SCOTT SIMON, host:
Afghanistans had an increase in violence recently, while in Iraq the overall rate of violence is down, though car bombings continue. And today rocket fire hit the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.
The U.S. has 156,000 troops in Iraq. Secretary Gates has agreed to a strategic pause in the drawdown of troops there, once they reached 130,000 - the size of the force before the surge.
Colonel H.R. McMaster served both as a U.S. Army commander in Iraq and on headquarters staff there. He's also a scholar at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. His article in their latest journal is titled "On War: Lessons to be Learned." He joins us by phone from London.
Thanks for being with us.
Colonel H.R. MCMASTER (U.S. Army; Scholar, International Institute for Strategic Studies, London): Well, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
SIMON: You begin by saying that a lot of U.S. military planners just got dazzled by technology when they planned campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. How so?
Col. MCMASTER: Well, what happened in the 1990s was sort of a fixation on technology and what technology could do to enhance military capabilities. And the fixation on technology neglected some of the political, cultural, human dimensions of conflict and neglected, in part, the interaction with an enemy who would take countermeasures to place their capabilities outside the reach of America's technological advantages.
SIMON: Can I get you to talk case specifically. For example, you mentioned Operation Anaconda.
Col. MCMASTER: This battle was in Afghanistan early in the campaign, and it was aimed at trapping and then defeating elements of al-Qaida who had fled after the battle of Tora Bora into a very mountainous portion of Afghanistan. In this case, we definitely focused our surveillance efforts on a very small piece of terrain for an extended period of time. And despite that very heavy surveillance effort, about 50 percent or more of the enemy positions escaped detection.
SIMON: And what happened? Things like laser-guided munitions could only go so far and be so effective in that kind of terrain?
Col. MCMASTER: Well, that's right. Because a lot of what we needed to know about the enemy was unavailable, because of the human dimension of conflict; things that you don't know until you actually engage the enemy in close combat, like how high their morale was, how they would resist, and real fighting capability.
SIMON: Colonel McMaster, what lessons do you draw from Afghanistan and Iraq?
Mr. MCMASTER: Well, I think one of the principle lessons is as the natures of the conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq evolved from more conventional campaigns to defeat armed forces or to occupy capital cities or to pose regimes, they shifted to a very much of a population-focused fight and a counterinsurgency campaign. They placed a premium on protecting the population.
And that kind of campaign is very manpower intensive. And so, it required a whole different kind of capability that we might have anticipated from the outset.
SIMON: You warn against what you see as an error of kind of overestimating the contribution that, if you please, indigenous forces can make. Current U.S. strategy in Iraq, of course, is in part based on alliances with tribal militias. Do you see that as being risky?
Col. MCMASTER: Well, it's something you want to do to the maximum extent that you can. But where indigenous forces either don't exist, as they did not in Iraq after the collapse of the Hussein regime, or in areas where indigenous forces may not be reliable, we have to have the capability of relying on our own forces until we have time to build indigenous forces that have the strength to deal with the security challenges that they face within that particular country.
SIMON: Has gaining the cooperation of Muqtada al-Sadr been a good thing or something that could sour very quickly in the future if he decides to use it for his own purposes?
Col. MCMASTER: It's a very good thing. I mean, what we endeavored to do over the past year is to help move the various communities in Iraq to stop this very destructive cycle of sectarian violence.
SIMON: H.R. McMaster, active duty colonel in the U.S. Army, who's been to Iraq and a senior research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Thanks very much for being with us.
Mr. MCMASTER: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
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