I’m a big fan of Tom Ricks the reporter. I am much less enamored with Tom Ricks the blogger/pundit. So, on one hand, he’s writing this endless series of posts on Iraq, the unraveling, he’s up to entry 19 on this topic.  So, you’d think that implies that he has a very skeptical perspective on the whole line of argument that claims Petraeus is a genius and that the new COIN paradigm represent a winning strategy. He even writes:

Repeat after me: There is not going to be any victory, no matter how long we stay or how soon we leave. Iraq is probably going to be violent for many years to come, and likely will be a closer ally of Iran than of the United States-nice job, W!

And yet, in other posts, he seems to quote approvingly the various platitudes of the COIN consensus:

• The need for triage and population security (McChrystal: Try a little triage in Afghanistan).
• The notion that a properly pursued COIN strategy is both possible and desirable and that failure to follow the guidelines leads to operational failure (Wanat (VIII): An Army report finds a major COIN failure).
• The assessment that pro-COIN transformation of the U.S. military has been a positive development and should be emulated by others (A wake-up call for the British army).
• Odes to the genius of Secretary Gates and General Petraeus.
• And he even explicitly defends the COIN work of the Army in Iraq from accusations that other factors — ethnic cleansing, etc. — better explain the decline in violence.

So, I am confused.  Does Ricks think that the new COIN doctrine works, but is not always well implemented?  Does he believe that it produces short-term security improvements, but no long-term political benefits?  Does he think COIN is a failed doctrine, but nevertheless the best chance we have to rescue bad situations? Is he a closet COIN skeptic, but under pressure to toe the party line at CNAS?

He seems quite critical of COIN skeptics, but then also seems skeptical of the possibility of COIN being successfully implemented in either Iraq or Afghanistan, but then again he also continuously seems to recommend COIN-orthodox approaches.

And then it occurs to me… what makes Ricks so good as a reporter — his ability to gather information without allowing his preconceptions to get in the way.  His ability to genuinely understand the contrasting motivations, interests, and views of various actors. His ability to turn complex issues into easily digestible “stories.”  All of these work against him in actually developing a clear, coherent analytical framework that is then subjected to rigorous testing.

Maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe there is some unifying theme in his work — other than his laudable admiration for the men and women who place their lives on the line at the pointy end of the spear — but I can’t find it.