From The Washington Times:

The Taliban has been building simpler, cheaper anti-personnel bombs made of hard-to-detect nonmetal components, increasing the number of lethal attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to a confidential military report.

The shift in the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) away from larger anti-armor bombs has allowed the Taliban to produce more weapons and hide them in more places as they strive to kill larger numbers of American forces in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province and other contested regions.

The change in production from metal-dominated explosives to devices made of plastic is making it more difficult for ground troops to detect the buried IEDs with portable mine-detectors, creating an “urgent need” inside the Pentagon for better detection devices, the report said.

The new Taliban tactics are disclosed in a confidential report from the Pentagon’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, portions of which were obtained by The Washington Times.

The area around Now Zad, northwest of Kandahar, has experienced some of the most ferocious fighting for control of southern Afghanistan since the surge of 21,000 U.S. troops began last spring. News reports and military bloggers say Marines on patrol face a constant threat from hidden IEDs.

“Although the Taliban still fights with small-arms, rocket-propelled grenades and improvised explosive devices, they have increasingly focused the role of IEDs as antipersonnel devices,” the report said. “Smaller, lighter, more quickly constructed and quite often triggered by a victim-operated switch [booby trap], these antipersonnel IEDs have been a significant factor in labeling Now Zad the most dangerous location with the highest U.S. casualty rate in either the Afghan or Iraq theaters.”

The Aug. 11 report, titled, “The Taliban’s Emerging IED TTPs in the Proving Grounds of Now Zad, Helmand Province,” was written by an analyst at U.S. Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan. TTPs is short for tactics, techniques and procedures …

In the past two months, more than half of the battlefield deaths suffered by NATO troops were caused by IEDs. This month, of 31 fatalities, 15 came from IEDs; in August, 46 of the 77 coalition deaths resulted from these devices, according to icasualties.org.

The Pentagon report said the Taliban IED research-and-development program used the Now Zad region to show that smaller, more numerous IEDs kill more people. The rate for dead and wounded for the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment stood at one-third of the unit in August, the report said. A typical Marine battalion has 800 to 1,000 troops.

A military official, who monitors Afghanistan and asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the Taliban is shifting to small IEDs for a number of reasons.

“You’ve got the fear factor,” the source said. “It’s also less costly. It’s easier for them to build those things and use them as opposed to running the risk of getting in firefights and losing people. The cost is relatively low. We’re fighting guys who from all appearances are from three centuries ago, but we can’t figure out how to beat them.”

The Pentagon report said the Taliban has become adept at mining a road called the “Pakistani Alley” — so-named because Taliban militants use it to ferry in new fighters from the neighboring country.

“U.S. troop movements are split between foot and mounted patrols,” the report said. “The terrain and deplorable road conditions often necessitate that foot patrols be conducted on uneven terrain. The Taliban have taken advantage of this by littering the area north of ‘Pakistani Alley’ with numerous antipersonnel IEDs to maintain control over their northern buffer-zone.”

Robert Maginnis, a military analyst and Army adviser, said IEDs are tailor-made for Afghanistan.

“IEDs are effective in Afghanistan in part because of the terrain,” Mr. Maginnis said. “There are few paved roads, which means planting a device in or near a road is easier and harder to detect by visual inspection. The increase in Taliban use of IEDs is due to the increased coalition forces in country, which forced the relatively small Taliban force to adjust its tactics. It stretches the force’s impact.”

Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis, a spokesman for Gen. Stanley McChrystral, the top commander in Afghanistan, told The Times the general has stepped up efforts to disrupt networks before they can plant bombs, and get better intelligence on where they are embedded in light of “the weapons’ increasing use against coalition forces and because of the impact of a larger number of indiscriminate, victim-operated IEDs on the Afghan people.”

I would like to get a copy of this report, but my web-based e-mail for the web site (contact information) isn’t currently working.  No one has covered Now Zad like I have, and that merits some consideration.  Either way, it’s good to get better intelligence, and the article ends with technological advancements that may help in the detection of IEDs of this kind, but these are only half-way measures.  As we discussed in On the Front Lines with the Marine in Helmand, there aren’t enough Marines in place to prevent Taliban brutality towards the Afghans who would otherwise want to cooperate.  Intelligence to shut down the traffickers in IEDs will only go so far.  Force Projection is necessary.

