Iraq: Active-duty officer takes on the generals (Armed Forces Journal)

A private who loses a rifle suffers far greater consequences than a general who loses a war. -- Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, U.S.Army.

This essay by Army lieutenant colonel and Iraq veteran Paul Yingling recently published in Armed Forces Journal is a sizzling indictment of the cadre of military yes-men Bush has chosen to run his war. There is dissent, and there is informed dissent. We have a well-trained military, as this essay shows, but the White House, always with the compliance of most members of Congress, Republican or Democrat, has shown little inclination to listen to their advice.

A failure in generalship by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling

You officers amuse yourselves with God knows what buffooneries and never dream in the least of serious service. This is a source of stupidity which would become most dangerous in case of a serious conflict. -- Frederick the Great

For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war.

These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress.

Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a military activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.

The rest of the story: Armed Forces Journal