Expectation of Valor: Planning for the Iraq War by Kevin C. M. Benson. Casemate, 2024, 272 pp.
Kevin Benson’s Expectation of Valor is a detailed history of the Combined Forces Land Component Command’s (CFLCC) planning effort for Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the historian, this volume enlightens the complexity of modern coalition warfare fought across continents in a 24-hour news cycle, within the constraints of shifting policy imperatives. For military planners it serves as a tutorial of how military planners practice operational art and manage ambiguity. Finally, it highlights the cognitive and collective effort that successfully organized one of the largest military operations in recent history.
Few authors could capture this history better than Benson. A US Army colonel and director of plans for the CFLCC for Operation Iraqi Freedom, he was uniquely positioned to understand the military planning functions that spanned continents, alliances, partnerships, and initial combat operations. This history begins in June 2002 when Benson arrived at his assignment as the 3rd Army director of plans. It concludes with the transition of CFLCC’s mission to V Corps the as Combined Joint Task Force 7 in May 2003.
Benson sources this well-documented history through his personal diary, daily updates to the CFLCC commander, public histories, campaign plan briefing products, and working papers. While many war histories tend to focus on the feats of generals or “great men,” Benson’s narrative highlights the planning effort as the sum of the contributions of his subordinates, colleagues, and allies.
The book’s introduction to the CFLCC planning effort foreshadows the nature of planning that unfolds. The necessity for planners to simultaneously deal with the present and multiple views of the future to manage uncertainty and risk becomes evident in its chapters. Conflict termination, coalition warfare, and the planner’s role in operational level campaigns emerge as three major themes throughout.
Benson succeeds in his purpose “to take on the common narrative told about the Iraq War, which is the Army did not plan how to conclude the war.” His description of the CFLCC planning effort for post-conflict operations throughout the book provides the reader with the necessary detail to understand such measures and to inform future planners’ approach to planning for post-conflict operations and thinking about conflict termination.
Several realities emerge in this book’s chapters. First, the political impetus to fight and win wars while cutting costs is at odds with the reality that wars require fiscal resources and protracted political will. Benson points out several instances when Washington decisions to reduce necessary resources created challenges to operational efforts in Iraq.
Second, shifting policy guidance can sometimes interfere with military effectiveness. The Pentagon’s de-Baathification policy shift is one example of how changes of policy interpretations can have major mission impacts. Third, the physical, cultural, and geographic difference between policymakers and military organizations can foster a disconnect in the ends, ways, and means of strategy. These dynamics complicate the creation of conditions conducive to conflict termination and sometimes are beyond the control of the military planner. They must be acknowledged, anticipated, and dealt with.
International coalition planning and sustainment conferences emerge as critical vehicles to CFLCC’s ability to sustain combat operations beyond the initial invasion. Benson honestly illustrates the political and cultural constraints to coalitions, which require creativity and compromise in order to overcome. A country’s shared history with other coalition partners and a military organization’s need for logistical support, interoperability, and other necessities significantly determine command and control arrangements in a coalition environment. Throughout, Benson highlights the professionalism and efficiency that US Allies and partners brought to the campaign. He further illuminates the often sensitive discussions that eventually fostered compromise and the creation of a successful coalition.
For the student of military planning, several lessons emerge. Benson’s forthright discussion of planners’ roles in gaining commander’s guidance, maximizing commanders’ time through research and analysis, and dealing with ambiguity highlights the critical role planners play in the execution of combat operations. Second, the criticality of logistics planning to sustain multinational, global combat operations cannot be understated. Third, the reader will encounter instructive lessons of planning, such as “an error in the initial placement of forces cannot be corrected throughout the course of a campaign” throughout the volume.
In hindsight, the book reveals some policy and strategy choices that did not age well. At the forefront, the ideology of regime change—which figured prominently into the US strategy at the time—now ranks among other ideologies that have led to miscalculated entrees into conflict. Further, the US government’s role in writing the Iraqi constitution emerges as a surprising detail in the discussion of post-conflict operations.
This book is recommended for any academic program that seeks to understand how combined and Joint staffs as well as civilian policy organizations engage in the business of planning and Joint or combined warfighting. Many of the briefing charts and diagrams contained in the history are useful examples of heuristic frameworks of campaign design. This book is strongly recommended for any military officer preparing to assume a role as a military planner, particularly at the Joint staff, Joint task force, or combatant command staff level. Civilians who work in political-military affairs would also benefit from Benson’s work. The lessons are applicable regardless of geographical context or contingency scenario.
Dr. Robyn Ferguson, Colonel, Retired, US Army