The Foreign Service Journal, March 2019

80 MARCH 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL nessing firsthand its very real shortfalls, limitations and lethal consequences. (When I wrote this review, Lt. Col. Waltz had just been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Florida’s 6th District, a further extension of the warrior-diplomat role.) From his unique perspective Waltz explains how U.S. political and military leaders have failed to achieve victory in Afghanistan, citing “five key mistakes” : (1) a lack of devoted resources (derived from inadequate NATO contributions and the diversion of U.S. attention to Opera- tion Iraqi Freedom); (2) an ill-defined overall war strategy; (3) inordinate risk aversion on the part of U.S. military com- manders; (4) inability to adequately deal with Pakistan’s support of the Taliban insurgency; and (5) the political blunder of President Barack Obama’s advance announcement of the planned 2014 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He draws on personal experiences on the battlefield and as a “fly on the wall” at many executive-level meetings inWash- ington, D.C., to explain the significance of these mistakes. His vignettes depict the frustration and confusion personnel on the ground in Afghanistan express with U.S. strategy and the appointedmilitary leadership. Most importantly, Waltz shows how the policies, or lack thereof, affect one of the most elite andmost deeply invested units of our ground force military. Part of Waltz’s proposed solution for Afghanistan involves greater direct involvement fromU.S. civilians who are part of the interagency apparatus, namely the State Department and USAID. Predominant excuses for civilian agency shortfalls in Afghanistan include the diversion of employees to Operation Iraqi Freedom, a diplomat’s inability to work in the harsh combat environ- ment of Afghanistan and DoD’s mis- sion creep into the civil sector. The charge of DoD mission creep into statecraft, popularly referred to as the “Walmartization” of the mili- tary, has some validity. DoD benefits from the most funding, manpower and operational reach of any federal agency, thus enabling potential nation-building efforts (though history has shown that full mission accomplishment is rarely achieved). Compared to Defense, the State Department and USAID command a tiny fraction of funding and personnel. Indeed, many of the experiences Waltz recounts in this book point to how under-resourced andmismanaged these interagency opera- tions are. DoD is, thus, a natural “crutch” organization to lean on in the work of sta- bilizing and building democratic nations following open conflict. If the military sat back and did not fill these gaps in Afghani- stan, which agencies would? Today, especially within the U.S. Special Operations community, soldiers are trained to be comfortable maneuver- ing through a firefight one day and then putting on a suit and speaking intelligently about their mission tomembers of the country team the next day. Special opera- tors and conventional military personnel alike are thrust into cultural training and complex conflict negotiation exercises. They are taught tomanage development projects during their training. Guest speakers from the State Depart- ment often receive invitations to visit mili- tary installations, and trips are organized The American saga in Afghanistan needs to be told and studied to avoid future mistakes there or in other conflicts. for uniformed person- nel to visit Washington to learn the correct diction, syntax and mannerisms to use when interacting with government civilians. DoD even endorses its military leaders earn- ing post-graduate degrees from top-ranked civilian universities known for their ability to cre- ate statesman and diplomats. This gives military leaders the ability to network with civilian leaders, enhances their under- standing of the systems and processes of the interagency environment, and strengthens their civil-military IQ levels. By contrast, what bridging attempts, solutions or training programs has the State Department spearheaded tomake Foreign Service officers more prepared to work with the military, let alone in hostile zones? DoD embraces the ideal of “warrior-diplomats” within its ranks to accomplish the mission. But to bring some sort of reasonable conclusion to this almost two-decade-long ordeal, the U.S. needs more “diplomat-warriors.” The American saga in Afghanistan needs to be told and studied to avoid future mistakes there or in other con- flicts. Waltz’s Warrior Diplomat should be included on library bookshelves and commander mandatory reading lists, next to legacy works like The Bear Went Over the Mountain (1996), for both junior officers and aspiring diplomats to read before they are asked to serve in low-intensity conflict zones like Afghanistan. n Major James Maicke is a U.S. Army Special Forces officer. He received his commission fromThe Citadel in 2008 and is currently a de- fense analysis student at the Naval Postgradu- ate School inMonterey, California.