30 October 2013
2013
ISBN 978-59184-475-4
452 Pages
Hardcover
$29.95 US
This is as much a book about leadership as it is a
history. General Stanley McChrystal was
as important as General David Patraeus was in America’s War on Terrorism in the
decade from 2001 to 2010. McChrystal was
the one who organized the counterterrorism effort of the U.S. military against
al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. The
death of al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 and the
destruction of his network were the high achievements of McChrystal’s organization
in that decade. These, combined with the
exploitation of the “Anbar Awakening” and the military surge of 2007-8, were
what led to an end of the wave of terrorism and civil war that engulfed Iraq in
the aftermath of the invasion that brought down Saddam Hussein, and enabled the
Coalition to depart Iraq in 2011 with a stable Iraqi government in place.
McChrystal spent most of his military career in the Special
Operations community of the U.S. military.
He qualified as Airborne, Special Forces, and Ranger and spent most of
his development period either in command of units or as the J3 (Operations
Officer) of units. He spent as little
time in the Pentagon as he could get away with.
Eventually, the lack of political instincts which would have been
developed by a long stay in the Pentagon were to cost him at the end of his
career.
The military reader can gain on two fronts by reading this
book. The first is on leadership and the
second on the development of “industrial counterterrorism.”
In taking the reader through his development period,
McChrystal enables the student of leadership to gain valuable insights not only
into what made McChrystal the General, the Commander, and most importantly the leader he became, but also what makes
good military leaders in general in the modern world. Seeing the finished product in Iraq, the
British saw him as a “soldier-monk.”
Supported by his loyal military wife Annie, McChrystal dedicated his
life to the war against al Qaeda. He
spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan, living in spare accommodations immersed in
the war, and enjoyed next to no down time back home during the prolonged crisis
of the war. McChrystal did not do a
“tour”, he fought the war.
McChrystal’s great achievement as a leader was the
development of Task Force 714. There was
no model for such a thing. But in order
to fight the metastasizing cancer of al Qaeda inspired terrorism in Iraq,
McChrystal invented what came to be called “industrial counterterrorism,” and
TF714 was the vehicle by which that method of combatting terrorism was deployed. All the means by which intelligence was
gained and analyzed were fused with the means of fighting in TF714, and
industrial counterterrorism was the product of a feed-back loop of intelligence
and captures run at very high speed.
Based on information provided by intelligence, US and British Special
Operators used to go out on several missions a night, capturing terrorists for
the further exploitation by the intelligence side. Without a leader with the man-management
skills of McChrystal, industrial counterterrorism would never have come about. Industrial counterterrorism was only possible
because of the vast, but disparate, intelligence and special operations
resources of the United States.
McChrystal’s downfall came about when he let a trait that
made him a great leader – trust – be exploited by people he ought to have been
cautious in dealing with.
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