Little America

Alright so this a new year and I’m going to try to become much more accountable towards my daily writing endeavors.

I just finished Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Little America. I’ve previously read his Life in the Emerald City about his reporting in Iraq. There are few reporters in my opinion that can do what he can and the importance of both of these two books will stand the test of time to later be used by historians in the ensuing years.

Important things and takeaways from the book

This is probably one of the best measured takes of Petraeus and COIN in Afghanistan. It cannot be overstated how highly Petraeus was viewed at this time throughout Washington in both DoD and Congress. Petraeus could literally do no wrong and couldn’t fail.

Also its kind of ridiculous how important Holbrooke was at this time. There’s also a recent book Our Man by someone who had access to all of his personal papers that’s also on my to-read list. What’s sad is how oft-putting Holbrooke was even though many of his ideas and plans were sound. Eliminate bureaucracy and have an A-list team of every different agency in one specific group. Obama was thrust with Holbrooke from Clinton and they did not get along. One of the important lessons from all of these top planners is the ego factor and how it inhibits many policy decisions in its implementation. Too many people were worried about how this reflects on their own accomplishments instead of worrying about actually improving things in Afghanistan. Also reveals a critical shortcoming of USAID and DOS. What came about from all of the overspending and lack of accountability in Afghanistan was SIGAR. A pet project that has political will to document the pitfalls of actual shortcomings of the US in Afghanistan.

Another great example of bureaucracy getting the way was with Summer Coish in Chapter 9. Probably one of the best people to understand local economy issues and published her own magazine Steppe. She couldn’t get onboarded until much later and wasn’t able to leave the embassy over security concerns.

Most interesting guy in the book is Carter Malkasian. Need more people like him.

Malkasian was not like most of the others selected by State and USAID. He asked to work in the field, not stay in Kabul. He lived in a trailer on a dusty forward operating base, and his meals consisted of whatever fare was being served to the grunts, if he wasn’t eating goat with Afghans. What really set him apart was his desire to live in a remote district for two consecutive years—very few State personnel did that—and his tendency to flout the regional security officer’s rules. He regularly ventured around the district with the police chief, putting his security in the hands of rifle-toting Afghans—a potential firing offense if his bosses in Kabul ever discovered it. “The only way the Afghans will trust you is if you show that you trust them,” he told me.