(Cross-posted at Foreign Policy Watch.)
Or that’s at least what some military officials are now saying. Dave Kilcullen, Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor to General Petraeus, had this to say recently:
I know some people in the media are already starting to sort of write off the “surge†and say ‘Hey, hang on: we’ve been going since January, we haven’t seen a massive turnaround; it mustn’t be working’. What we’ve been doing to date is putting forces into position. We haven’t actually started what I would call the “surge†yet. All we’ve been doing is building up forces and trying to secure the population. And what I would say to people who say that it’s already failed is “watch this spaceâ€. Because you’re going to see, in fairly short order, some changes in the way we’re operating that will make what’s been happening over the past few months look like what it is—just a preliminary build up.
Hold up. The surge hasn’t even started yet? Journalist Michael Totten, for some reason, buys into this logic.