Knife Fights Page 24

  “Wow.” There was a long pause. “I wouldn’t have thought of you for this, but I have a highly ranked boys’ school on Philadelphia’s Main Line looking for a headmaster. That would be plenty of culture for your wife and a great school for your son. How would you feel about being a headmaster?”

  I hadn’t thought seriously about a boys’ school since I had graduated from one twenty-eight years earlier, but I clicked on the Web site of this one and liked what I saw. We took another family trip. Wandering around unannounced on a weekend when the campus was empty, I tried to imagine myself at the Haverford School.

  The first thing I saw was the main building—Wilson Hall, a freshly restored old stone structure, linked to a very modern glass and steel building. Peeking through the front doors, I saw Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” quotation hanging in the front foyer, etched in glass:

  It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

  Pretty cool stuff. I walked farther around the thirty-acre campus, admiring the central quadrangle shaded by old oak trees. Over the gym was inscribed the words “A Sound Mind in a Sound Body”—in Latin. Respect for the past and a mission of inspiring muscular responsibility for oneself and for the world were values to which I could subscribe.

  The last thing I found was a covered brick walkway inscribed with virtues—“Respect,” “Courage,” “Honesty,”—twenty-four in all. I later learned that on the first day of school every year, seniors walk hand in hand with kindergarten boys down the Walk of Virtues to opening-day ceremonies. Many parents have a fading photo of their son as a small boy, holding hands with a young man twelve years his senior, framed alongside a photo of their now-grown son holding the hand of another boy. That boy will in his turn grow to young manhood and lead a young boy along a path inscribed with manly virtues. This was a place I could see myself, helping boys grow into men. And I wanted Jack to be one of those boys, and to have a larger role myself in helping him grow than I had been able to have until that point in his life.

  After returning to Washington with Jack and Susi, I soon took the train back to Philadelphia to meet with the selection committee—an impressive group of men and women who were spending a beautiful summer weekday cooped up in a conference room looking for the ninth headmaster of a school they loved. I first met with a panel of faculty that included a curmudgeonly art department chair and an intense football coach, then with the committee itself. Asked the best interview question there is—“Tell us why you’re here”—I responded with a long answer. The interviewer summarized my response: “John, what I just heard you say is that you want your son to attend the Haverford School, and to make that happen, you’re willing to become the headmaster. Is that correct?”

  Assured that it was, he nodded sagely. I later learned that faculty children at the school are called “hostages”; the panel knew that if I took the job, they had me until Jack graduated, seven years thence. There were more questions, and a rollicking discussion about the characteristics of a solid liberal education and the values America needs in her young men, and then sooner than I wanted it to end, the interview was over.

  I had been given the slot just before noon—a good sign, Susi had pointed out, because if they liked me, they could invite me to lunch. I thought that the interview had gone well, but there were no indications that a lunch invitation was forthcoming, so I packed up and departed. I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong and had already pushed the down button on the elevator when the board chair stuck his head into the hall and asked if I was free for lunch.

  I was. After a delightful session with two of the selection committee members over a Philly cheesesteak, I headed back to D.C. The board sent Susi a dozen roses that night. After several more sessions in Philadelphia and Washington that included both Washington Nationals and Phillies games, foreshadowing some problems with competing loyalties I would soon face in the National League’s East Division, I was appointed the ninth headmaster of the Haverford School on August 28, 2012, with the appointment effective July 1 of the following year.

  Incoming headmasters usually make themselves scarce on campus between the date of their appointment and the day they begin work, but I was friendly with my predecessor, retired Army Colonel Joe Cox, who had been teaching in the English department at West Point when I was teaching Sosh. Because of Joe’s hospitality, I was able to visit the campus several times over the course of the year that followed, often staying with him and his wife Kathy in the lovely old house adjoining the campus that came with the job. Joe pointed out that the good news was that I had a two-minute commute to work, and that the bad news was that I had a two-minute commute to work.

  Mark Nagl, Susi, Jack, and my mom, Judy, after the ceremony installing me as the ninth headmaster ofThe Haverford School, September 24, 2013.

  After completing my too-short tenure at Annapolis, which was marked by Navy’s best year in scholarship competition in recent memory—the school had two of its students selected as Marshall scholars and two as Rhodes, and I knew three of the winners well—Jack, Susi, and I packed up our house in Washington and headed to Philadelphia. We had been in our house on George Washington’s River Farm for exactly five years, the longest residence in one place during our twenty years of marriage. Susi had in her car Jack, Maggie the black lab, and Sparky the Jack Russell terrier; I got stuck with Bunbun the rabbit, who did not mix well with Sparky.

