General McChrystal's Strategic Assessment: Evaluating the Operating Environment in Afghanistan in the Summer of 2009
Abstract
Dissatisfied with the leadership of Army general David McKiernan and recognizing a decline in overall security in Afghanistan occurring since 2006, Pres. Barack Obama named Army general Stanley McChrystal the new commander of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan on 15 June 2009. General McChrystal was immediately tasked to conduct a 60-day initial assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and to recommend a new strategy that would stop the growth of the insurgency and assist the US-backed Afghan government in stabilizing the war-torn nation. General McChrystal had very little time to assess the exceedingly complex Afghanistan operating environment and to propose a new strategy to stop the Taliban momentum and ultimately defeat the insurgency. He quickly assembled a headquarters team, led by US Army colonel Kevin Owens, to analyze the complex strategic and operational environment in Afghanistan. That analysis, combined with his own study of the command, spurred McChrystal to subsequently recommend a greater resourced, population-centric counterinsurgency strategy. This narrative focuses on General McChrystal and his strategic assessment team s analysis. It describes the assessment team and covers some of the early friction between the members of the team who had arrived with the new commander and the existing headquarters staff. It then dissects the Initial Assessment Working Group that relied heavily on the expertise of a number of civilian scholars invited to take part in the analysis. This study breaks down each of the additional assessment subcomponents, all of which had their own separate working group.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA602104
Entities
People
- Matthew C. Brand
Organizations
- Air University