We must go after them where they live, where they traffic their supplies, and where they recruit and train.  We must shut down their logistics, kill their fighters, and cause them to live in fear.  We must cause them to stay on the run such that they have neither the time nor supplies to construct or emplace IEDs.  Only then will they be so preoccupied with staying alive that they forget the population.  Then we will have won.  IEDs will no longer be a problem because the Taliban aren’t a problem.  They go hand in hand, and one will not be defeated without the other.  We cannot first defeat IEDs and then the Taliban – just like it was in Iraq.

A group of insurgents emplacing a makeshift bomb in a dirt road in southern Afghanistan inadvertantly blow themselves up while U.S. Apaches from the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade look on.

The Independent has an informative article on U.S. Marine Corps operations in Helmand.  Much of it is reproduced below.

Battling through the dense, towering corn fields, the heavily armed US marines trudged through Taliban territory, every arduous step sinking into deep cloying mud. In the background, the thunder of artillery rounds boomed.

Suddenly, a burst of Pashtu emanated from the radio set monitoring Taliban chatter. “They say they have got eyes on. They are waiting on us,” translated one of the marines. “Can we ask them where they are?” another replied sardonically.

The think tank International Council on Security and Development (Icos) announced last week that there had, yet again, been an increase in Taliban activity across Afghanistan. Its research revealed the insurgents had a permanent hold in 80 per cent of the country, up from 72 per cent last year and 54 per cent in 2007.

In this remote part of the green zone bordering the Helmand river, their defiant presence is blatant. As the marine patrol approached the tiny hamlet of Herati, they were greeted by a volley of bullets before an agonising pause. The troops sat as the day turned into a furnace, beads of sweat sliding down their faces, listening to the Taliban prepare their assault. Huey and Cobra attack helicopters circled overhead.

Suddenly rounds from rifles and Russian machine guns began raining down from a collection of compounds just a few hundred yards away over a small canal. The marines dropped on to their bellies and returned fire. Enemy bullets cracked over their heads and danced in the dust, but none hit their targets and the other side eventually fell back. The scream of a Harrier fast jet, low over the compounds, provided a parting warning.

It was one of three fire fights the 2nd Platoon endured during a seven-hour patrol on Friday 11 September, a symbolic anniversary of the terrorist attack that led these young servicemen to Afghanistan.

But worse was to come. As they made their way back through the corn fields, Corporal Andrew Bryant halted abruptly, his foot caught. He looked down to find it was tangled in two copper command wires, which an explosives team discovered were linked to a daisy chain of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) along the patrol’s route. If it had detonated, Cpl Bryant would not have been the only victim.

“I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is going to be it, right here.’ I am not scared of a fire fight. They can shoot at me all day. But the IEDs you have no idea when it is going to come at you. You never have any idea when your time is up,” said the 21-year-old New Yorker. “We have already had problems with them. My friend lost his legs, and two others were killed [when a vehicle hit a roadside bomb]. “That’s the best way they can get at us. They know they can’t beat us with conventional arms” …

While recent reports show that the insurgency has grown in the north and Kabul, it is in its traditional strongholds in the south and east that it remains at its deadliest. On 2 July, 4,000 US marines were dropped at key points in Garmsir district, Helmand, a staging post for the Taliban moving north from the Pakistani border.

Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines were ordered to take the southernmost point. After four days of intense fighting, they established combat operating Post (COP) Sharp – named after Lance Corporal Charles “Seth” Sharp, 20, who was killed on the first day – in Mian Poshtay. For the past two months, in daily battles, they have attempted to purge the area of a defiant Taliban while trying to convince the locals that they are here to help and, more importantly, to stay …

Slowly, some of the local farmers have started to listen, but fear of retribution is everywhere. After the battle on Friday, a man appeared from nowhere to give the marines information on the Taliban positions before disappearing into the fields once more.

In nearby Lakari market, Taliban stroll with impunity through stalls that sell opium and ammunition as well as fruit and vegetables. From the dialect that can be heard over the radio chatter during a fight, it is obvious that many are from Pakistan, where they have training camps near the border. This is the main supply route into Helmand, through which smugglers bring drugs, weapons and fighters to battle the British and American troops to the north. Once over the border into Baramcha, they move up to Safaar, where they receive weapons and orders, before heading into Lakari.

