Books of The Times: ‘The Insurgents,’ About David Petraeus, by Fred Kaplan

But as Mr. Petraeus would learn in 2012, when he made front-page news with an embarrassing personal transgression, not even the best-made rules cover all conceivable challenges. That point is central to “The Insurgents,” a very readable, thoroughly reported account of how, in American military circles, “counterinsurgency” became a policy instead of a dirty word.

In 2004 during the Iraq war, counterinsurgency “was still a frowned-upon term inside the Bush administration.” That kind of warfare — what were once called “irregular wars,” “asymmetric wars” or “low-intensity conflicts” — was also overlooked at West Point, Mr. Petraeus’s alma mater.

But Mr. Petraeus, who would develop a reputation “as a schemer, a self-promoter and, worst of all, an intellectual,” took an autodidact’s approach to a subject that fascinated him. He learned from “Seven Pillars of Wisdom,” by the British Army officer T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and “Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice,” by David Galula, both dated texts that had uncanny relevance to the Vietnam War and the post-Vietnam era.

The title of “The Insurgents” is a clever reference to the rebellious, Petraeus-led faction within the American military, not to the guerrilla fighters American soldiers fought abroad. And it is a painstaking, step-by-step account of how these insurgents’ ideas bubbled up into the mainstream. Among the 100-plus interviewees from whom Mr. Kaplan drew information, each became aware of the inadequacy of then-current combat tactics in different ways.

The book begins with an epiphany for John A. Nagl, a West Point-educated Army officer turned counterinsurgency theorist who, while driving a tank across southern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, discovered that the tank-on-tank fighting for which he had trained was all but irrelevant. And yet he had not been trained for less hidebound forms of combat; he cites with approval one cadet’s idea of a new motto for West Point, “Two Hundred Years of Tradition, Unhindered by Progress.” While this book is by no means a valentine to Mr. Petraeus and his fellow innovators, it does acknowledge that innovative military thinking was badly needed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mr. Nagl went on to write a book, “Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife,” which took its title and many precepts from Lawrence of Arabia’s lessons about desert fighting. This book became influential to Mr. Petraeus, as he came to realize that American soldiers were being taught no exit strategy, no peacetime plan.

By the time he was a major general in 2003, leading the 101st Airborne to Mosul in Iraq, Mr. Petraeus was ready to implement some of his thinking about how to conduct a counterinsurgency, which the military referred to as COIN. His plans relied on rebuilding, not on breaking down doors in the middle of the night, and it seemed to be succeeding. But Mr. Petraeus was rotated out of Mosul before his effort could achieve results.

Some of Mr. Kaplan’s book is about significant events, like the handling of Mosul. But most of it concentrates on the theoretical arguments behind even the most minute-sounding differences in military dictums. Even after counterinsurgency began to be codified and taught, it was a source of confusion for junior officers unfamiliar with its ways of utilizing Iraqis and later Afghans, not fighting them at every turn. “I get what we’re supposed to achieve,” one said succinctly, “but what are we supposed to do?”

Even as the counterinsurgency thinkers fine-tuned their phrases — “clear and hold” evolved into “clear, hold and build,” and later into “shape/clear/hold/build,” each with a slightly but significantly different meaning — their approach was viewed by some as a provocation. The book describes how blasts from The New York Post led to the insertion of words like “sometimes,” “some” and “most” into Mr. Petraeus’s field manual, “FM 3-24, Counterinsurgency,” and how the manual’s way of answering old questions only prompted new ones.

What if the local people didn’t want what America wanted for them? What if the local governments were receptive and trustworthy but the national leadership was not? What if terrorists could not be isolated from the larger population because, as with Hamas and Hezbollah, they were a significant part of it? How could we think about the culture of Muslim countries without accounting for religion too?

Mr. Kaplan takes a resourceful, undogmatic approach to such questions. And he presents a full array of influential figures from the military and from government, often reconstructing conversations from multiple participants’ perspectives.

Mr. Petraeus was the author’s single most important interviewee, but Mr. Kaplan also conveys the thinking of Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who brought a solid grasp of conditions in Iraq to the Pentagon, as senior military assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Huba Wass de Czege, known for the innovative AirLand Battle field manual, who in 2002 was astonished to see that American training exercises tended “to devote more attention to successful campaign-beginnings than to successful conclusions”; and Gen. Raymond Odierno, a convert to counterinsurgency after years of taking a door-bashing approach to strategy.

The book also mentions the three young women known as “Odierno’s Chicks,” conspicuous members of the general’s intelligence staff. A few other women, younger than the generals they accompanied, are described as invaluable aides and companions.

