Ricks’ “The Gamble” and Differing Surge Narratives
Thomas Ricks’ recent media tour for his new book “The Gamble” and all the discussion surrounding it spiked my current interest in David Petraeus. It catalogues the progress of the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 and is subtitled “General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008″. One of the first reviews of the book that I read was that of the popular counter-insurgency blog, Abu Muqawama. In it, the blog’s lead author Andrew Exum says:
…there are several competing narratives that explain the surge. Team Odierno, Team Petraeus, and Team First Cav all have their different takes on what happened and who was responsible. There is also a narrative — promulgated in Bob Woodward’s books and elsewhere — that the surge was basically conceived in the White House. The Gamble whole-heartedly embraces the Team O narrative, giving [Raymond T.] Odierno not only credit for conceiving of the surge but also for its execution.
Exum goes on to wonder why, given the amount of credit given to Raymond Odierno, the book’s subtitle instead mentions Petraeus and suggests it might be a marketing decision; the public is more familiar with Petreaus.
Other winners of the Ricks account according to Exum, are The West Point Social Science and History Departments (specifically a group of officers who taught in those departments and filled key military roles during the Surge time period, not the least of which of course, is Petraeus), President Bush, the American Enterprise Intitute and Jack Keane, the U.S. Army, and the “Foreigners” ( The British Emma Sky, Australian Dave Kilcullen and Palestinian Sadi Othman).
The book’s losers were the Army’s general officer corps, who are faulted for not being able to develop any successful Iraq strategy on their own, and in particular Colonel Gian Gentile, who is a leading challenger of the idea that Petraeus’ strategy is a responsible one, and the British Army, whose counter insurgency successes early in the war ultimately disintegrated. Exum also identifies several curious ommisions from Ricks; brigade and battalion commanders who largely executed the surge, the National Security Council, and the new media, specifically sites like Small Wars Journal and platoonleader.org and their effect on the junior officers fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All this makes me anxious to get my hands on a copy of the book.
