Earlier this year, Foreign Affairs magazine ran an interview with Stanley McChrystal, in which they wrote, "as head of the US Joint Special Operations Command... McChrystal oversaw the development of a precision-killing machine unprecedented in the history of modern warfare, one whose scope and genius will be fully appreciated only in later decades..." When McChrystal took over operations in Iraq in 2004, commando teams were conducting fewer than 20 raids per month – within two years, McChrystal increased that number to 300 raids per month. His style of leadership gives the credit for success to his subordinates: "[I]f I take any credit, it is for loosening the reins and yelling ‘Giddy-up!' a lot." Leadership is the focus of McChrystal's memoir. McChrystal reflects on his career, starting with his education at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York. He was not a top student, in academic or physical performance. The young McChrystal, the son of a general who served in Vietnam, was frequently disciplined for reckless drinking and poor conduct. In his free time he read military history. At West Point, he lamented hearing tedious lectures on ‘spit-and-polish' procedures, while complaining about his instructors' criticism of shirt collars without stays properly inserted, and disorganised underwear drawers. He had expected rigorous training on weapons management and battlefield tactics – not methods for maintaining a proper dress uniform. Decades later, as McChrystal begins to accumulate generals' stars on his shoulder, he looks back with humour on the importance of dull routines. He knows his commando squads very well: Rangers, Special Forces and Navy SEALS. He observes their affected attitude on base, while, between missions, he describes them as being unshaven, unkempt and stumbling around while wearing rock ‘n roll t-shirts, intended to mask their spit-and-polish mentality. McChrystal writes, "I bet if I inspected their underwear drawers, I would find the contents ironed, folded and arranged to maximise efficiency." Routines and discipline make things work. Improving leadership is McChrystal's obsession. He understands the instructive lessons that come with fragmentation and a lack of consistency in command. He has a personal preference for direct interaction – and not communicating through staff. By nature, McChrystal tended to trust the people he worked with. He operated openly, and transparently with colleagues and subordinates – he gave them the freedom to operate with their own intellect and judgment. As a young officer, McChrystal was secretly asked by his commanding officer to openly contradict that officer in a senior staff meeting. McChrystal saw the effect that act of candour had had on other officers, engendering an attitude of offering suggestions, giving constructive criticism and speaking frankly as a way of improving operations. He studies and analyses every single leader he encounters on his trajectory. "[T]he most aggressive brigade commanders may get good results at their level, but often lack the intangible qualities necessary for senior leadership," he comments. McChrystal does not explain these intangible qualities, rather, he allows us to infer them – is contemplative inference the quality necessary for senior leadership? When McChrystal narrates his role in the Second Battle of Fallujah in the Iraq War, this memoir reads like a thriller. The exciting events and setbacks in the US Army's mission to kill the Jordanian al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Ahmed Abu Zarqawi, keep the reader turning pages. McChrystal saw the Jordanian insurgent as an opportunist, who used the American occupation in Iraq as a backdrop to wage genocide on Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim population by targeted suicide bombings, ceremonial beheadings and death squads. Al-Qaeda's leadership, bin Laden and Zawahiri, had no control over their enfant terrible. McChrystal paints a portrait of the suicide bomber based on information gleaned from hard drives seized in commando raids, detainee interrogations, and his NSA and CIA liaisons – the suicide bomber is a foreign fighter recruited from other nations, who feels a religious or moral obligation to kill and hurt Americans occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. The foreign fighter comes from the nihilistic fringes of society. They are the disaffected, the rejects, the drug-addled fools. Men with decent jobs, happy families and proud homes do not join insurgencies in countries they have never been to, and with the intention of blowing themselves up in a crowded vegetable souq to defend God's honour. Interestingly, during the Soviet Afghanistan campaign in the 1980s, the Afghan mujahedeen never employed a single suicide attack against their enemies. Another disturbing aspect of foreign fighters is that they hold no stake in building a future for the nations in which they are operating – electrical grids, waterways and general infrastructure are not things they or their families will ever need, when the wars finally end. And every war eventually ends. As McChrystal's memoir shifts location from Iraq to Afghanistan, where he takes over control of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the timbre of his memoir shifts from confident action narrative to one detailing the minutiae of operations and administration. Although McChrystal has added a fourth star to his shoulder, the reader knows the author is nearing the end of his tenure as a commanding officer. It is apparent in his tone. He describes his fall in one page. A reporter from Rolling Stone magazine, like many other writers, was embedded with US troops and given access to operations as a means of providing transparency to the US public. The result was an unflattering article that portrayed McChrystal as mocking the Obama administration's decisions and policies. When asked to explain himself, McChrystal promptly resigned. The following day, the White House issued an executive order allowing him to retire as a four star general, even though he had not held the position long enough to qualify for the four star pension. We are left begging the question: What did the magazine writer accomplish by felling a general who "oversaw the development of a precision-killing machine unprecedented in the history of modern warfare, one whose scope and genius will be fully appreciated only in later decades"? McChrystal doesn't explain. In his epilogue, McChrystal reflects on his views of leadership: "[S]witch just two people – the battalion commander and the command sergeant major – from the best battalion with those of the worst, and within ninety days the relative effectiveness of the battalions will have switched as well." McChrystal is gone, and Kabul is now seeing regular suicide attacks, which is something new. And the ISAF forces are not scheduled to withdraw for another year. My Share of the Task: A Memoir General Stanley McChrystal, US Army, Retired 2013, 397 pp, Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN: 978 1 59184 475 4. $29.95. Pete Willows is a contributing writer to The Egyptian Gazette and its weekly edition, the Egyptian Mail. He lives and works in Cairo, and can be reached at: [email protected]
