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A review by oneeasyreader
Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis
2.0
Imagine you are on a plane. An older, yet relatively trim, gentleman sits to your left by the window with a book in his lap.
On comes the safety briefing:
If cabin pressure is lost, masks will drop…Put your own masks on first, then help others around you…
The old man pipes up: “It’s a metaphor.”
“A metaphor?” you respond, not sure where this is going.
“Yes. To be a leader, we need to get our act together first, if we want to help others.”
“Ok…”
“It’s just like that great American athletic company says, “Just do it””
“I mean, of course,” shifting your body to exit this conversation while the flight attendant gestures for your attention.
A little later, feeling bad for cutting him off, you ask him about the book he’s reading. The cover is one man engaging in some act of violence against another.
“I’m really trying to broaden my horizons”, he says. “Everything from Starship Troopers to the Battle of Okinawa. Where I work, you need to have intellectual freedom, so my interests range widely”
“How did you get started?”
“Well they gave me a list.”
Later on that day, the old man tells his mates that you looked like a pussy.
Jim Mattis is not stupid or diabolically evil. But nor is he a heroic figure. Jim Mattis is someone who has: a singular focus on the particular role he is serving in; disdain for any subordinates or superiors lacking that same focus; an extreme in-group vs out-group mentality; a preference for depth over breadth; and a preference for aggressive masculinity.
This book covers Mattis’ life prior to being Secretary of Defence. There are also half-hearted allusions to Mattis’ experiences having parallels with the business world but the “insights” are, putting it generously, facile. Mattis' actual business experience includes sitting on the board of pork barrel beneficiary General Dynamics and... ...Theranos, which I don't need a punchline for and neither does Mattis apparently, as he writes nothing on it.
Mattis' military service takes up the bulk of the story, with only a brief reference to his teenage years. According to Mattis, hitch-hiking across America was possible in 1964 as there was a “stronger sense of trust in one’s fellow Americans.” I assume that is why the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Everyone in America trusted each other so much that they decided to ban the discrimination that already didn’t exist.
Mattis’s early Marine experiences demonstrate his in-group vs out-group attitude. After getting rid of one underperforming soldier, he states Where did the malcontents go? Who cared; he was out. When a recruiter under his command is unwilling to work Mattis’ punishing hours: I told the man, “You can be a quitter or you can be a Marine. But you can’t be both” I busted him and ended his career. In 1979 he regrets not getting to potentially kill thousands of Iranian soldiers because the Iranian zealots needed a lesson in humility, leaving us to infer his present views on Iran have not changed, notwithstanding the Iran-Iraq War, the Tanker War and the shoot down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes. As he states, Anything that doesn’t contribute to winning battles or winning Marines is of secondary importance.
Mattis does get his chance to win battles in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Invasion of Iraq. I don’t see much point in making tactical and operational appraisals here, because (1) I wouldn’t know what I was talking about and (2) it tends to be boring. I would summarise these sections as Mattis killing a lot of people and wishing he could have killed alot more. Reminiscing on all this killing causes a rush of blood to certain areas as Mattis finds the overwhelming need to refer to “manhood.” “Manhood” here appears to be committing violence on Mattis’ terms: My teenage grunts were more men than some guys I’ve met who were twice their age. As for the enemy:
A reporter asked me about the fedayeen threat. I gave a straight answer. “They lack manhood.” I said. “Fighting from among women and children, they’re as worthless example of men as we’ve ever fought”.
Considering that the United States invented the term “collateral damage” for all the women and children it keeps accidentally killing from afar, while using depleted uranium and white phosphorus in Iraqi civilian areas, I would suggest it was not quite the straight answer he thinks it was.
Otherwise, Mattis takes a dump on General Tommy Franks, Paul Bremner and the Coalition Provisional Authority repeatedly, about 15 years too late for any of this to be a fresh take. When dealing with the alleged massacre of women and children by Marines at Haditha, Mattis emphasises how careful he was in reviewing the evidence and assessing the appropriate actions to take. I find it hard to comprehend that Mattis does not realise the problem is not how careful he is being in exercising his judgement, it is that he is the one exercising the judgement.
Mattis' time in the higher echelons of command with NATO and CENTCOM is adequately covered, and his commentary on the need for allies along with the benefits and difficulties in dealing with them is well argued. But saying "allies are good" is a low bar to jump presently. The difficulties are mostly at a personal or operational level, with no wider discussion about the tension betwern the desire for military unity versus the increasingly autocratic nature of allies such as Poland, Hungary and Turkey. Mattis invokes arguments dangerously close to realpolitik when justifying the support of monarchical or dictatorial regimes during the Arab Spring, which sounds all good in practice until you end up funding Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen.
Mattis takes a few swings at the Obama administration, particularly the withdrawal from Iraq, the time limited surge in Afghanistan, the "red line" in Syria, and the "failure" to confront Iran. Mattis makes his arguments and he might even be right for at least some of them. However, a notable theme on a number of these occasions was that Mattis believed America could control the level of escalation:
I did not patronize this enemy. I had dealt with them long enough to know they had not arrived rationally at their hateful, intolerant worldview, and they would not be rationally talked out of it. We had to fight, or there would be worse to come.
I lack his confidence in confrontation.
I am sure at a personal level Mattis can be friendly and engaging. But this book feels like part of his mythlogisation. “Warrior poet” is occasionally ascribed to Mattis. But he really writes that he read everything from Starship Troopers to the Battle of Okinawa. I am left wondering whether Mattis has two tiers of books in his mind: Books about war and garbage. He refers to “General” Lucullus Cornelius Sulla the “Roman soldier,” a description so laughably inadequate it leaves me also wondering whether the books Mattis does read have two tiers of information in his mind: war and garbage.
