Readers understand that I am disappointed to see how the President chose to handle this situation, although he was well within his rights and enumerated powers to make the choice he did. One overriding concern I had about replacing the commanding general was the short timeline; delaying the Kandahar offensive because of the command change is a double-edged sword, as there are time pressures on both ends of this assignment for GEN Petraeus. Now that the decision has been made, it is important to address this concern in the best possible remaining ways. In other words, good transitions save lives. Bad transitions cost lives. The main thing is that the knowledge base that any outgoing soldier has built up leaves the country with him. It is absolutely key to make sure that as much of that knowledge as possible is transferred to the new leadership in an orderly, careful fashion. This cuts down on the number of mistakes and errors of ignorance while you are 'feeling your way along,' and that means lives saved -- not just military lives, but often civilian lives as well. We're looking at very unfavorable conditions for a good transition. It's important that those with the ear of the civilian leadership make sure they understand the need to do this right, since they've decided to do it. Problem Sign #1: GEN McChrystal was not invited to return for the strategy session at the White House yesterday. He was there for the 20-minute "Your services are no longer required" talk, but what he ought to have been there for was to ping questions off of while they map their course. I suppose that the President can lock up even a four-star general, and put him in "speak if spoken to" mode, if he's not interested in his opinion. Even if you wanted to be that dismissive, at least you would have had the most knowledgeable man in the world to consult on matters of fact. The decision to keep him out of that meeting was a mistake, and a bad sign for where the administration's head is on this. Doubtless on the military side, they'll be doing the best transition they can under the circumstances, but the civilians need to be involved too. It's the President's call, but he's doing himself, his soldiers, and the people of Afghanistan no favors if he doesn't at least ask for lessons learned from his outgoing commander, and make sure that those lessons are being learned by everyone on his team (beyond, of course, lessons pertaining to Rolling Stone magazine). Problem Sign #2: The CENTCOM transition. I yield to none in my respect for GEN Petraeus, and doubtless he is intimately familiar with the situation because of his role as CDRUSCENTCOM. In spite of his tremendous skills and intelligence, he is going to have quite a job jumping into a different billet and taking up the reins in time for the Kandahar missions. Moving levels, up or down, means shifting perspective and developing your knowledge base in new ways. It also means developing new personal relationships with commanders in the field -- in this case, at a lower level than he has probably dealt with on a day-to-day basis. I have no doubt he'll do it well, but doing it quickly is going to be a challenge even for a man of his unmistakable ability. Of course, he'll also have to appear for Senate confirmation hearings. So how much time is he going to have to RIP with his incoming replacement at CENTCOM? Who will that be, anyway? That decision should have been made at the same time as the decision to pull the CENTCOM commander. This transition is going to be even harder than the other side, because it's going to have to be done without much help at all from the outgoing commander. He's going to be very busy. These are important details. It would be good to know that the civilian leadership understood them, and to see signs they were addressing them with the care they deserve.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/J1XqoqaKFqk/good-transitions-save-lives.html
Posted
Jun 24 2010, 02:12 AM
by
BLACKFIVE