Then there is Paula Broadwell, the Petraeus biographer about whom Mr. Kaplan has tacked on a one-page coda. In “The Insurgents” Ms. Broadwell is only one of the miscalculations that an admirable but dangerously unrealistic Mr. Petraeus has made.

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Times Critics Pick Their Favorite Books of 2012

The daily book critics of The New York Times choose their favorite books of the year.

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Walmex used bribes to open 19 Mexico stores: NY Times

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's Mexican affiliate routinely used bribes to open stores in desirable locations, according to a New York Times investigation published Monday, which cites 19 instances of the retail giant paying off local officials.

The Times first reported in April that Wal-Mart had intentionally stifled an internal probe into bribery at its Mexican affiliate Walmex . Late last month, Mexico's anti-corruption body said it found no irregularities in the permits Wal-Mart received in the country, but that two audits remain underway.

In the new report published on its web site, the Times detailed specific instances in which Walmex allegedly paid off officials to expand in Mexico. The alleged payoffs often related to zoning laws and environmental permits that would have otherwise prevented Walmex's opening of new stores.

Much of the report focused on a store built near ancient ruins in Teotihuacan, north of Mexico City. Walmex was hit by protests in 2004 after announcing plans to build a warehouse less than a mile from the city.

In a statement Monday night, Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said the company was already looking into the allegations in the Times article regarding the permitting and licensing process for the Teotihuacan store, as part of a broader internal probe that Wal-Mart began over a year ago into potential violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"At this point, the investigation is still ongoing and we have not yet reached final conclusions," he said, adding that the company has taken steps to improve its compliance programs.

Wal-Mart is also cooperating with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the matter, Tovar said.

The U.S. Justice Department, the SEC, U.S. lawmakers and authorities in Mexico have all been conducting their own probes.

An official at Mexico's federal attorney general's office told Reuters that an initial probe had been opened following the Times' April story, but that prosecutors did not uncover sufficient evidence to file any charges.

The probe closed "a couple months ago," the official said.

In a "Leading with Integrity" letter sent to Wal-Mart employees after Monday's Times report, Chief Executive Mike Duke - who oversaw international operations from 2005 to 2009 - said integrity is the foundation of the company's culture.

"As leaders, we are measured by our weakest moment, so we can't have a weak moment in the area of integrity," Duke wrote. "We can have a bad sales day and a good sales day and hope they average out, but we can't average integrity."

Shares of Wal-Mart rose 0.65 percent to close at $69.20 in New York trading on Monday, before the Times story was posted.

STORE NEAR TEOTIHUACAN

The Times report did not give a figure for how much Wal-Mart spent on all of the alleged bribes. But it cites instances in which the company allegedly paid $221,000 in bribes to build a store near the ruins in Teotihuacan, as well as $341,000 in alleged bribes to establish a store near the Basilica de Guadalupe without appropriate permits, and another $765,000 in alleged bribes to set up a refrigerated distribution center in an environmentally fragile area near Mexico City.

According to Monday's report, Wal-Mart's international real estate committee approved Walmex's plan to spend about $8 million on the Teotihuacan store. The committee consisted of 20 or so top executives including Chairman S. Robson Walton, according to the report. Walton is a son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.

The earlier Times report said a 2005 Wal-Mart inquiry had found some $24 million in suspect payments in Mexico, but the world's largest retailer essentially shut down the probe and didn't notify law enforcement officials until December 2011, after the New York Times informed Wal-Mart it was looking at the issue.

That report said Walmex had taken active steps to conceal the bribery from headquarters when it was happening, but alleged that senior Bentonville executives were involved in decisions about the internal investigation.

Wal-Mart lost $10 billion of its market value immediately following the report, and has since disclosed it has spent $30 million to update its global anti-corruption program and undertaken a massive investigation into the allegations.

Wal-Mart has incurred some $100 million in various costs related to the matter.

Also, in November, Wal-Mart disclosed it expanded its internal inquiry to cover bribery allegations in Brazil, China and India, and its joint venture in India suspended its finance chief and other employees as part of its inquiry.

Bribery and corruption are pervasive in Mexico, where the justice system is weak and lower-level public sector workers earn relatively low salaries. A study last year by Transparency International showed Mexican companies were perceived to be the third-most likely behind those in China and Russia to pay bribes abroad.

(Reporting By Aruna Viswanatha in Washington, DC, Jessica Wohl in Chicago, Michael O'Boyle in Mexico City and Lauren Tara LaCapra in New York; Editing By Ryan Woo)

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