The locals in Mian Poshtay, either through fear or a strong sense of traditional Pashtunwali that demands they welcome them into their homes, continue to feed and harbour them. Others are interwoven in the community. As Captain Eric Meador, commanding officer of Echo Company, explained, the village tractor mechanic may also be a local fighter.

The Americans have put on a show of force, sending out patrols, meeting ambushes with overwhelming power. When four armed men were spotted by surveillance a few days ago laying an IED, mortars obliterated the team. The Americans informed the locals that those waging this un-Islamic war would meet the same fate. But they know they face a chicken-and-egg situation: to provide security to local people, they must cut off the Taliban supply line. But to convince farmers to co-operate, they must provide security. The locals, the Americans insist, are tiring of the insurgents. In the past couple of weeks, people have tentatively come forward with information and requests for medical help.

A boy of eight turned up at the gate yesterday with his three smaller brothers and his sick baby sister. As the doctor tended the youngest, Captain Meador gave the children liquorice and toys. “They are expecting you to be these big mean people the Taliban tell them the Americans are and I sat down and blew soap bubbles with them. Their faces just lit up,” said the officer.

“We are keeping the enemy away from population areas that are a little bit better – neutral to positive. I think the people around here want change but there has not been enough time.”

Last Monday, 20 elders turned up at shura, a meeting organised by the US marines. Among them were suspected Taliban sympathisers. Others genuinely appeared to want to co-operate. Many more would have liked to attend, they said, but were too afraid. One of them, Mirza, explained: “The Taliban said we will cut off your head, your fingers, if you go to the shura. But we had to come. The most important thing is peace, prosperity and security and no civilians are killed.”

Two days later, when the governor of Garmsir made a rare trip to the region, only a handful of old men came. The reason became obvious 24 hours later when one of the original attendees turned up at COP Sharp to display the wounds on his legs; he had been whipped. The elders who had attended the first shura, he said, had been taken to Lakari and beaten.

First off, I find it annoying that professional journalists cannot seem to follow proper grammatical rules and capitalize the word Marine.  The word marine refers to inhabiting, related to or formed by the sea.  Marines are the subject of the article.  The difference is in a letter, and journalists should get it right.

But getting on to the major points of the article, it’s obvious that although the Taliban are, generally speaking, tactically sound fighters compared to insurgents in Iraq, they are lousy shots (unlike many in Iraq).  This report follows the same theme as just about every other report from Afghanistan, whether ANA or Taliban.  Their roadside bombs and IEDs are lethal, their shooting not so much.

The campaign is winnable, but note that as we have observed before, there aren’t enough Marines or logistics to engage in the chase.  With only 4000 U.S. Marines in Helmand, the Taliban easily have enough terror on their side to prevent the locals from siding too easily with the Marines.  Beatings and whippings are commonplace with the Taliban, and the best way to ensure that the Taliban don’t have the time or wherewithal to brutalize the population is to chase them, kill their fighters, interdict their lines of logistics, and police the terrain.  In short, aggressive military and policing action is the only solution, and that requires more Marines.

I recently had an extended conversation (one of many such) with a certain Marine about his experiences in Fallujah in 2007, and while I was reminded at how heavy the kinetics was early on, I was also reminded of how much interaction the Marines had with the population.  In addition to heavy combat operations, their time in Fallujah may be said to have been policing on steroids.  The same will have to hold true for Helmand or we will not win it.

Finally, recall that we recently discussed Discerning the Way Forward in Afghanistan where I addressed – wearily, for the hundredth time – the small footprint model for Afghanistan, what a miserable failure it has been, and how it cannot hope to succeed.  Is this report from The Independent anything other than confirmation in the superlative that the hunter killer teams concept will not work?  Intelligence suffers because the Marines are not plentiful enough to protect the population from the Taliban, and they are 4000 strong in Helmand.  What happens if we bring the Marines home and send a few teams of Rangers to the Helmand Province?  Answer: the Rangers die within days.

General Charles Krulak wrote George Will a letter in response to his invective on the current campaign.  Will wants to withdraw, and Krulak supports that idea with the exception of a few SOF troopers.  I won’t address every one of Krulak’s points, but several observations are in order.