This book is about war, but it needed to think some more about the "garbage."
On comes the safety briefing:
If cabin pressure is lost, masks will drop…Put your own masks on first, then help others around you…
The old man pipes up: “It’s a metaphor.”
“A metaphor?” you respond, not sure where this is going.
“Yes. To be a leader, we need to get our act together first, if we want to help others.”
“Ok…”
“It’s just like that great American athletic company says, “Just do it””
“I mean, of course,” shifting your body to exit this conversation while the flight attendant gestures for your attention.
A little later, feeling bad for cutting him off, you ask him about the book he’s reading. The cover is one man engaging in some act of violence against another.
“I’m really trying to broaden my horizons”, he says. “Everything from Starship Troopers to the Battle of Okinawa. Where I work, you need to have intellectual freedom, so my interests range widely”
“How did you get started?”
“Well they gave me a list.”
Later on that day, the old man tells his mates that you looked like a pussy.
Jim Mattis is not stupid or diabolically evil. But nor is he a heroic figure. Jim Mattis is someone who has: a singular focus on the particular role he is serving in; disdain for any subordinates or superiors lacking that same focus; an extreme in-group vs out-group mentality; a preference for depth over breadth; and a preference for aggressive masculinity.
This book covers Mattis’ life prior to being Secretary of Defence. There are also half-hearted allusions to Mattis’ experiences having parallels with the business world but the “insights” are, putting it generously, facile. Mattis' actual business experience includes sitting on the board of pork barrel beneficiary General Dynamics and... ...Theranos, which I don't need a punchline for and neither does Mattis apparently, as he writes nothing on it.
Mattis' military service takes up the bulk of the story, with only a brief reference to his teenage years. According to Mattis, hitch-hiking across America was possible in 1964 as there was a “stronger sense of trust in one’s fellow Americans.” I assume that is why the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Everyone in America trusted each other so much that they decided to ban the discrimination that already didn’t exist.
Mattis’s early Marine experiences demonstrate his in-group vs out-group attitude. After getting rid of one underperforming soldier, he states Where did the malcontents go? Who cared; he was out. When a recruiter under his command is unwilling to work Mattis’ punishing hours: I told the man, “You can be a quitter or you can be a Marine. But you can’t be both” I busted him and ended his career. In 1979 he regrets not getting to potentially kill thousands of Iranian soldiers because the Iranian zealots needed a lesson in humility, leaving us to infer his present views on Iran have not changed, notwithstanding the Iran-Iraq War, the Tanker War and the shoot down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes. As he states, Anything that doesn’t contribute to winning battles or winning Marines is of secondary importance.
Mattis does get his chance to win battles in the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Invasion of Iraq. I don’t see much point in making tactical and operational appraisals here, because (1) I wouldn’t know what I was talking about and (2) it tends to be boring. I would summarise these sections as Mattis killing a lot of people and wishing he could have killed alot more. Reminiscing on all this killing causes a rush of blood to certain areas as Mattis finds the overwhelming need to refer to “manhood.” “Manhood” here appears to be committing violence on Mattis’ terms: My teenage grunts were more men than some guys I’ve met who were twice their age. As for the enemy:
A reporter asked me about the fedayeen threat. I gave a straight answer. “They lack manhood.” I said. “Fighting from among women and children, they’re as worthless example of men as we’ve ever fought”.
Considering that the United States invented the term “collateral damage” for all the women and children it keeps accidentally killing from afar, while using depleted uranium and white phosphorus in Iraqi civilian areas, I would suggest it was not quite the straight answer he thinks it was.
Otherwise, Mattis takes a dump on General Tommy Franks, Paul Bremner and the Coalition Provisional Authority repeatedly, about 15 years too late for any of this to be a fresh take. When dealing with the alleged massacre of women and children by Marines at Haditha, Mattis emphasises how careful he was in reviewing the evidence and assessing the appropriate actions to take. I find it hard to comprehend that Mattis does not realise the problem is not how careful he is being in exercising his judgement, it is that he is the one exercising the judgement.
Mattis' time in the higher echelons of command with NATO and CENTCOM is adequately covered, and his commentary on the need for allies along with the benefits and difficulties in dealing with them is well argued. But saying "allies are good" is a low bar to jump presently. The difficulties are mostly at a personal or operational level, with no wider discussion about the tension betwern the desire for military unity versus the increasingly autocratic nature of allies such as Poland, Hungary and Turkey. Mattis invokes arguments dangerously close to realpolitik when justifying the support of monarchical or dictatorial regimes during the Arab Spring, which sounds all good in practice until you end up funding Saudi Arabia's genocide in Yemen.
Mattis takes a few swings at the Obama administration, particularly the withdrawal from Iraq, the time limited surge in Afghanistan, the "red line" in Syria, and the "failure" to confront Iran. Mattis makes his arguments and he might even be right for at least some of them. However, a notable theme on a number of these occasions was that Mattis believed America could control the level of escalation:
I did not patronize this enemy. I had dealt with them long enough to know they had not arrived rationally at their hateful, intolerant worldview, and they would not be rationally talked out of it. We had to fight, or there would be worse to come.
I lack his confidence in confrontation.
I am sure at a personal level Mattis can be friendly and engaging. But this book feels like part of his mythlogisation. “Warrior poet” is occasionally ascribed to Mattis. But he really writes that he read everything from Starship Troopers to the Battle of Okinawa. I am left wondering whether Mattis has two tiers of books in his mind: Books about war and garbage. He refers to “General” Lucullus Cornelius Sulla the “Roman soldier,” a description so laughably inadequate it leaves me also wondering whether the books Mattis does read have two tiers of information in his mind: war and garbage.
This book is about war, but it needed to think some more about the "garbage."