Last Friday I flew to my U.S. European Command (EUCOM) headquarters in Stuttgart to conduct an “All Hands” with the military and civilian personnel assigned to the headquarters at Patch Barracks.  The flight from my NATO headquarters in Belgium was an airborne “sleigh ride,” and the landing a bit of a white knuckle experience.  However, I really wanted to meet with the team and talk about the “way ahead” for 2010, share with them my perspective, and solicit their feedback.

 Events like this are traditional throughout the military, and they afford the commander the chance to “reach-out”  to colleagues and troops.  Realistically, a command like EUCOM– with 200,000+ Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, civilians and family members – is too big to meet with everyone personally at once.  But there are ways to use modern media to move the commander’s message, and this “All Hands” represented my first such engagement in the New Year. more…

While the SHAPE and U.S. European Command reading lists (available from our websites) provide some wonderful selections, I thought I’d quickly offer five good books that I read over the course of 2009 that relate to some aspect of what we are about these days.  Since reading both fiction and non-fiction is a good way to keep things in balance,  some of each are on the short list below.

“Flashman” by George MacDonald Fraser.  Historical fiction often provides the best illumination of a place or a time, and in this first volume of the Flashman series, Fraser – who died last year – provides a vivid and instructive view of the first Anglo-Afghan war.  Here we see the disastrous retreat from Kabul in 1842 which cost the British over 15,000 lives in essentially a month’s time, led by the hapless General Elphinstone.  It is a tale which provides a fascinating insider’s view of the British experience in the 19^th century, and well worth the time of those who are studying that troubled nation today.  Old ghosts rattle through Afghanistan, and this novel shows us several in depth and detail. more…

One of you recently asked me on EUCOM Blog two incredibly important questions:  what am I doing to get more NATO countries into the fight in Afghanistan, and what am I doing to engage Russia?

First, let us clearly understand that EVERY nation in NATO is “in the fight” in Afghanistan.  This is a committed alliance.

Second, as the Secretary General has said, “This Alliance is about sharing security, but that doesn’t just mean sharing the benefits. It also means sharing the costs and the risks.”  The nations that comprise NATO of course need to make their own determinations as to what contributions they make to NATO operations in Afghanistan.  My job is to provide them, through NATO leadership in Brussels, with timely, accurate information about the operational environment so that they can make well-informed decisions.  I spend a lot of time in dialogue with Brussels and nations to ensure that they have the latest information on the current environment, the progress we’ve made, and the challenges that remain. 

Third, I try to make the case everywhere I go that we are a team that is “stronger together,” and that no one of us — no one nation — is as capable as all of us pulling together.  There is a real synergy in all of us pulling together and the sum truly is greater than the simple addition of the parts in Afghanistan. more…