Vietnam and I listened to the heartbroken sobbing of a female relative at his funeral.

Not all of our nation's enemies belong to Al Qaeda.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 1:56 PM

I don't think my dissertation said much.

That said...does anyone commenting here make a habit of reading dissertations? What are these judgments based on?

I find it hard to believe that Petreus didn't anything more interesting in his dissertation than this paragraph. That level of banality would be hard to maintain.

Posted by Brandon Claycomb | August 27, 2007 2:08 PM

A text search on Petraeus's dissertation indicates that he does not address Sun Tzu anywhere. Hence, in my opinion, he failed to address the basic strategy of the victor in Vietnam -- and the victor of the American Revolution insurgency. In my opinion, his thesis defense should have been failed on the grounds of incompetence.

Of course, he may have gotten smarter since 1987.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 2:18 PM

Plus, Petraeus was getting a PhD from the "WOODROW WILSON" School of Public and International Affairs.

So it's not like we talking about a tradition of competence -- quite the reverse, in fact.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 2:22 PM

I mean , what kind of institution would be stupid enough to name itself after one of the most renowned foreign policy INCOMPETENTS the USA has ever produced -- and that list is long and distinguished.

Woodrow Wilson's muddle-headed idiocy was largely responsible for the huge death toll of the 20th Century.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 2:25 PM

Fred, your point is what?

I was saying that it is fair to read through a dissertation and critique it for relative quality. You seemed to be disputing that, apparently claiming that to criticize a specific dissertation is to criticize the value of a Ph.D. in general. His heart and soul were poured into that thing, in all likelihood. It's fair to wonder what his heart and soul contained at the time.

Posted by Tyro | August 27, 2007 2:28 PM

It may be, as some people are saying, that it's entirely typical for dissertations to basically say nothing.

I don't think so. But it is not unusual for the the opening paragraph of the "Conclusions" section to be one of the least interesting passages in the entire work. It just seems a bit unfair to conclude that a 300+ page work is an "exercise in saying nothing at extraordinary length" given that one has admittedly read only "random bits."

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 27, 2007 2:33 PM

A text search on Petraeus's dissertation indicates that he does not address Sun Tzu anywhere. Hence, in my opinion, he failed to address the basic strategy of the victor in Vietnam -- and the victor of the American Revolution insurgency. In my opinion, his thesis defense should have been failed on the grounds of incompetence.

That would make sense if the purpose of the dissertation had been to analyze the war itself, from the standpoint of strategy and tactics. But since the point of the dissertation was to analyze the post-Vietnam impact of the Vietnam war on the advice given by senior US military leaders to US civilian leaders, I imagine that there are many important theorists of strategy and military science who are not mentioned in the work.

Posted by Dan Kervick | August 27, 2007 2:47 PM

Listening to chumps like Brian Beutler and Don Williams, who were never in the military or had any analogous experience in the civilian sector is laughable.

Like asking two woman's studies majors to examine the dissertation of particle physicist.

"I didn''t find it warm." "It wasn't inclusive enough of those other particle thingies.." "You would think that with all those quotes and calculations of who knows what from dead white men and Asians, he could have found an equal number of muon citations from lesbian women of color."

Williams waving his little "Sun Tzu" book around and pretending that makes him more of an expert than a lifetime "Top 1%-er" soldier with a Princeton PhD in the field is funnier yet.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 27, 2007 2:51 PM

Chris Ford - At least we know you're not smart enough to refute anything either of them said, since you can only resort to attacks on the people and not their ideas.

Posted by Rambuncle | August 27, 2007 3:11 PM

It may be true that one cannot apply "the American experience in Vietnam" to every current military issue as General Petraeus suggests. Similarly, no one can argue with Petraeus' assertion that neither the lessons of history in general, nor those of Vietnam in particular, "should be pushed too far", since "too far" is inevitably "too far".

Nevertheless Petraeus' assertion that history lessons must only be "used with discretion" begs a closer analysis since Petraeus doesn't reveal whether he means the discretion of logic, the discretion of politics, or discretion of a different type. Although the needs of 'discretion' might evoke a need to avoid the lessons of history, history itself doesn't so limit it's applicability, as those who find themselves repeating history inevitably learn.

Petraeus might find this a good time to revisit The Weinberger Doctrine .

__

Posted by JustMe | August 27, 2007 3:13 PM

Well, maybe, Chris, if you hadn't spent all your time hitting on lesbian physicists, you might've picked up a copy of Sun Tzu and had something to contribute to this discussion.

Posted by Flavor Flavius Julianus | August 27, 2007 3:27 PM

Re Chris Ford's comment "Listening to chumps like Brian Beutler and Don Williams, who were never in the military or had any analogous experience in the civilian sector is laughable"
---------
Let's see. I worked on a sonar system to help our Nuclear Ballistic Submarines stay hidden beneath thermal layers so that they could --on order preferably, turn the Soviet Union into a pile of radioactive ashes.

I also visited that National Security Agency and did a detailed study/write up of their FOLKLORE operating system. Given the fences they had around the NSA Hq, I'm kinda sceptical of those who claim we can't defend our southern border.

Next was a database to contain tasking orders for certain ..er.. satellites. CAMS PS -- predecessor to RMS.

