Strategic War At Tactical Level

One of my birthday gifts from my extremely literary daughter was a great book, The Good Soldiers by David Finkel, which I finished reading yesterday.  It was a great, if heart rending read as the author was embedded with an infantry battalion sent into Iraq as part of the surge that ultimately decided the war.

It was a fascinating look at modern war at the absolute lowest level and gave voice to the privates and sergeants who fought it.  I could tell from hanging around the infantry for the better part of a quarter century that the quotes were authentic.  The author, because he’s journalist, can’t resist to pass value judgments on strategic decisions despite the viewing the war from the lowest tactical level and that’s why this book while important is also misleading.

This battalion was sent to the sharpest point of the spear of the surge, charged with securing portions of Sadr City in East Baghdad where they faced daily IEDs and a totally dysfunctional civil government.  The Americans initial earnestness and optimism falls victim over time to the morass they’ve been thrust into and devolves into a battle of attrition/survival.

The reader cannot help but empathize at the sacrifice and cost the year long deployment for the Soldiers involved.  This book is important because it starkly lays out those costs at the human level of war.  It’s easy to look at the strategic level where the surge was an overwhelming success and forget the price being paid at the tactical level for it.  Finkel pointedly adds quotes from Bush and General Petreaus to point out their view of the war while the Soldiers he was embedded with saw only the dirty end of the stick.

That is why this book is misleading.  Finkel obviously wants to claim Bush and Petreaus were lying to the American people when they made their pronouncements.  From his and the Soldiers’ view he was embedded with its easy to make that jump in logic claim however it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

War is fought at the tactical level but it is won at the strategic level.  Bush and Petreaus looking from the strategic level saw a war winning strategy unfolding.  Even the Sadr militia exploded into action near the end of the deployment was a facet of this as they came out to killed in windrows.  You can be getting your ass handed to you at the small unit level while the battle overall is being won.  It’s just hard to appreciate when you’re the one getting your ass kicked.

I completely understand Finkel’s inability to see this because he came to love the Soldiers he was with and was marked by their sacrifices.  Just being around American Soldiers for an extended time inevitably draws this kind of inspiration.  This book is testament to that sacrifice but more importantly should be read by everyone, most especially our political leaders who increasingly have never served.  This is the bloody face of war and the price of those all too often bellicose political stances.  They should understand the price at this level before deciding to send in these magnificent young men.