Now Anthony Cordesman, an eminence grise of Washington defense analysts, came back from advising McChrystal and said that McChrystal badly needs more troops, according to the Voice of America:

“If you don’t provide those resources and additional brigade combat teams, if you do not, I think, effectively move the Afghan security forces toward doubling them. I think unless we’re prepared to commit those resources. If we somehow believe that a civilian surge of 700 people and tailoring our force posture to the views of a completely different set of strategic priorities, this is going to win, the answer is no, it’s going to lose,” he said.

I don’t really know what he means by a “completely different set of strategic priorities,” but I presume Cordesman is pushing back against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Jim Jones, both of whom have expressed skepticism about adding more troops than the 17000 President Obama ordered to Afghanistan this spring. Cordesman cautioned that there “isn’t some historical ratio” about how many troops are needed in Afghanistan, which also seems like a jab at the rules of thumb for troops-to-population ratio offered in the Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (20 to 25 troops per 1000 residents).

An early dissenter is Joshua Foust, who isn’t part of the review. A military consultant with extensive and recent experience in Afghanistan who also believes the war is winnable, has been blogging that from what he’s seen so far, the review is hidebound, disconnected from reality, and ignorant of the history of even the American experiences in Afghanistan. Yesterday he laced into Exum:

[T]he biggest problem in all this talk of strategy, and the heart of why I was so deeply skeptical of even the current review [is] no one talks to each other, and no one does their homework (and by that I mean “no one in charge”). According to Exum’s new model for how to use U.S. forces, they should be limited to air-assault type missions, except we need more of them, because the problem is the Taliban’s campaign of silent intimidation. No offense, Ex, but does that make even a jot of sense?

Later today, another adviser to McChrystal’s review, Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, is going to hold a conference call to discuss what he took away from the project. We’ll see if he fits the pattern.

Anyway: What do you think about a contest like this? I don’t know what to make of it.

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The Commandant wants to send Marines to Afghanistan, again, shifting troops from Iraq. (This isn’t really news is most defense circles…people have been working this for quite some time.)  But why does Gen Conway have to say such utterly maddening and patently false things like this?

“It’s very much a nation-building kind of environment that’s taking place there [Iraq]” now, Conway said, adding “that is not what we do, and we need those Marines elsewhere.”

…For starters, this is ahistorical bullsh*t.  (I’m of half a mind to send The Bateman over for a remedial lesson on Marine Corps history).  The Marines have arguably done more of this sort of work than any other service; they literally wrote the book on it.

Indeed. As Charlie can tell you, Conway, a former Marine commander in Anbar Province, has sounded cautionary notes about counterinsurgency throughout his tenure as USMC commandant. Those who want to see the corps embrace counterinsurgency more thoroughly tend to promote Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis — Charlie, with characteristic understatement (like I’m one to talk), says, “Maybe Gen Mattis needs to take Gen Conway out back, smack him around a bit, and tell him to get on board for the big win.” Earlier this week, Mattis made this interesting comment:

But Mattis emphasized that technology alone can’t fight and win wars. “I want the best possible technology in the hands of our troops,” he said. “But the idea that this is going to solve the problem of war is a little silly if you study history.”

That’s because although technology has altered the character of war, “the fundamental nature of war has not changed,” he said.

Mattis said this at a Brookings Institution forum for a new book by defense scholar P.W. Singer that aims to put “the robotics revolution” in the context of war-fighting. (And which, awesomely, starts off with a Battlestar: Galactica reference.) His willingness to provide that sort of pushback is part of why the COIN set likes him.