What Was General McChrystal Thinking?

How could an experienced four-star general like McChrystal make such a foolish, unforced error in judgment? FrumForum spoke with a source close to McChrystal’s predecessor in Afghanistan to understand the missteps leading to the general's gaffe.

How could an experienced four-star general like Stanley McChrystal -- acclaimed for his strategic vision and leadership -- make such a foolish, unforced error in judgment? FrumForum talked to a source familiar with the office of McChrystal's predecessor to try and understand what the general was thinking.

Our source suggested four factors that explain why McChrystal made the blunder of allowing a Rolling Stone reporter to write this profile:

1. Arrogance and the Special Forces Mentality

The attitude required from a Special Forces operator is a world apart from the sound bites expected from a politician. The difficulty that McChrystal faced was that he was placed in a position that required him to fulfill both roles.

“Certainly this was arrogance. It is part of what I like about the McChrystal team – they’re out there, and they’re doing the unthinkable to succeed when the odds are tough.” said our source. “But at the same time, he’s put in this role that is as much political as it is military strategy, and you can’t behave like a Special Forces operator and take everyone out with clean hits.”

2. Previous Media Coverage

Other reporters covering McChrystal had omitted these sorts of backstage details in an effort to appease the General’s handlers, suggests our source:

They had such glowing press coverage to date because so many journalists had been concerned about keeping their access. And then this freelancer comes in, who they haven’t really researched, and they give way too much access.

There are a number of reporters currently writing books about McChrystal, so omitting damaging details was one way to maintain access. McChrystal “hadn’t so much gotten lucky,” said our source, “rather, other [reporters] had not written about it… there have been plenty of long profiles written about McChrystal, and this side hasn’t been included.”

But the deference that had previously been accorded to the General had not all been for the sake of career advancement, notes our source. Instead, a lot of war correspondents give positive coverage of the war because, well, they enjoy covering war:

A lot of war correspondents really like war, they supported the troop surge and the invasion of Iraq because they want to cover it – they’re war junkies.

But Michael Hastings, the reporter behind the damaging Rolling Stone profile, did not fit in this category. He had written explicitly about the war junkie phenomenon, and denied it afflicted him; he had also been publicly skeptical about the war in Afghanistan – a fact that has escaped the office of Gen. McChrystal.

3. Frustration Over the Situation in Afghanistan

Our source, who is familiar with the office which McChrystal now holds, says that the likely aim of the Rolling Stone article was to get the administration’s attention, and was driven by increasing frustration over the situation in Afghanistan:

This is how you shake things up… which I do think was the original intent with giving this journalist access… They wanted to catch the administration’s attention because they felt that Afghanistan had been forgotten… and that this would help put it in the limelight again and refocus the administration. This is at a critical time, when Afghanistan could be lost.

4. A Plain Old Public Relations Blunder

The fourth reason for the error could be just plain laziness. “With this one, they just got lazy and didn’t see what was coming,” said our source.

In fact, it should have been patent to any PR professional that an anti-war freelancer working for Rolling Stone shouldn’t have been given recurring access to the general.  “This is Press 101,” said our source. “Don’t let your principal be cordoned off with a reporter for long, extended periods of time. They pick up way more jokes than they should, and things that need to be kept private aren’t kept private.”

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