Then several years on the Ocean Surveillance Information System (OSIS) Baseline Upgrade --
to track ships on the worlds oceans. To meld data from multiple sources so that we could know who they were -- and sink them -- preferably on order.

Next to work on the US ARmy Corp and Divison C3I system --designed to give all the many HQ units of an Army corps a common picture of the battlefield. Worked with a former Army Ranger who served IN COMBAT in Vietnam and who talked of his unit being ambushed. Visited Fort Levenworth to talk with Army officers on that one.

Then on to a project I can't talk about --because it's very existence is highly classified.

Then on to a system that delivered info from "national systems" to the Unified Commands. You know Chris. The guys like Centcom who actually fight the wars -- as opposed to making Powerpoint charts in the Pentagon and overseeing transport of beans and bullets? I visited USCENTCOM in Tampa a few times --as well as some other places.

But, no, I never carried a rifle around and slept in the mud. But I deeply appreciate those who do -- and deeply resent how their lives are wasted by shitheads in Washington. And by buttkissing sycophants of said shitheads.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 3:48 PM

I know it is just me but doesn't this whole topic seem kind of useless? GEN Petreus is commanding 160,000(+) Americans in the field on his third tour of Iraq and we have a group of people that probably live in their mother's basement critiquing his thesis paragraph? Come on, perhaps academia is your area of expertise but this is a stretch.

Posted by danceswithgoats | August 27, 2007 3:53 PM

So Don Williams,

According to your lavish praise of the North Vietnamese Army, your entire career sounds like a complete waste of U.S. tax payers' money. Why are we wasting money on you and all the double-secret computer systems you work on, when we can simply copy the NVA's low-tech, Sun Tzu approach to war fighting?

Posted by Harry | August 27, 2007 3:55 PM

Re Harry's "According to your lavish praise of the North Vietnamese Army, your entire career sounds like a complete waste of U.S. tax payers' money. Why are we wasting money on you and all the double-secret computer systems you work on "
-------
a) Depends upon what your objective is. If your objective is to DEFEND the United States against attacks by nuclear-armed adversaries, then that's one thing.

b) On the other hand, if your objective is to use the US military to occupy foreign lands, enslave foreign people,and protect the foreign "investments" of our wealthy kleptocrats, then that is something else. A Marine Corp counterinsurgency book I have says the defense has a 5 to 1 advantage. If the defense is on the other side of the world , then "petit war" becomes expensive.

Somewhere around 1990-- the collapse of the Soviet Union -- our elites started to segue from objective (a) to objective (b) without discussing it with US citizens. Just as the patricians of the ancient Roman Republic did after the fall of Carthage. And our middle class is seeing similar results.

Plus, corruption has become even more of a problem as the rich have gotten richer and success in public service has become based upon whether you can tell more convincing lies than your rivals.

Around 1997?, the intelligence budget's broad outlines was allegedly leaked . If my memory is correct, the news reports stated that the intel budget was around $26? Billion per year and that large technological systems in the NRO and NSA were getting around $8 Billion/year? and $4 Billion /year? respectively whereas CIA's Clandestine Service was getting less than $1 Billion/year.

This might seem strange given how George Tenet has reported having great concern about Bin Laden at that time. It doesn't help to have pictures of tents on the Afghan plain if you don't know who is IN the tents -- or what they are planning.

Except that the huge defense contractors who are also the primary intelligence contractors give out huge campaign donations -- many $Millions/year. By contrast, the political donations of employees in the Clandestine Service are much..er..smaller. Guess who Congress gives the tax dollars to?

Around 1994?, Congress started investigating how the NRO intelligence organization had managed to build a huge, expensive headquarters building at Westfields in Fairfax County outside Washington. Cost of building was around $500 MILLION, i believe -- at a time when families of US ARmy enlisted men were being told to apply for food stamps and 40% of Army personnel were being tossed out on the streets due to budget cuts.
No one in Congress acknowledged knowing of the building.

Congressional investigation eventually revealed a
$3 BILLION off the books slush fund being kept by the NRO. Director of the NRO Jeffery Harris and his deputy were relieved of command by DCI Deutsch.

Whereupon Jeffery Harris went to work for a subsidary of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, called Space Imaging. As President, his salary was probably 3-4 times his government salary. A few years later, after memories faded, he moved back into the secret world on Lockheed contracts.

Lockheed and Raytheon are among the 4 largest contractors for the intelligence community. Who Jeffery's slush fund was for is left as an exercise for the reader.

The identity of man whose portrait hangs --or at least used to hang -- in the lobby of NRO HQ in Westfields is also left as an exercise for the reader.

The number of Members of COngress who don't have clearance for access to that building is also left as an exercise.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 4:57 PM

Don Williams - THANKS! You triggered memories. I'd thought of enlisting in high school, thought I should know basic military strategy to make an intelligent choice.

High school students had limited guidance for independent reading in military science. I didn't know where to begin. I read my father's circa 1940 analysis of the Italian campaign. He cited Clauswitz (don't get me started) and from there I stumbled on to Toland, Turenne, etc. Reading Liddell-Hart led me to Griffith's excellent and profoundly informed translation of Sun-Tzu.

The lies about Vietnam became a slowly soluble and increasingly macabre jigsaw. My father had written, "It is barely conceivable that, at some future date, some aspect of the Italians' strategy will be revealed as a masterstroke. However..." He might have written the same of Westmorland then or most of our government today.