Krulak notes that U.S. troops are being run ragged and the armed forces cannot support the real surge needed for Afghanistan – more like hundreds of thousands, not thousands.  Furthermore, there are equipment repairs and rebuilds, and this bill is likely to be large.

Krulak is of course right in his assertion that there are serious equipment issues, and it would have been wise to spend more of the “free money” Timothy Geithner has been printing to support the armed forces.  It’s not that the equipment concerns are not within the power and ability for the U.S. to bear.  It’s that the administration has chosen to do other things.  Let’s be clear – this is a political decision rather than a financial impossibility.

But we shouldn’t press this issue of the armed forces being incapable of bearing the burden too far.  There are so many Marines currently at Camp Lejeune that they are building more barracks, and that construction isn’t happening fast enough.  The Marines are no longer in Anbar (for the most part).  They are one of three places: (Camp Pendleton, Camp Lejeune, or on board amphibious assault docks as part of MEUs – with a few in Afghanistan and also a very few in Anbar).  I have never believed that the ratio of troops to population outlined in FM 3-24 obtains for every situation, and the Marines are a force multiplier.  With so many Marine infantry sitting on board ships or garrisoned in the U.S., it’s not hard to envision many more deployed to Afghanistan in support of the campaign.  This is especially true since the policy of MEUs relies on the possibility of actually using our forces in readiness, and throughout the history of this concept we have not.

But eventually in his somewhat rambling letter General Krulak hits his real problem, and it isn’t that we can’t sustain the effort.  It’s that he doesn’t see the strategic value of the effort.  Who is the enemy?  Is it al Qaeda?  Why?  Is it the Taliban?  Why?  Those questions must be posed and answered immediately, says Krulak.

He closes with an odd observation given that he just before said it wasn’t obvious that we had any enemies in Afghanistan.  He wants to deploy HK (hunter-killer) teams to kill the enemy he says doesn’t exist.  He is apparently a proponent of the small footprint high value target (HVT) model which we have implemented for the last eight years.

Next comes Paul Yingling who responds to General Krulak with an absolute affirmative that AQ and affiliates pose a threat to the West; that developing a host nation security force is a cornerstone of counterinsurgency operations; and that most of the troops that protect the population will come from indigenous forces.

We will deal first with several comments directed at Yingling, next at Krulak’s basic argument, and then finally at Yingling’s basic argument.  In my opinion, all three are flawed.  I will lead off with my good friend Gian Gentile, whose thoughts I always follow and whose demeanor and scholarship I always admire.  Responding to Yingling, Gian comments:

I find it deeply ironic that you of all people, Paul, the author of that most important article of two years ago, “A Failure of Generalship” would find fault with one of our most ablest generals and to be sure one of the first on Afghanistan to finally start talking strategy and not the mind-numbing repetitions of the catechisms of nation building. I have been tempted to have a shot at writing a sequel to your important first essay, but this one would be titled “A Failure of Generalship Version 2: What Population Centric Counterinsurgency and Nation Building has done to the American Army’s General Officer Corps and its Inability to do Strategy.”

As you know Paul, it was not failure at tactics and operations that lost the war for us in Vietnam, but a failure at strategy. So too today do we walk down that same road with dysfunctional strategy in Afghanistan. General Krulak was taking a realistic view of our policy objectives in Afghanistan, he considered alternatives based on a realistic expectation of available resources, then applied a deep knowledge of military experience, and concluded that there are other and better ways to proceed in Afghanistan that still get at our interests there. Yet for once, when we finally have a general officer talking strategy, you chose instead to pummel him for apparently falling out of your cherished “gets it” club of General Officers.

If nothing else Paul, at least you might consider embracing the argument of this great marine General for stirring an important debate ON STRATEGY that is vitally needed.

I agree with Gian that counterinsurgency is “a set of tactics rolled up into a discrete form of military operation.”  Counterinsurgency can never be a strategy.  It can only be a set of tactics and procedures.  If implemented, it must be so within the larger context of a strategy, and that’s what has been lacking for Afghanistan – or so the charge goes.  Mark O’Neill makes a few silly claims regarding Gian’s comments, and Schmedlap rather sardonically asks “It appears that Ghazni province is falling to the Taliban. Should we brace for an imminent terrorist attack upon our nation?”

