Defense Tech is pissing and moaning about McChrystal

[unhappycamper]

Will the Afghan War Suffer From McChrystal’s Ouster?

What’s lost with Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s ouster? The most innovative battlefield commander the U.S. has ever had, say former colleagues who worked with him there and in the super-secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

A commander who truly grasped both the value added of new sensors and information networks and intuitively understood the organizational changes required of a hidebound military to best exploit it.

During his five years at JSOC and his truncated command of ISAF, McChrystal flattened hierarchies, empowered subordinates and everywhere pushed a freer flow of information between operators and analysts, between commanders and their units and even between oftentimes distrustful allies.

“He had better battlefield situational awareness than any other commander out there,” one former operator told me. McChrystal, who spent much of his career in the “black” special operations world, understood that the best weapon to fight terrorist and insurgent networks was another network, and he put those networks in place in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

Those personal networks McChrystal built up during his time in the black SOF world, “special mission unit” commanders that he knew and had worked with for years, he brought with him to Afghanistan; some who still commanded SOF units, others who now commanded units among the general purpose force.



unhappycamper comment: Get over it dudes, McChrystal’s gone.