Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead

In 2010 General Petraeus is given specific oversight of Afghanistan, where a scandal has removed the previous general. This change leaves the position of CENTCOM commander open. After a personal interview with President Obama, Mattis is given the job. Heading CENTCOM entails having responsibility for ever military branch in the Middle East, roughly 250,000 troops in all. While it has been leaning that way for a while, Mattis’s job is now fully strategic in nature, as much political as it is martial. It would be the president and his cabinet who would create the vision, and it would be Mattis’s job to find a strategy that could ably realize that vision.

Mattis seeks advice again from Henry Kissinger, who tells him that Mattis should focus on foreign policy and let that data guide his military decisions. Mattis realizes that some issues can be solved while others cannot and must be managed instead.

Mattis identifies terrorism as the reigning concern for CENTCOM, divided into two groups, Shiite (largely funded by Iran, e.g., Hezbollah), and Sunni (most famously, Al Qaeda). Mattis’s estimation at this juncture is that the Sunni organizations have been set back by defeats in the field and targeted attacks, whereas the Shiite groups have been spared due to their safe havens and financial support in Iran.