Oh - rule of thumb: if B.H.Liddell-Hart writes an introduction that tells you to read the book, READ THAT BOOK.

Posted by Don Williams:
"... combat Marine named Samuel B Griffith who translated "The Art of War" from the Chinese and gave it to Washington circa 1963... too fucking stupid to appreciate his gift..."

And they still are, and they still don't. But, you know that. We still have people from Harry to Cheney who either don't read or cannot comprehend. And they take pride in it.

I was in my second year of high school and still knew enough that it knocked me flat. It cut me as deeply as any drug. Eventually I gave up trying to make people read it and think through it. As we say of the Bush administration, "You can lead the whores to wonder but you can't make 'em think."

Posted by Janus Daniels | August 27, 2007 5:10 PM

"This feeling springs from a conviction that the U.S. military in Vietnam were so hemmed in by restrictions that they could not accomplish their mission. The lesson for those of this persuasion, therefore, is that the military must be given a freer hand in future military operations."

Well, they got their wish in Iraq - and look how that turned out.

They killed an estimated one million Iraqis - nearly five percent of the population.

They spent more money than almost any war in US history.

They expended a billion bullets a year or whatever the figure was.

They dropped more bomb tonnage than WWII.

They have a budget that is what, ten to twenty times everybody else's in the world?

And they still lost.

The US military has NEVER won a war - they've BOUGHT their victories - when they had them - with US taxpayer dollars and US manpower lives.

The US military can't fight its way out of a paper bag without those two elements, solely because its leaders are incompetent buffoons.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 27, 2007 5:44 PM

"who were never in the military or had any analogous experience in the civilian sector is laughable."

Hey, chump! I WAS in the military for three years, and in Vietnam, and I studied the field of insurgency and terrorism for ten years - and you're an idiot who knows zero about strategy and tactics, let alone insurgency or terrorism.

How ya like them apples?

Chump.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 27, 2007 5:50 PM

Like asking two woman's studies majors to examine the dissertation of particle physicist.

"I didn''t find it warm." "It wasn't inclusive enough of those other particle thingies.." "You would think that with all those quotes and calculations of who knows what from dead white men and Asians, he could have found an equal number of muon citations from lesbian women of color."

You can be sure that the likes of Helene Cixous, Julia Kristeva and Camille Paglia would beat your tiny, one-tracked mind into a bloody pulp in any academic setting.

Posted by novakant | August 27, 2007 5:52 PM

Williams - my point is still there. Apparantly you worked on some systems for a military contractor while praising the invincible low-tech approach of the NVA. You still don't know dirt about military and political counterinsurgency. Your experience is analogous to someone saying they have bona fides to discuss military tactics and strategy because they made and sold high tech toilet paper to the military.
And Matt's Berkeley pal knows even less.

The Art of War is a wonderful little book now embraced by gamers, on corporate "suggested reading lists", among a rack of other books that have useful stuff in them....and studies of various methods to win by 4th Gen warfare or defeat counterinsurgencies.

Just don't wave it around and tout yourself as anything of an expert..."But, but..I've played games! I've read the Great Sun Tzu!!"

And Brian Beutler, a physics dropout from Berkeley now doing Lefty groups and journalism criticizing a PhD dissertation from the perspective of how good a story-telling job it does is pathetic.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 27, 2007 5:52 PM

Re "Camille Paglia would beat your tiny, one-tracked mind into a bloody pulp in any academic setting."
---------
Forget the academic setting. Camille could whip Chris's ass in a regular street fight.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 5:55 PM

You still don't know dirt about military and political counterinsurgency. (...)
And Brian Beutler, a physics dropout from Berkeley now doing Lefty groups and journalism criticizing a PhD dissertation from the perspective of how good a story-telling job it does is pathetic.

So Chris, would you kindly provide us with a verifiable list of your military experience, academic credentials and/or peer-reviewed publications so that we can ascertain your expertise in the field. Don't be shy.

Posted by novakant | August 27, 2007 6:10 PM

Re Chris's comment "Apparantly you worked on some systems for a military contractor while praising the invincible low-tech approach of the NVA. You still don't know dirt about military and political counterinsurgency."
---------
1) Actually, I'm beginning to wonder if Chris was in the Army -- or at least, at any level above potatoe peeler.

I noted I worked on Army C3I systems. To computerize a process, you have to understand how an organization works.

2) Fortunately, the Army has a culture of writing down detailed instructions for everything -- the Field Manual. There's probably a Field Manual out there for how one wipes one's behind --including with wipes improvised from vegetation in the field.

3) Most of those Field Manuals are unclassified --although a few have classified annexes -- and used to be readily available to the public. Things have tightened up somewhat since Sept 11 but most of the interesting stuff is available if you try. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Field_Manuals and http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/

4) So Chris's assertion -- that military operations is a mystical subject impossible to grasp by those who have not seen the elephant --is bunk.

5) Plus I suspect there are a few Marines who would grin at a doggie presuming to discuss counterinsurgency. LIC (low intensity conflict) has never been a quick path to general's stars for the Army -- much of its leadership opposed Special Operations from day one.