Yingling the weighs in with a response, which includes this precursor to my own response:

If one rejects the premises that we are threatened by al-Qaeda and have an interest in a stable Afghanistan, then the ‘hunter-killer’ approach is unnecessary. The logical policy prescription for those who hold these views is withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan.

There have been no attacks on the American homeland since those of 9/11 because al Qaeda and affiliates have been rather busy in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  But it’s wrong to say that foreign fighters aren’t being trained or coming to Afghanistan to train and export that violence.  The Northern Provinces are even coming back under the sway of the Taliban, and those fighters are transnational.  A police officer in the Kunduz Province said ” the Taliban in his region included fighters from Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Russia’s rebel region of Chechnya, adding they were gaining strength across the entire northern belt where Afghanistan borders ex-Soviet Central Asia.”

In fact, Afghanistan is gradually falling back under the control of the Taliban.  The International Council on Security and Development recently released this statement.

The Taliban now has a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan, up from 72% in November 2008, according to a new map released today by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). According to ICOS, another 17% of Afghanistan is seeing ‘substantial’ Taliban activity. Taken together, these figures show that the Taliban has a significant presence in virtually all of Afghanistan.

“The unrelenting and disturbing return, spread and advance of the Taliban is now without question,” said Norine MacDonald QC, President and Lead Field Researcher for ICOS.

Previous ICOS maps showed a steady increase in the Taliban’s presence throughout Afghanistan. In November 2007, ICOS assessed that the Taliban had a permanent presence in 54% of Afghanistan, and in November 2008, using the same methodology; the result was a finding of a permanent Taliban presence in 72% of the country.

The new map indicates that the Taliban insurgency has continued to expand its influence across Afghanistan. “The dramatic change in the last few months has been the deterioration of the situation in the north of Afghanistan, which was previously one of the most stable parts of Afghanistan. Provinces such as Kunduz and Balkh are now heavily affected by Taliban violence. Across the north of Afghanistan, there has been a dramatic increase in the rate of insurgent attacks against international, Afghan government, and civilian targets“, stated Mr. Alexander Jackson, Policy Analyst at ICOS.

“Eight years after the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban has returned to touch almost every corner of Afghanistan”, said Jackson.

As to what the Taliban might do if they regain control over Afghanistan, the burden of that answer must be shouldered by those who claim that it means nothing for the security of the U.S. and balance of the West.  The Hamburg cell initially intended to attack inside Germany, but upon arrival for training in Afghanistan, AQ persuaded them to attack the U.S. instead.  The Taliban either included globalists (The shura council of the Afghan Taliban, currently the Quetta shura), or those who were allied with the globalists and therefore aided them.  The globalists also included AQ, and there is no indication whatsoever that their intent has changed or their hatred been mollified.  In fact, with the time for AQ to influence the Taliban, their alignment has come into clearer focus, not diminished.  If AQ and the Taliban are not enemies of the U.S., it is incumbent upon the detractor to explain why not?  Further, it is incumbent for them to explain why the same or analogous things to 9/11 will not happen if Afghanistan is left unchecked.

Given the presupposition that something must be done about the globalists and those who harbor them, the question then reverts to strategy and eventually tactics.  As for Krulak’s counsel, I respectfully disagree with Gian.  Krulak has fallen into the same trap that Gian set for the counterinsurgency proponents.  They talk tactics as if it was strategy, and though Gian praised Krulak’s counsel, Krulak does the same thing.  HK teams are not a strategy – they are a tactic.

If the strategy of which HK teams are a part involves counterterrorism operations against HVT to hold AQ in check, then I have responded to this elsewhere (many times over).

The Hindu Kush and areas South of there (Helmand) harbors AQ and other globalists and also their enablers.  Don’t think for one minute that we can simply launch clinical raids with pristine intelligence supported by operators who have all they need when they need it, with combined arms including air support that has air controllers who have all of the logistics that they need while they target only know HVTs with verifiable accuracy.

This is simply a myth – a strategic daydream.  The small footprint model has led us to where we are in Afghanistan, and claiming that we should do more of the same will continue the diminution of the campaign.  We can withdraw or we can go big, but what we cannot do is hope that more of the same saves us.

With a small footprint of only SOF located in Afghanistan, logistics would be the first to go, and our troops wouldn’t have supplies for more than a couple of months.  Every person who has ever driven a fuel supply truck for us will have been beheaded.  The Afghan National Police will be killed by the population within a few months as retribution for the corruption, and the Afghan National Army will last a little longer – maybe three months.  Rescues will be attempted as a means of egress for the American HK teams lest they die.

