About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior.

• Author: Massing, Michael

THE LIMITS OF MACHO

In recent months, an extraordinary report criticizing the American role in El Salvador has been circulating within the U.S. military. Written by four lieutenant colonels in the U.S. Army, the report asserts that the war in El Salvador is "stuck" and that the United States is "itself stuck with the war." Despite "important progress toward democratization," the lieutenant colonels state, "the Salvadoran government remains ineffective," incapable of meeting "basic human needs." U.S. economic assistance, they assert, "has achieved little," and the Salvadoran military remains "remarkably immune" to U.S. efforts at reform.

The report, titled American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador and published by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a Washington think tank, has stirred outrage among many policymakers. The State Department's Office of Policy, Planning, and Coordination has drafted a sharp rebuttal. Officials at the U.S. embassy in San Salvador angrily dismiss the report as excessively pessimistic. And top officers in the Salvadoran army accuse the lieutenant colonels of displaying a colonialist mentality by meddling in the Salvadoran army's internal affairs.

But Small Wars has gained many backers as well. In fact, it has served as a rallying point for those within the U.S. military and State Department who question the official optimism about the war in El Salvador. They believe that the war is stalemated and likely to remain so until that country's government and army do a better job of winning the support of its people. They also believe that the U.S. military hasn't the foggiest idea of how to help them achieve that. As these dissidents point out, since 1981, the U.S. has sent more than $3 billion in economic and military assistance to El Salvador, helping to enrich government bureaucrats and military officials but making little difference in the life of the average Salvadoran.

With their report, the lieutenant colonels (A.J. Bacevich, James D. Hallums, Richard H. White, and Thomas F. Young) join a long line of internal critics who, over the years, have chastised the U.S. military for its inability to fight guerilla wars. These critics, exponents of counterinsurgency doctrine, complain that the U.S. military is too large, too reliant on sophisticated technology, and too conventionally oriented to wage the type of economic, political, and social warfare required to defeat Marxist revolutionaries. Rather than simply sending helicopters and howitzers, they say, the U.S. should be spearheading a broad reform program aimed at cleaning up the government, developing the countryside, and involving the military in civic action projects like building roads and providing health care. Since the early 1950s, when Edward Lansdale traveled to the Philippines to take on the Huk rebels, these guerilla buffs have fought their own war with the bureaucracy in Washington, agitating for a more flexible, creative approach to Third World conflicts. Now another shot in the battle has been fired. About Face,(*) by Colonel David H. Hackworth, is an important addition to the counterinsurgency bookshelf. It shows how innovative the practitioners of counterinsurgency can be--and why they are ultimately doomed to failure.

Benders and brothels

About Face was 18 years in the making. That's how long it took Hackworth to get over his decision, in 1971, to go on national television and denounce the U.S. effort in Vietnam. At the time, Hackworth was one of the most decorated officers in the U.S. Army. His appearance on ABC's "Issues and Answers," however, quickly turned him into a pariah. The response from the military...