‘Wrong’ analyzes missteps in Afghanistan - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

‘Wrong’ analyzes missteps in Afghanistan

Bing West is a Marine veteran of Vietnam, a Reagan-era assistant secretary of defense, the author of such books as “No True Glory,” a contributor to the National Review Online and a writer accustomed to embedding in a combat zone.

He offers provocative ideas, his prognosis is based on embeds with foot patrols, and a more accurate title for his latest book is “The Wrong Way to Fight a Misunderstood War That Only the Afghans Can Win.”

West says “oblivious” generals “agreed an insurgency required our soldiers to be nation builders as well as war fighters.” But the former role is the State Department’s, he says: “Our troops are not a Peace Corps.”

West extends little courtesy to “new” counterinsurgency practice:

• The 2006 COIN manual directed by Army Gen. David Petraeus is generic and does “not address the dynamics of Afghanistan.”

• Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen is a “master of incomprehensible syntax,” and “if the highest-ranking officer in the military cannot explain the mission, he cannot expect a corporal to carry it out.”

• Defense Secretary Robert Gates took “three years, two administrations and three commanding generals” to conclude [in 2009] that “the U.S. has gotten its head into this conflict only in the last year.”

Has anything worked in Afghanistan? Yes, the troops. However, small-unit leaders are thwarted because they must look out “first and foremost for their men,” leaving “the enemy intact.”

West spends time with smart and brave men such as Army Lt. Jake Kerr and unrelenting Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer. They and others provide the grit. There is grime, too. A captain says the Restrepo platoon “went 45 days without a shower.”

What’s grime got to do with it? West cites Lord Morgan, 1945: “Men wear out in war like clothes.”

Plans also wear out where the “terrain, language, religion and 2,000 years of tribal traditions favored the local Islamists,” and where “you cannot win a war when a determined enemy has a sanctuary next door [in Pakistan].” Besides advisers who “can invigorate the Afghan security forces,” West says that “neutralizing the enemy, not protecting the population, must be the main mission.”

He backs up his missive with maps, text references to photographs, and appendices. Nine pages of acknowledgments to everyone from “Sgt. Adam” to “Zebiw” symbolize how West’s book tries to cover the gamut from A to Z.

Huffman is a Military Times book reviewer.