The small footprint model has indeed led us to this point in the campaign.  I have not previously advocated specifically counterinsurgency model outlined in FM 3-24 which involves some large degree of national building (so much as I have advocated killing the enemy just as does Gentile).  Whatever strategy one does advocate, HK teams would be the ones killed for lack of logistics, and prior to that their efforts would fail because of lack of intelligence.  This model simply won’t work.

Destroying the existing powers that threaten America, leaving and do it again when the threat returns is an appropriate and acceptable strategy.  It may not be the best approach, but it’s workable.  It doesn’t have to be nation building or counterinsurgency viz. FM 3-24.  The problem with this model is that we have almost returned to that very state in Afghanistan today.  In order to dissuade me from advocating involvement in Afghanistan,Krulak has got to do much better than HK teams whose starvation or beheadings would make for awful Television news in the states.  He needs to talk strategy rather than tactics, as Gian has so aptly pointed out of the counterinsurgency advocates.  But if Krulak needs to talk strategy, Yingling needs to avoid myth-telling.  A quick survey of our coverage of the Afghan National Army yields the conclusion that they cannot be relied upon any time soon for security.

As a concluding thought, we should all be savvy to the condition of the infrastructure in America.  Without much effort I could easily put together a plan that, if successfully implemented, would decimate the economy of the country.  Using ordnance with enough power to take out both small and large step-up / step-down electrical transformers, terrorists could attack the power distribution system of the country.  These transformers are not in stock in the quantity needed to respond to such an attack, and without electricity the industry to fabricate them would be absent.  The U.S. without electrical power for four or five months would mean that hospitals wouldn’t even function and food would not be distributed.  The stock market would be the last concern for most Americans.  And this plan doesn’t even involve other sensitive infrastructure such as potable water supplies.  U.S. infrastructure hasn’t been hardened.  First responder training has occurred, but we are still as vulnerable as we were prior to 9/11, except for the fact that the fight with the globalists is occurring everywhere except home soil.

First, let me mention that if you haven’t read First Sergeant John Bernard’s view on the circumstances surrounding his son’s death in Afghanistan, you must drop by and spend a minute with a fine man.  I have had the opportunity to discuss this and other issues with him, and while I can be pessimistic at times, it’s men like Joshua Bernard who make me have faith that all is not lost with America.  And it’s men like John Bernard who raise men like Joshua.

Take note that this issue isn’t closed for me.  The AP has made certain claims regarding what they said to Mr. Bernard and what they didn’t.  I also have some detractors who have questioned what I claimed in Publishing the Marine Photo: Remember the Words of Christ (Then again, I have had some serious, well-meaning and hard nosed questions flow in from friends as well).  I am corresponding with certain military public relations contacts to ascertain just what the formal agreements stipulated.  I will eventually publish a followup to this article that clarifies my original post (and where I possibly further hammer the AP for their decision).  Stay tuned.

Second, take a few minutes and read a letter from a narcissistic, self-important person who objected to a funeral procession for a fallen Soldier.  Then read the Sheriff’s response.  My only objection is that the procession wasn’t slower, with a horse-drawn carriage (h/t Blackfive).

Third, read the Reuters blog on the U.S. Air Force turning it’s pilots into “drone jockeys.”  I support the Air Force supporting the counterinsurgency campaigns in which we find ourselves, but this is turning a bit creepy.  This is faddish, and sooner or later we need to return to the notion of pilots flying aircraft that can perform the roles of fighter and fighter-bomber.  Conventional warfare is not gone forever, and control over the skies is necessary for both conventional war and hybrid warfare / counterinsurgency.

Fourth, roadside bombs took the lives of four U.S. troopers recently in Iraq.  The danger has not passed in Iraq, and the longer we avoid confronting Iran as the root of all problems in the Middle East, the longer there will be instability.  I fully expect, however, the Obama administration to pander to the radical Mullahs.

Fifth, our friend Myra MacDonald is talking about a thaw in relations between India and Pakistan (and also here).  Myra follows Pakistan very closely and is well informed, but frankly I have grave doubts as to the intent.  I’ll believe the gestures develop into something substantive when I see it.  Even Myra waxes negative by the end of her analysis.

