Nathaniel Fick
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Nathaniel C. Fick is Chief Executive Officer of the Center for a New American Security]] (CNAS), who was promoted from Chief Operating Officer when the co-founders, Michelle Flournoy]] and Kurt Campbell]], took policy-level positions in the Obama administration|Obama Administration]]'s U.S. Department of State]]. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies]], and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations]] and the International Institute for Strategic Studies]]. Fick is considered one of the intellectual advocates of the counterinsurgency]] doctrine articulated by General David Petraeus]], although, writing with John Nagl]], CNAS President and one of the coauthors of Field Manual 3-24: Counterinsurgency,[1] he believes the subject is ever-developing and needs modifications for Afghanistan. [2] His ideas have been strongly influenced by his undergraduate major in classics]]. "..the idea that we as members of a free society bear an obligation to serve in its defense, at least for a little while. Cincinnatus traded his plow for a sword ... and then back for a plow. It's why I joined the Marines, and then returned to the civilian world--but I learned more in those five years than during any other period in my life."[3] While at Dartmouth College, he chose the Marines after hearing an interaction with Thomas Ricks]], speaking on his book about the Marines, and an instructor who asked "How can you support the presence of ROTC at a place like Dartmouth? It will militarize the campus and threaten our culture of tolerance." Rick replied, "Wrong. It will liberalize the military." In his 2005 2005 New York Times bestseller One Bullet Away, Fick remembers Rick using "words such as 'duty' and 'honor' without cynicism, something I'd not often heard at Dartmouth." [4] Fick began his career as a United States Marine Corps]] officer in the Afghanistan War (2001-2021)|Afghanistan]] and Iraq War]]s. In Iraq, he was in Force Reconnaissance]], a special operations]] unit. He left as a captain (land forces)|captain]], dissatisfied with command and policy trends. His book, however, was designated as required reading, by the Commandant of the Marine Corps]], for Marine officers deploying to United States Central Command]]. Counterinsurgency"Afghanistan is not Iraq." One counterinsurgency plan cannot cover both situations: [2]
Iraq was a conventional war with no significant support of Saddam Hussein]]. Although foreign fighters later infiltrated, they had no sanctuary, as in the Vietnam War]] or as with several countries surrounding Afghanistan, most importantly Pakistan. A Iraq War, Surge]] will not solve a regional conflict. Two myths permeate the view of Afghanistan:
Nagl and Fick insist the U.S. needs to follow, in Afghanistan, what may be paradoxical guidance from the manual:
Marine CorpsFick entered the Marines through a program in which he took Officer Candidate School in his junior year summer, and had a choice, after graduation, to commit or not to four years of service. He took the oath of service on 12 June 1999. Military advisorAfter his uniformed service, he stayed involved with military matters, and was a civilian instructor at the Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Academy, PoliticsIn 2007, he wrote that "There are five items on my foreign policy wish list, shaped both by pride at having served alongside our nation’s flag in Afghanistan and Iraq and by the reality of having buried too many comrades beneath it:"[5]
He spoke at 2008 Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic National Convention]] and later served on the Obama administration]] Presidential Transition Team at the United States Department of Veterans Affairs]]. References
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