That's their headline this morning. The lead paragraphs:
Since 2001, a dozen commanders have cycled through the top jobs in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. Central Command, which oversees both wars. Three of those commanders -- including the recently dismissed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal -- have been fired or resigned under pressure.
History has judged many others harshly, and only two, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Gen. Ray Odierno, are widely praised as having mastered the complex mixture of skills that running America's wars demands.
For the military, this record of mediocrity raises a vexing question: What is wrong with the system that produces top generals?
And that's pretty much the tenor of it: that somehow the military isn't producing top commanders who can lead us to success in wars such as Iraq and Afganistan - so what's wrong with the system of producing those top commanders, and what can be done about it?
There's no suggestion in the article that maybe the task is simply too hard, that people are always going to be hostile to outsiders, no matter how well-intentioned, trying to run their country, that even under the most favorable of circumstances and with the best of execution, trying to build a democracy in a faraway country with a different language, different religion, different customs than ours just isn't a natural thing to do, and success isn't just unlikely, it's practically a violation of the laws of human nature.
Certainly, some generals have done better in that part of the world than others, but even the good ones have to be lucky to maintain even the appearance of success, cf. Petraeus and the 'surge.'
And certainly it's been time for many years for the military to de-emphasize preparation for the sort of fighting we did in the World Wars and in Korea, because battles between conventional armies have become a rarity.
But the reason we've had so much trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan is that we're there, not because we aren't training, grooming, and selecting our generals properly. The way to success in such wars is by having the smarts to avoid them in the first place, or if absolutely necessary, by having discrete, achievable goals that can be accomplished in a way that allows for a quick but honorable exit.