  Susi decorated the house and moved us in, Jack settled in to sixth grade at the Haverford School with the degree of discomfort I should have expected from an adolescent who was now responding to “I love you, Jack,” with a monosyllabic grunt, and I threw myself into the role of headmaster. I spent my time talking with students, planning a course on American foreign policy in the Middle East that I would team-teach in the second semester of the year with a Naval Academy graduate and Marine veteran of Al Anbar, and managing an enterprise with some two hundred faculty and staff, one thousand students, and thousands more parents and alums. It was challenging, rewarding, and exhausting—so full that I barely remembered an important anniversary during my first month of school.

  It had been ten years before that Task Force 1-34 Armor arrived in Khalidiyah, Iraq. The date was marked for me by the arrival of a small package in my headmaster’s office. Inside was an aluminum bracelet, inscribed with the names of soldiers from the task force who had died in that fight. I wear it now, in remembrance of their valor and sacrifice in a war that did not need to be fought, but that they fought well, good soldiers that they were.

  Now, as I walk the halls of my school, I see their faces among the older boys laughing and jostling each other while complaining about chemistry exams. In the faces of the young boys playing tag or catch in the quad, I see the children they never had or left behind to face life without a father. And I hope to teach these boys that war is messy and slow and uncertain and horrible, unbelievably horrible, and I pray that they will learn of it only in books.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s been almost twenty years since I started writing my first book, and there’s a reason I waited so long to do it again. The process is painful but deeply worthwhile; I often think that you don’t actually know how you feel about something until you’ve written it down. Writing this book both exorcised some demons and forced me to confront my few successes and many failings of the past two
decades.

  Scott Moyers was after me to write this book for years when he was an agent; I was fortunate that he had become an editor at Penguin when I finally took him up on the offer. Scott understood the book better than I did and earlier than I did. The title is his work, and the whole book is far better for all his efforts. Ann Godoff, the president of Penguin Press, has assembled a world-class team. Thanks to everyone at Penguin, including Akif Saifi and Janet Biehl, the copy editor, for cleaning up my messes.

  Scott’s previous employer was superagent Andrew Wylie. It was Mark Mazetti, author of the excellent (and similarly titled) Way of the Knife who introduced me to Andrew, a relationship that I hope bears fruit again when I write my next book in another twenty years.

  I have been fortunate to have been mentored by four men with doctorates in international relations and combat experience of one sort or another: Dan Kaufman, Bob O’Neill, Dave Petraeus, and Jim Miller. Thanks to each for their contributions to world security and for their patience with a slow but committed student.

  I have also been privileged to teach at three universities and a prep school: West Point, Georgetown, Annapolis, and The Haverford School. Thanks to the faculty and especially the students at each institution of learning. Your questions made me think, and your dedication will keep America strong and safe.

  The security studies community of which I have been a part for the past twenty-five or so years is full of people fascinated by the question of how force is employed to accomplish national interests. Many of its members are also practitioners, dedicated to learning from the past and making fewer and more original mistakes in the future. Although too many have helped me along the way to list all of them here, I would be remiss in not mentioning retired Army Colonel John Collins, Alexandria neighbor and mentor, who started his service in World War II and continues today to contribute to world security through his guidance of the WARLORD Loop that he created.

  The two most important women in my life are my mother and my wife. Both are long suffering and have an obvious sense of humor. Mom never made it through my first book; I’m hopeful that she’ll read this one. (It has fewer footnotes.) Susi has given me many gifts, the most important and best being the chance to be a father to Jack.

  As a result of the mistakes described in this book, many men will never get the chance to be fathers themselves, and many children will grow up without knowing their parents. This book is dedicated to those who volunteer to go in harm’s way, trusting in the wisdom of their elected and appointed leaders to make good decisions about the use of force in protecting the interests of America and her friends. My most sincere hope is that it leads to hard thinking before the next time the United States goes to war, helping ensure that American armed forces are ready to fight any kind of enemy, using any strategy. Being prepared for war while remaining conscious of its unbearable costs is the best way to increase the chances for peace.

  Notes

  Chapter 2: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

  1. J. F. C. Fuller, The Generalship of Alexander the Great, p. 117, quoted in Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History (New York: William Morrow, 1994), p. 4.

