Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013)
A detailed history of the 2007 surge of US forces in Iraq, Peter Mansoor’s Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War presents an insider’s account of how American counterinsurgency worked in Iraq. Colonel(R) Mansoor, is currently the General Raymond E. Mason, Jr. Chair in Military History at The Ohio State University. He previously served as a principal architect of the American counterinsurgency strategy and General David Petraeus’s executive officer during the surge. The impetus for the book came after the author realized many so-called counterinsurgency experts did not understand how Iraq turned out the way it did. Mansoor thus chose to write the “second draft of history” on this crucial period to add a historian’s lens to the plethora of contemporaneous accounts that, while important, lack his source material and intimate knowledge.
In 2006 the war in Iraq grew increasingly violent and lacked a coherent strategy. These problems led to the implementation of a new counterinsurgency doctrine along with a surge of reinforcements in early 2007. The author argues that the surge was also one of ideas. Combining new ways of thinking with the requisite troop levels helped turn the tide in Iraq by bringing security to the Iraqi people, legitimizing the Iraqi government, and encouraging Iraqis to take responsibility for their security. The Sunni Awakening is an excellent example of local Iraqis owning their security, which helped create the conditions necessary for political dialogue. In short, the surge worked because it was the right strategy for the right place at the right time. But as Mansoor points out, future counterinsurgents must be careful when gleaning lessons learned from the surge in Iraq, as all insurgencies have their own unique context.
The two most essential ideas underlying the surge involved the Iraqi people. First, humans became the most important “terrain,” which meant that securing the populace became the most important mission. Nowhere was this reflected better than in the new operational concept called Fardh al-Qanoon (enforcing the law). To make Iraq safer necessitated more American and Iraqi security forces living among the population, making their presence known, and building trust, while slowly putting an Iraqi face on operations. This concept also helped differentiate what the author terms the “reconcilables” from the “irreconcilables,” thus targeting those unwilling to contribute to a safe, democratic Iraq. An increasing security bubble encouraged more Iraqis to side with the government, which in turn helped separate the insurgents from the population. Creating an Iraq secured by Iraqis legitimized the government and allowed for political discourse to replace violence as the means to determine the distribution of power and resources in the country—at least in the short term.
The author combines personal experience with declassified documents, historical vignettes, and the new counterinsurgency manual to demonstrate the inner workings of one of the most important military missions of the 2000s. Crucial to his work were personal notes and declassified portions of General Petraeus and General George Casey’s papers. The author’s role in designing the surge strategy makes him, perhaps, the most authoritative voice on this subject outside of General Petraeus himself, who wrote the Foreword to the book. Mansoor’s ability to intertwine personal insights with the complexities of counterinsurgency in Iraq is a direct result of his position as the most integral member of General Petraeus’s staff. The book is organized chronologically from the author’s assignment to create a joint US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, through his subsequent assignment to the “Council of Colonels” designing counterinsurgency strategy in the basement of the Pentagon, to his fifteen-month tour in Iraq as executive officer to the commander of the entire operation, General David Petraeus.
Part of what makes this book so valuable is its detailed understanding of a complex country filled with ethno-sectarian violence that was torn apart by the American-led invasion and subsequent failures between 2003 and 2006. Mansoor shows a keen understanding of sectarian divisions, Iraqi history and politics, US Army operations, and how they all came together in 2007. This book is also relevant for its depiction of a high-level American staff operating under intense pressure and its exploration of civilian-military relations. An excellent read for scholars of counterinsurgency operations, the Iraq war, or the broader Middle East, this book should be required reading throughout the United States National Security Establishment, particularly by those involved in strategy design.