Understandably so -- things like insurgencies, guerrilla warfare,etc are usually feasible only in the world's shitholes -- mountains, swamps, jungles , deep forests,etc. Those areas are shrinking , they have pathetic economies , and they tend not to have nice officer clubs. The Army is set up to seize land areas that have commercial value -- and hence have been civilized for some time. Are flat -- hence can be trampled over with Armor.

6) Marines, by contrast, are used to getting the shitty jobs. They've been propping up banana republics since ..well, since United Fruit had banana plantations. Over a hundred years at least.

I recall a Marine book from the early part of the 1900s, for example, that talked about how one takes over and runs a country. It noted that before you hold elections , you seize the armories and talked about how to grab all the guns. I guess Rumsfeld forgot to send out that memo in Iraq.

7) It's true that Third World urban ghettos are gaining in importance. In the past, anyone with a brain avoided infantry combat in urban areas if possible but the Marines have been studying it for the past 20 years. Discovered the great value of kneepads for slithering through sewers, for example.

Army's also written a Field Manual on urban fighting (e.g, DON'T go in through the front door -- blow a hole in a side wall and toss in grenades. Or come down through the roof -- grenades roll downstairs,not up. )

8) Military leadership is a highly skilled profession --but so is medicine and politics and I don't treat either my doctor or my COngressman as God's oracle.

After 4 years and $2 TRILLION I certainly think it's time for US citizens to start asking what the fuck's going on -- WHAT is Bush trying to do, WHERE is the Profit in IT, and are the people of this country getting back anything that justifies what they are having to sacrifice.

I think the answer is no. Chris, as we've seen time after time, prefers to duck the questions.
Maybe he would like to drop his slurs on me and address the basic point I brought out from Sun Tzu: That countries do not profit from prolonged wars.

Maybe he could start by comparing the value of the dollar to what it was when Bush entered office. Then do the same with the federal debt.

Posted by Don Williams | August 27, 2007 8:09 PM

History in general, and the American experience in Vietnam in particular, have much to teach us, but both must be used with discretion and neither should be pushed too far. The Vietnam analogy, for all its value as the most recent large-scale use of American force abroad, has limits. Most importantly, the applicability of the lessons drawn from Vietnam, just like the applicability of lessons taken from any other past event, always will depend on the circumstances of the particular situation at hand.

I love this passage, actually. It reminds me of being an undergraduate, with a paper deadline due in a few hours, and just cloaking pure banality in some smartly-formed sentences. Say what you like, Matt, but it is an art form in a way.

Ultimately, though, I wouldn't be too hard on Petreus. Completing a Ph.D dissertation puts him inside- what? Two percent of the population? I don't see how writing this is any worse than most dissertations - in history, anyway - which uncover some unexplored minutia on a topic no one pursued because, frankly, it isn't worth pursuing.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 27, 2007 10:38 PM

As for the availability of Field Manuals, I've got just about the whole damn lot sitting on my hard drive, downloaded from the Usenet alt.ebooks.technical newsgroup.

Well, actually I DID have them on my hard drive, right now I'm low on space so they got backed up on DVD.

But I got just about everything that made any sense for an individual to have - want to know how to fly an Apache helicopter? Want to know the operations of an artillery battalion? I got it. Not to mention most of the fun hardware operating manuals - small arms, mortars, rocket launchers, antitank weapons. Fun stuff.

You gotta love Usenet. Anything you can't steal anywhere else you can steal there - as long as somebody has posted it and the newsgroup retention and completion rates are good at your ISP.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 27, 2007 10:56 PM

Speaking as someone who actually wrote a Ph.D. dissertation, my conclusion section was full of crap. And it still took me a long time to write.

On another note, Sun Tzu lived in a time when war meant destroying your enemy AND whatever innocent population they may live among. So I'm not sure if what he says is relevant to counter-insurgency... except maybe that it is a waste of time.

Plus statements like this

"War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied."

"...Hence what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations."

I'm confused... is this a defense of Petraeus's writing style?

Posted by Dave Hsu | August 29, 2007 7:14 AM

Cowards ...

Posted by Jeff | August 29, 2007 7:48 AM

You see? This is why doctoral dissertations are rarely made into action-packed Hollywood box office blockbusters.

You never see a dissertation titled "Blade Edge 4: Out For Blood," do you?

I mean, can you see Bruce Willis or Wesley Snipes starring in this?

Posted by jblog | August 29, 2007 8:02 AM

At least we have the Petraeus dissertation to discus, unlike the paper by New York's junior Senator.

Posted by Senor Bumblebee | August 29, 2007 8:03 AM

So Hillary's senior thesis-love poem to Saul Alinsky, the one she's tried to have locked away (but which is available through interlibrary loan) is more interesting?

Posted by Wethal | August 29, 2007 8:10 AM

Sure...we want Generals who can write and win, not Generals who can fight and win. Who did you think this was, Sun Tsu?...some poet warrior from the highlands? Julius Ceasar? (his thesis from the commentaries on the Galic War is a must read, but only if you read Latin...the translations are uninspiring).

BTW - exactly how illuminating is the thesis statement from your dissertation? Care to share? If it's really good, we might judge you the best man to lead our armies into war...that is the thesis of this piece, isn't it.

Posted by Gunga | August 29, 2007 8:12 AM

Sad to see the continued demise of a once great magazine now party to a bunch of squabbling political hacks. Oh well, glad I let me subscription lapse 9 months ago.

