Scions of the Surge

It is hard to overstate the achievement of this Petraeus Generation of officers, but their success is terribly fragile. Their newest allies—some of them former outlaws, insurgents, terrorists—may yet betray their trust. Living among them, walking the streets every day, is critical to maintaining their loyalty, yet with each passing month the pressure to draw down troops is likely to grow. And while the skills these American officers have gained are crucial in murky conflicts like Iraq, they are not universally valued or trusted within the Pentagon. Petraeus has fought many battles with his bosses—including CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon, who resigned last week—over getting the resources needed to make his counterinsurgency strategy work. As his heirs move up the ranks, they will face similar struggles over which wars America chooses to wage in the future—and the way the Army fights them.

Many have already had to do battle with superiors who have been slow learners, if not clueless. Wright, a tall, square-jawed athlete who looks a little like Jack Kerouac, is nothing if not a thoughtful warrior. He grew up in a nonmilitary family in Maine; his older brother now works for an NGO resettling African refugees, his sister for the NBA. At West Point, he majored in American history and focused part of his research on Margaret Chase Smith, a Maine senator who spoke out against McCarthyism. There at the Academy, as well as at the Infantry Officer Basic Course and the more advanced Ranger School, Wright was trained to pursue and defeat an enemy using technology and superior firepower. But he learned the limits of that training in Afghanistan in 2004.

For three months, Wright and his fellow soldiers fruitlessly searched an area the size of Vermont for Taliban insurgents. "Chasing guys through the mountains of Afghanistan at 10,000 feet didn't [work]. The intel people always talk about 'ratlines'," Wright says, wriggling his fingers. "The 'ratlines' are bulls––t. Why would a guy hike over a snowy mountain with a bag of IEDs when they can drive it in a truck?" Wright realized that what he needed was an ally who could identify the jihadists who were right in front of him.

For weeks, Wright and his fellow soldiers had been hunting for a militant leader named Jan Baz. Finally Wright's boss, Lt. Col. Walter Piatt, decided that if they couldn't kill or capture the fugitive, they'd co-opt him. Piatt asked the local Afghan governor to set up a face-to-face meeting, where the American colonel offered Jan Baz the job of local police chief. The militant, eager to cement his authority in the area, accepted. "Was there some shadiness going on there?" Wright asks. "Yes. But it worked." After Jan Baz was put on the American payroll, attacks dropped.

When Wright wrapped up his tour in 2005, he wrote an article in Infantry Magazine, an Army publication, criticizing the traditional "light infantry" tactics that had flopped in Afghanistan. He recommended more-flexible approaches, like mixing with the locals and (more implied than directly stated) buying off the enemy. When Petraeus drafted his counterinsurgency doctrine in 2006, he was able to draw on the experiences of resourceful frontline officers like Piatt and Wright. "All the stuff in the Petraeus manual, we had kind of figured it out there [in Afghanistan]," says Wright. "It was all the stuff we had seen work on the ground."

American officers learned very similar lessons in battling the Viet Cong. But much of that knowledge was simply lost. "It's said we fought that war nine times, a year at a time," says Petraeus, noting that because they had been drafted rather than volunteered, many combat-hardened troops left the Army as soon as their yearlong tours in Vietnam were up. By contrast, with the Army stretched thin and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragging on, soldiers like Wright find themselves heading back into the fight for a second (or third or fourth) tour. "They have a level of experience that I don't think our Army has had at that rank certainly since Vietnam, and maybe not even then," says Petraeus.