Contradictional Wisdom

It’s decision time at the White House.  President Barack Obama is wresting with the big one.  Whether to follow the advice of his top commander, or whether to overrule his advice, and substitute his own judgment.

Whenever I have a tough decision to make, I always try to keep two maxims firmly in mind, to wit:

1. Look before you leap.
2. He who hesitates is lost.

By following those tried and true aphorisms, I never make the wrong decision, even as I must admit some of my right decisions don’t always produce the hoped for results.

Thus is the paradox facing our decider-in-chief.  All the wisdom in the world will not tell him the right course for the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.  It seems for each lesson of history that that suggests a possible route to success, there is an equal and opposite lesson that suggest the same road is destined for failure.

The White House is determined to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam, if can just settle on which version of history is most instructive, and the Wall Street Journal two books on Vietnam have become “must reads.” [Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages — WSJ]

“Lessons in Disaster”, according to the Journal “describes a White House in 1965 being marched into an escalating war by a military viewing the conflict too narrowly to see the perils ahead.” Both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are said to have read it.

The other book, “A Better War” portrays the Nixon administration in 1972, which inherited the war, as bowing to antiwar sentiment, and rejecting the advice of a U.S. military that has finally figured out how to counter the insurgency.

The White House might want to take another looks at the late Robert McNamara’s mea culpa, In Retrospect, which tries to make the pointy that really smart people, with all the best intentions, and for all the right reasons, came make really disastrous decisions.   If they don’t have time for another book, the documentary “Fog of War,” makes all the key points, in McNamara’s own words.  (In the movie, McNamara’s resemblance to Donald Rumsfeld, in both form and substance, is eerie)

Or they might check out John McCain’s book about decisions making “Hard Call,” in which McCain also describes how good decision-making can have bad outcomes.

Here’s the dilemma facing the president:  It’s possible whatever choice he makes will fail, whether its sending a lot more troops, or just few more troops, or no troops.   War has too many variables, to many imponderables.  Success depends on adapting to reality, no matter how much you have refined the doctrine.

Which reminds me of two other axioms I learned from my days wandering the corridors of the Pentagon.  “Flexibility is the key to success”, and it’s all-important corollary, “Indecision is the key to flexibility.”

Not to mention the famous Clemenceau adage, “War is too important to be left to the generals”

Tags: Afghansitan, Obama, War, Wisdom