The author makes a great point- Petraeus shows poor judgment in presenting such materials to an audience of drooling politicians and media. He should have focused on Lindsey Lohan and proper airport bathroom etiquette.

Posted by Pacific Monthly | August 29, 2007 8:17 AM

A lot of thunder and fury but I'm not seeing much lightning.

Don Williams I'm calling you a liar. I don't believe you ever were in the military. And if you were, hell, I don't care. Your words and your person still aren't worth my respect or even much of my attention.

Petraeus' counterinsurgency manual was based on his successful experience in Mosul in 2003-2004, (after his division was rotated out, within two weeks Mosul turned from a calm city to a battlefield because the new American commander was an asshole and an idiot), the US Army's old counterinsurgency manual made up for the subjugation of the Philippines (good thing that Petraeus didn't hang onto the whole massacring the civilian population thing like the Army did then, even if it did beat Aguinaldo and his compatriots), and some of the tactics that were used in the Malayan Emergency.

I love how Don's argument is based entirely on anecdotes and bullshit. I love how most of the people here are just fine with having him and Matt shovel it down their throats. Cry more about how Petraeus didn't use Sun Tzu - what a military genius you are. I wonder if you've even read the Art of War - Sun Tzu warned against long campaigns because of the realities of the time: a king or emperor having his forces drain the nation's stocks of money, food, and materiel for years at a time on the battlefield could leave the king vulnerable to other foreign or to domestic foes. The quote:

"4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man,
however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue."

So, which chieftains are going to attack the USA Don? Please tell us so we can get on the line to G-Dub and he can send a carrier battle group or four their way. Quick, it's your patriotic duty Mr. I-Was-in-the-military-I-don't-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-talking-about.

Posted by Chaos | August 29, 2007 8:26 AM

A great example of how the left is its own worst enemy. The sheer stupidity expressed in this post and the comments is almost awe-inspiring. Wouldn't it make more sense to critique the General from the manual he wrote, as this is far more relevant to what he's doing now? Especially love the Sun Tzu gurus, as if a quick read somehow substitutes for an education in military strategy and actual combat experience.

Posted by Rob,who is smarter than you | August 29, 2007 8:29 AM

Don Williams is the type that imagines he can transform himself into a samurai by simply reading The Book of Five Rings...

Posted by Rob, again | August 29, 2007 8:36 AM

Rob,who is smarter than you

Yep, a bunch of armchair PhDs join the bunch of armchair Generals to criticize the people who actually do the work. Pretty much your standard left wing dilettantes, America's intelligensia at work.

John

Posted by John | August 29, 2007 8:42 AM

> I've read through the entire "conclusions"
> section, plus some other random bits.

If you were a book reviewer, would you read the epilogue and "random bits"? Matthew, read the dissertation and then get back to us.

Posted by Kelly | August 29, 2007 8:46 AM

Compared to Glenn Greenwald, that passage is practically Hemingway-esque.

Posted by MarcusA | August 29, 2007 8:47 AM

Amazing comments on a thread about a boring Phd thesis.

"Around 1994?, Congress started investigating how the NRO intelligence organization had managed to build a huge, expensive headquarters building at Westfields in Fairfax County outside Washington. Cost of building was around $500 MILLION, i believe -- at a time when families of US ARmy enlisted men were being told to apply for food stamps and 40% of Army personnel were being tossed out on the streets due to budget cuts.
No one in Congress acknowledged knowing of the building.

1994, eh? Gee wasn't that when Bill Clinton was leading us out of Darkness and onto the path of righteousness?

"On the other hand, if your objective is to use the US military to occupy foreign lands, enslave foreign people,and protect the foreign "investments" of our wealthy kleptocrats, then that is something else."

So We are now ruled by "wealthy kleptocrats" and the US military "occupy foreign lands, enslave foreign people".

Those are strong words there, pilgrim.

Thanks, Don and Richard for reminding everyone how much you knew about how wrong our country was, and how little you did to change it over the last 40 years while enjoying the benefits of employment and wealth suckling at the teat of that corrupt and ruthless government we taxpayers have so generously and ignorantly funded.

Or are you both just as full of excrement as most Phd dissertations? You can't have it both ways.

I say this as the son of a Vietnam veteran and as a self annointed representative of the generation that inherited what you, by your own admission, knew about but obviously refused to clean up: Gee, thanks.

If you know a country that does a better job for its citizens, please tell us about it before you move there. You obviously have been of no help here.

As for the General, I'll let his current efforts speak to his competence. I'd hate to see my college papers used in any current job evaluations.

Posted by Dark Jethro | August 29, 2007 8:49 AM

I haven't read the dissertation, but I wrote my own (on Bolivian politics) about a year ago. I think some of the comments were fair, but many weren't.

First, it's hard to judge a dissertation from only a few "random bits" since it's designed as a lengthy (perhaps too lengthy) discussion of a single issue. That means that there are many paragraphs/sentences that read in a rather dry, boring style, since they're trying to bridge divergent view points.

Also, they're not written for a "mass" audience, but for a small committee of 3-4 senior academics. Beyond that, maybe a 100 other people (if you're lucky!) in the world will ever actually read it. If a dissertation is later published as a book, it rarely looks at all like the original product.

