The winning strategy in Iraq, the winning Army in Iraq

■"Winning in Iraq: a classic strategy that might work," op-ed by David Brooks, New York Times, 28 August 2005, p. WK11.

■"Big Guns For Iraq? Not So Fast," by Craig S. Smith, New York Times, 28 August 2005, p. WK1.

David Brooks' op-ed touts the essay written by Andrew Krepenevich, that avatar of the transformed force, on how to win the counterinsurgency struggle in Iraq. Simple stuff, as Brooks notes, and as old as the hills: you grab the big cities, make them secure, and then work your way outward, expanding the circle of security.

No mystery. It takes a lot of bodies.

We could have had this victory in the immediate aftermath of Saddam's fall, but we confused the Leviathan's great victory with the SysAdmin's great responsibility. To his great credit, Krepinevich has been a real visionary of the lighter, more lethal, more agile force that won the war in Iraq. Now, he seeks to balance the overmatch by arguingóand arguing correctlyófor boots on the ground to win the peace (however delayed by our poor choices since "Mission accomplished").

But here is where Brooks shows his ignorance of military matters to a stunning degree: describing Krepinevich's "new" thinking as the opposite of Rumsfeld's transformed force vision. First, Krepinevich was one of the great godfathers of this approach, and two, how we win wars is not the same as how we win the peace in the 21st century. Wars have become faster, easier, cheaper, and that means the peace becomes slower, harder, more costly.

Two realities requiring two forces. Brooks doesn't get that yet, and thus he foolishly presents Krepinevich as Rumsfeld's doctrinal opposite. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are identical twins when it comes to war, and frankly, they're close to being cousins on the question of the peace. It's just that Bush and Rumsfeld can't admit how much they screwed up the coalition-building in the run-up to the war. Plus, there are still too many neocon types gunning for China in this administration to allow us to cut the deals we need to cut, both regionally (like Iran) and with great powers (like India and China) to keep the Big Bang rolling in the region.

Exposing this fallacyóthis false pitting of Network-Centric Operations against Fourth Generation Warfareóis the first thing I do in Blueprint for Action: Chapter One, Section One.

Putnam will send Brooks a copy, I am sure. If he still write stuff this off-base 3 months from now, I will definitely send him a letter.

Meanwhile, I think the Bush administration needs to rethink our withholding of high-end military assets from the coalition government in Iraq. If we're not going to do the long-term nasty, and we're unwilling to make deals with external or regional powers to accomplish the same, then we better be willing to up-arm the Iraqi security forces big-time. Arm them up, Mr. President, if you hope to get our boys home someday.