New Army Leadership Faces Familiar Challenges in Afghanistan Efforts

JIM LEHRER:

Next tonight, the command shake-up in Afghanistan raises the "What kind of Army?" question, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he needed new thinking and new approaches from the military when he shuffled Army commanders yesterday in Afghanistan.

Out was General David McKiernan, a one-time tank officer who headed the ground forces during the 2003 Iraq invasion. In were two generals with careers in counterinsurgency warfare, Stanley McChrystal and David Rodriguez.

But as far back as 2007, Gates told the Army it faced new challenges. "Current and future conflicts," he said, "will be fundamentally political in nature and require the application of all elements of national power."

He added, "The Army must learn how to incorporate the latest in technology without losing sight of the human and cultural dimensions of the irregular battlefield."

For more on the Army and its new wars, we turn to two retired generals. Wesley Clark was NATO commander during the Kosovo War in 1999. Like General Clark, Dan Christman began his Army career as a platoon leader in Vietnam. His final post was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

And, General Christman, is this change in command in Afghanistan an Afghanistan-specific story or does it represent some new place that Secretary Gates is trying to take the Army?

LT. GEN. DANIEL CHRISTMAN (Ret.), U.S. Army: I think it's a spot on a transition, Ray. The Army has been transitioning, and I think appropriately, for years from a force that was really focused on a conventional, heavy, wartime environment to an Army that was really fairly described, I think, by Bob Gates, in the summary that you just read, an Army that's focused on asymmetric warfare, on irregular warfare, on counterinsurgency, and nation-building, stability operations.

So what we're seeing in this transition, I think, is just a spot on the wall of a year-, almost decade-long transition, arguably begun by General Shinseki, continuing now, and driven, motivated in great part by the two wars that we're in the middle of fighting.