I also find it silly to criticize him for not citing Sun Tzu. For the record, I read Sun Tzu several times. The first time I was 15. It's readily available at any Barnds & Noble and is not difficult to read. But I also know that Sun Tzu may not be relevant for his dissertation, especially if more current literature exists. Additionally, academics tend not to cite things that are just taken for granted. I wrote my dissertation about the Bolivian state, but I never cited Max Weber. Why? Because I took it for granted that anyone who would ever read my dissertation was so familiar w/ Weber's work on states that it wasn't necessary. Yet despite not citing Weber (and others available at Barnes & Noble) my bibliography ran over 15 solid pages.

Posted by mcentellas | August 29, 2007 8:49 AM

I guess I am just lucky that my nephew served in the Army under General David Petraeus for months. My nephew, who has more service medals than most of the Generals who have commanded him, says that General David Petaeus is brilliant, cares about his men, and is deeply committed to serve the citizens of the United States of America. When we listen to General Petraeus in September, I will know that what he tells me is the truth.

"The opposite of war is not peace but surrender (to militant Islam, in this case). While it pleases the Left to see itself as the embodiment of virtue, the "pro-war" element is working for peace too-but on better terms."
(Author-Unknown, but he was probably a veteran)

And for Don Williams:
Morons cannot fly supersonic fighters.

Posted by tyree | August 29, 2007 8:57 AM

"Morons cannot fly supersonic fighters. "

But it seems they can get purple hearts for band-aids and rice fragments...

Thanks, Thank you, thankyouverymuch, I'll be here all week, be sure to tip your waitresses...

Posted by Dark Jethro | August 29, 2007 9:06 AM

i ran a not-for-profit doctoral dissertation competition for three years...trust me, there's a glut of dissertations that say not very much, not very well and take 300+pages to do it...(yes, even in the 'hard' sciences)

...however, it is all too true that dissertations have to satisfy committees and it is truer still judging someone's competence and intelligence by their dissertation invites misjudgment by everyone but a member of a tenure committee...

...my bet is that the petraeus report due september will contain hypotheses, assumptions and evidence that few people on this comments list will find 'boring'...this general is a very smart guy and, dare i say, a better thinker, communicator and leader than any contributor here...

Posted by michael schrage | August 29, 2007 9:13 AM

I mean , what kind of institution would be stupid enough to name itself after one of the most renowned foreign policy INCOMPETENTS the USA has ever produced -- and that list is long and distinguished.

Gee, Don. I don't know. Maybe you should ask the idiots at Princeton, which, as I'm sure you know, is not a very reputable university. I mean, how good could it be? It's only ranked number 1 in the entire nation...

Using the fact that Petraeus went to Wilson as a political bludgeon is simply stupid, Don. Graduates run the political gamut; from Ralph Nader to Paul Volker; George Schultz to Paul Sarbanes.

As someone else on this thread, getting a PhD in this country puts you in with 2% of the population. Getting one from a school as reputable as Wilson further narrows the percentage.

That Petraeus received his PhD from Princeton and Wilson is a true mark of distinction, and not deserving of fools mockery.

Posted by Chef Mojo | August 29, 2007 9:19 AM

The Patraeus dissertation is worth reading in view of its relevance to Patraeus' current mission. The major theme of the dissertation is that The Weinberger Doctrine is overly restrictive of the US military.

Patraeus was selected by Bush because of his unconventional military approach to Bush's Iraq disaster.

At this point in time it is important to compare the cautions expressed by The Weinberger Doctrine to Petraeus' accomplishments, if any.

It would seem to me that Patraeus' recent admission that his current military approach in Iraq would likely take 9-10 years to achieve its objective is highly relevant to issues addressed by the Weinberger Doctrine and the unconventional views expressed in Patraeus' Dissertation.

Posted by JustMe | August 29, 2007 9:28 AM

If all the Left will have to discredit Patraeus's report to Congress is some whining that his PhD dissertation is boring and doesn't mention the overated and equally boring Sun Tzu, then expect Congress to role over like a puppy dog. The Left's effete attack so far on all the Dems who haven't moved the closure date for the war in Iraq one day is sure to look even more girly when they all crowd into the gallery in pink shirts and shout "Hell No, Don't Believe! His dissertation is hard to read!"

Posted by Diggs | August 29, 2007 9:40 AM

This post by Matt is damn dissappointing.

It's also damned weak. Going after Petraeus' dissertation tells me that the Democrats are desperate to say "Hey, look, the Shiny Pony!" when it comes to Petraeus. They are also quite disappointed that they haven't been able to morph him into William Westmoreland.

Here is a guy who has given us our best shot at coming out of Iraq with a halfway decent result, and the Democrats' response is to try and slime the poor guy.

Butch up, Matt, before you officially begin to suck. It's bad enough that Glenn Reynolds can officially mock you on his blog. Pretty soon, you could turn into Glenn Greenwald.

Posted by section9 | August 29, 2007 9:48 AM

Ah, fresh meat.

A day late and a dollar short -- which is how I suspect most of you showed up for battle and /or inspections -- but welcome.

Posted by Don Williams | August 29, 2007 9:50 AM

RE "It's bad enough that Glenn Reynolds can officially mock you on his blog"
-------
Actually, given Glenn's archive of past posts, I don't think Glenn is in a position to "mock" anyone. Has he found those WMDs in Iraq yet?