  2. Richard Clutterbuck, The Long, Long War (London: Cassell, 1966), pp. 51–52.

  3. William Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York: DaCapo, 1989), p. 164.

  4. The Pentagon Papers, Senator Gravel Edition. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), p. 2:501.

  5. The Pentagon Papers, p. 2:576.

  6. Jack Keane, “Rumsfeld Defends Himself as Criticism from Retired Generals Mounts,” Jim Lehrer NewsHour, April 18, 2006.

  Chapter 3: Back to Iraq

  1. Conrad Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, February 1, 2003).

  2. Peter Maass, “Professor Nagl’s War,” New York Times Magazine, January 11, 2004.

  Chapter 5: Clear, Hold, and Build

  1. David Cloud and Greg Jaffe, The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army (New York: Crown, 2009), p. 192. See also Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006–2008 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008).

  2. John Nagl and Paul Yingling, “New Rules for New Enemies,” Armed Forces Journal (October 2006).

  Chapter 6: Proof of Concept

  1. Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey A. Friedman, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?” International Security 37, no. 1 (Summer 2012), p. 39.

  2. John A. Nagl, “Back in Baghdad: This Time, Things Are Looking Up,” Washington Post, September 14, 2008.

  Chapter 8: Counterinsurgency Revisited

  1. Robert Gates, speech at National Defense University, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2008.

  2. Robert Gates, remarks to the Association of the U.S. Army, Washington, D.C., October 10, 2007.

  Further Reading

  There are many great books on each of the subjects listed below. These are a few that have had the biggest impact on my thinking.

  Strategy

  Carl von Clausewitz, On War

  Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire

  Peter Paret, Makers of Modern Strategy

  U.S. Civil War

  Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering

  Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant

  James McPherson, Tried by War

  First World War

  Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory

  Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That

  T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom

  Hew Strachan, The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War

  Second World War

  Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn

  Charles Macdonald, Company Commander

  Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, Military Innovation in the Interwar Period

  Anton Myrer, The Last Convertible

  Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

  Korean War

  T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War

  David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter

  Vietnam

  David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest

  Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam

  Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn

  H. R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty

  Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie

  Lewis Sorley, A Better War

  Harry Summers, On Strategy

  Afghanistan

  Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue

  George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War

  Seth Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires

  Carter Malkasian, War Comes to Garmser

  Al Qaeda/The Long War

  Peter Baker, Days of Fire

  Peter Bergen, The Longest War

  Steve Coll, Ghost Wars

  Mark Mazetti, The Way of the Knife

  Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task

  Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike

  Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower

  Iraq

  James Fallows, Blind into Baghdad

  Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away

  David Finkel, The Good Soldiers

  Greg Jaffe and David Cloud, The Fourth Star

  Peter Mansoor, Surge

  George Packer, The Assassins’ Gate

  Tom Ricks, Fiasco

  Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

  Douglas Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era

  Alain Cohen, Galula

  David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare

  Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents

  David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla

  G. L. Lamborn, Arms of Little Value

  Mao, On Guerrilla Warfare

  Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare

  David Ucko, The N
ew Counterinsurgency Era

  Future of War

  John M. Collins, Military Strategy

  Audrey Cronin, How Terrorism Ends

  Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy

  David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains

  Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature

  Thomas Rid, War 2.0

  Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up

  Peter Singer, Wired for War

  Alvin Toffler, Future Shock

  Service Academies: West Point and Annapolis

  Rick Atkinson, The Long Gray Line

  Craig Mullaney, The Unforgiving Minute

  Robert Timberg, The Nightingale’s Song

  James Webb, A Sense of Honor

  Veterans

  David Finkel, Thank You for Your Service

  Phil Klay, Redeployment

  Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War

  James Wright, Those Who Have Borne the Battle

  Prep Schools

  Richard A. Hawley, The Headmaster’s Papers

  James Hilton, Goodbye, Mr. Chips

  John McPhee, The Headmaster

  Index

  The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable. Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  Abizaid, John, 140, 157, 161

  Abrams, Creighton, 36, 145, 213

  Abu Abid, 168

  Abu Ghraib, 76

  Afghanistan, 2–3, 56, 58, 117, 122, 138, 152, 158–60, 163, 171–73, 175, 177, 183, 185–210, 213, 215–21, 226–29, 232, 234, 236, 238–40

  COIN Academy in, 188, 189, 189, 192

  Counterinsurgency Field Manual and, 201, 203, 205

  government in, 206–8, 218–19, 229–30