It's also kinda embarrassing to admit that your source of military knowledge is a Law Professor who --if my memory is correct -- never served.
A very bellicose Law Professor who safely beats the drums for war from the wilds of Knoxville Tennessee. Who --remarkably enough-- also appears to be be the fount of deep insights into geopolitics and people on the other side of the world.

I wonder where he gets to energy to blog so much. Must be all those Moon Pies and Dr Peppers.

Posted by Don Williams | August 29, 2007 10:02 AM

PS When I said "how I suspect most of you showed up for battle "

-- that was what professional writers call "a blinding display of unbridled sarcasm".

Posted by Don Williams | August 29, 2007 10:05 AM

What you quoted, Matthew, has more inherent value than your idle post.

Posted by Curtis | August 29, 2007 10:51 AM

Matt Yglesias accusing somebody of being boring??

Now, that's funny.

Posted by Ivan Lenin | August 29, 2007 11:38 AM

Don Williams writes:

The people who kicked the ass of a global, nuclear superpower in Vietnam followed the precepts of a Chinese strategist circa 400 BC named Sun Tzu.

The second precept on Don's list of Sun Tzu's unassailable truths of war supposedly practiced by the Vietnamese is:

"Thus, while we have heard of blundering swiftness in war, we have not yet seen a clever operation that was prolonged.. For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefitted... Those adept in waging war do not require a second levy of conscripts nor more than one provisioning .... Hence what is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations."

I don't think Giap succeeded by slavishly adopting your Sun Tzu bullet points.

See, for example, this:

"If any single strategic element predominated in the Vietnamese conception of people's war, it was protraction rather than the use of guerrillas. Ho Chi Minh observed in 1950 that 'in military affairs time is of prime importance,' and he ranked it 'first among the three factors for victory, before the terrain conditions and the people's support.' Writing of 'the imperatives of the people's war in Viet Nam' in 1961, General Giap placed 'the strategy of a long-term war' first on his list, and earlier, during the war against the French, Truong Chinh observed that 'the guiding principle of the strategy of our whole resistance must be to prolong the war.' As the latter told his compatriots, 'only by wearing the enemy down, can we fulfill the strategic tasks of launching the general counter-offensive, annihilating the enemy and winning final victory.' Giap presented a similar view two decades later when he noted that 'protracted resistance is an essential strategy of a people . . . determined to defeat an enemy and aggressor having large and well-armed forces.'"

http://www.wooster.edu/History/jgates/book-ch8.html

Petraeus may be a fool and an ignoramus, but you don't make your case by quoting a few random phrases from Sun Tzu.

Posted by Serenity Now | August 29, 2007 11:43 AM

As one who is in the final throes of writing a dissertation I can tell you it does smack of a horse designed by a committee but you have to write in a very restrained style that does frown on exciting. Actually if you read most academic journals you see the model for it. I often have a hard time staying awake reading much of what is published.

So I would have been surprised if it was exciting. Also your conclusion chapter is usually even more restrained because the problem you are looking at is one extremely small piece of a very large picture/problem

Posted by Rich | August 29, 2007 12:04 PM

Hey guys, perhaps you should try writing a dissertation before you criticize it; or at least read the whole thing. Dissertations are piles of excrement, the whole point is to get it past the thesis committee, which will, at best, skim it over. My committee didn't even read the dissertation. In science, dissertations don't matter, they're archaic. The only thing that matters is publications in peer reviewed journals, the more and higher quality journal, the better. I can't speak towards other PhDs, but I suspect that those dissertations too are elaborations at great length of very minute details. Dissertations are supposed to 1) review the existing literature, and 2) contribute to the base of knowledge either by forming new hypotheses and testing them, or expounding upon the literature with your particular thoughts and ideas. So, no surprise that dissertations are boring.

Posted by Rob | August 29, 2007 12:09 PM

Having read the comments above, I've got a ten-spot that says, 50 years from now, David Petraeus will be reverently mentioned in the same breath as Grant, Sherman, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Marshall, Patton, and Schwarzkopf.

Conversely, in 50 years, I'll bet anyone queried about Matthew Yglesias will respond, "Matthew WHO? Neeeeeeeever heard of him. Oh wait, wasn't he that dumb ass who used to write crap for The Atlantic?"

Anyone care to make a friendly wager I'm right?

Posted by MarkJ | August 29, 2007 12:12 PM

Re Serenity Now "I don't think Giap succeeded by slavishly adopting your Sun Tzu bullet points."
-------
Yet , if you look at the your following quotations from Ho Chi Min and Giap, you see that they did.

Sun Tzu's point was that EXPEDITIONS to --and OCCUPATION of --FOREIGN lands was hugely costly.
Ho Chi Minh and Giap clearly were counting on that--that if they hung on long enough, the cost would bankrupt the USA -- or force it to withdraw.

There are many other ideas in Sun Tzu that obviously played a role in North Vietnam's tactics. The importance of spies. The repeated strikes at the enemy at points he does not expect --forcing him to spend great amounts of resources to defend everywhere. The need to stay hidden from the enemy and highly mobile. etc etc etc.

Ho Chi Minh had studied America --indeed, the American OSS worked with him a lot to resist the Japanese occuptation. His declaration of independence from the French borrows extensively from the Declaration of Independence.

The success of the American Revolution was based on similarly tactics to those given in Sun Tzu. One of the best American commanders --Nathaniel Green -- noted the idea that the way to beat King George was : "We fight, get beaten, get up and fight again". We won when the Dutch bankers financing King George III saw Green's point, saw the King George has no way to gain profits to pay off the huge debt he was incurring, and cut off King George's line of credit.

The British had destroyed the southern branch of the Continental Army at Charleston -- because rich men selfishly wanted to protect their homes and warehouses in an indefensible location.

After that, Green took over and broke the back of Cornwallis's Army using militias and a few units of Continental Army regulars. The Brits won occasional battles but they NEVER could establish a puppet government in the Carolinas because the Patriot terrorists ..er.. I mean the Patriot freedom fighters .. intimidated the Loyalists, ambushed the British, and never gave the British a center at which to punch.

The destruction of the French at Dien Bien Phu --by a sudden assembly of dispersed Viet units -- was a direct copy of the destruction of a major British unit at King's Mountain by a large assembly of militia who assembled out of nowhere.

Posted by Don Williams | August 29, 2007 12:19 PM

Perhaps Matt's hoping Petreus will "sex up" his September report since this one was too boring & acedemic.

Posted by d00d | August 29, 2007 12:23 PM

The Instalanche is amusing, but you guys are apparently under the impression that this is a big anti-Petraeus post. The case against Petraeus has been made elsewhere, like the Evil Sock Puppet's point that Petraeus has consistently lied about progress in Iraq, just as he is currently lying by pretending that things are getting better in Iraq.

Currently, Petraeus in in charge of causing America to be defeated and humiliated by staying in Iraq forever; he knows we can't "win," but he will support Bush's agenda of defeat and unnecessary death to help his career. All that is way worse than a dull dissertation, I think.

Posted by M.A. | August 29, 2007 12:25 PM

Isn't that kind of academese the standard for doctoral candidates? After all, academics do not write for clarity but in a sort of hieroglyphic language meant to be inpenetrable. Petraeus is simply communicating to the academics in the language they understand, just as he is communicating with the Iraqis in the language they understand, and the jihadis in the language they understand.

Posted by Tantor | August 29, 2007 12:34 PM

If Don William had any honesty and knowledge of history he would have to admit that Nixon's policy in Vietnam worked and that only the hatred of Nixon by Democrats in Congress caused them to renege on promises to supply SVN's military and use air support. By failing to live up to this commitment NVN was encouraged to launch a blitzkrieg and defeated a SVN deserted by the US.
I am sure that Don Williams will not admit to the millions that lost their lives, placed into communist concentration camps or turned into refugees by the liberals' lack of decency

Posted by PaulV | August 29, 2007 12:44 PM

Too many people on this board apparently have no experience with academic texts (and dissertations in specific). I have a bit of experience, so let me give you a few pointers.

First, the conclusion section is probably the worst part of an academic text to read. Tradition dictates that every academic text include a conclusion. However, very few people in academia ever read the conclusion section. Instead, most academics first read the abstract and then maybe the introduction (which usually include the conclusions). If they become interested in reading more, then they will then read the main body. Reading the abstract, the introduction, and the main body makes the conclusion rather superfluous. Therefore, an academic writer usually puts a lot of effort into crafting the abstract and introduction and very little into the conclusion.

Second, dissertation committees are made up of intelligent, highly knowledgable, and opinionated professors. A PhD candidate must satisfy ALL members of his committee before they will approve his dissertation. Therefore, a PhD candidate has a strong incentive to make banal, non-offensive observations (especially in the unimportant conclusion section) in order to obtain their approval.

Posted by MnZ | August 29, 2007 12:47 PM

Sun Tzu's point was that EXPEDITIONS to --and OCCUPATION of --FOREIGN lands was hugely costly.

Don, fair point, but wasn't the war far more costly to victorious North Vietnam than to the U.S.? The North Vietnamese adopted a long term strategy because they had no prospect of winning quickly, and they won because they were willing to pay the price.

Posted by Serenity Now | August 29, 2007 1:07 PM

It's also kinda embarrassing to admit that your source of military knowledge is a Law Professor who --if my memory is correct -- never served.
A very bellicose Law Professor who safely beats the drums for war from the wilds of Knoxville Tennessee. Who --remarkably enough-- also appears to be be the fount of deep insights into geopolitics and people on the other side of the world.
I wonder where he gets to energy to blog so much. Must be all those Moon Pies and Dr Peppers.
---------------

Hey Don, you officially suck.

I've read Sun Tzu forward and backwards, including the passages you cited, and I didn't get them from Glenn. Your just pimping for Matt and can't admit that Petraeus may be on to something, so you're attacking the Shiny Pony, his dissertation.

This is dishonest bullshit at its finest, and you're participating in it. I don't know which is worse, you're trying to defend an assault on Petraeus' dissertation from the waybackwhen, something not terribly relevant to what is going on today, or John Edwards' fake hairpiece.

I don't care how many secret projects you've worked on. You're being silly trying to defend Matt's attempt at sumbitchery.

Find a better argument, or start a new one. Given your stated CV, this line of argument isn't worthy of you.

The Banality of Counterinsurgency

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