Sixth, if you haven’t tackled the rules of engagement articles this week, they are must-reading.

More on Marine Deaths and Rules of Engagement

Taliban Ambush in Eastern Kunar Kills Four U.S. Marines

Finally, I am spending much time training my new Doberman, the historic U.S. Marine Corps dog.

Internet sites say that you can’t teach this breed properly to walk on a lead (heel) before six months.  Wrong.  I have her doing it now, and she is only three months old and I have had her eleven days.  Give me six months and I will have her discussing the history of dogs in the military.

But questions remain.  Do I have incisional gastropexy done?  It isn’t cheap, and it’s also not a painless recovery for the dog.  Dobermans are a large breed, subject to this problem along with other large breeds.  I’m open to input.

Prior:

Weekend Reading #1

Tim Lynch has weighed in on the issue, and I don’t want to steal Tim’s thunder – so visit his site and read the entire post.  It’s well worth the time.  But some of what he has to say is given below.

Tonight LtCol Kenny is in the Kunar Province taking over for one of  his team leaders who was wounded during an ambush at a small little shit hole called Ganjagal yesterday morning.  Four of his Marines were killed in that fight.  That is grim work for a commander and I feel for my friend Jeff.  There was a reporter (Jonathan Landy) from McClatchy news service embedded for this mission and his story is here.  It seems that indirect and air delivered fires were denied to the men in contact because the Taliban had ambushed them using a village as cover and that would fall outside the newest use of force guidelines.  As is most often the case Herschel Smith at the Captains Journal is out in front of the issue and his reasoned assessment can be found here.

The news reports indicated that the four Marines who were killed in this fight were hit in the opening moments of the ambush and therefore it is not reasonable to assume that the liberal application of artillery or air delivered ordinance could have saved them.  This is the way combat often works – the side on the receiving end takes casualties as the ambush goes off and then both sides enter into a protracted skirmish of fire and maneuver until one side breaks contact or breaks in the face of aggressive maneuver and/or fire.  In this fight it is clear that the Afghan/American team was set up and walked into an ambush.  It is also very clear that their ability to extract themselves from that ambush was hampered by the refusal of higher headquarters to allow indirect fires due to the proximity of local non combatants in the village.  It also seems that the women and children were busy shuttling ammunition to the entrenched fighters and therefore vulnerable to the effects of said ordinance.

This is Afghanistan.   The new commander, Gen McChrystal has promulgated orders designed to further limit collateral damage. I applaud his approach and have written repeatedly on topic of inflicting unnecessary civilian deaths.  But here is the thing; when you buy a ticket from us you need to get the full ride.  Every time.  No exceptions.

Look at this quote I pulled from an interview with Air Force Lt Gen Gilmary Hostage:

“The first thing we do is fly over head, and the bad guys know air power is in place and oftentimes that’s enough. That ends the fight, they vamoose,”

Say What?  You really think that the ambushers described in yesterdays fight were going to break and run because they heard an A-10?   This is too stupid for words and I am exercising great restraint by not breaking into a signature rant.  But my God has this senior General read one after action report from the Marines in the Helmand?  You know, the reports which repeatedly say that the Taliban will not run from fire that they need to be hit in order to impressed by our fire power?

Counterinsurgency warfare (COIN) focuses on developing a secure environment for civilian activities which means it focuses our efforts on winning the civilian population. COIN is a set of tactics not an operational strategy and COIN tactics are only appropriate for the areas in Afghanistan where the population wants to be helped which is a majority of this country.  There are several places where the people do not want our help and it is stupid to try to approach these areas using COIN focused tactics or objectives.

The areas where people are not interested in helping us build infrastructure are a problem which can only be solved by Afghans.  The instability in Kunar Province is being financed by timber barons.  In Nuristan Province it is gem merchants who finance anti government activity.  The villages located in the areas controlled by these anti government forces are hostile and there is nothing we can offer these people which will bring them onto our side – seven years of experience tell us that – so why do we continue to try doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result?  We are never going to get enough troops here to do a proper “clear, hold, build” program going countrywide and even if we did the State Department and US AID will never supply the manpower they said they would provide to stand up “District Stabilization Teams.”

We cannot reach out to people who have displayed seven years of belligerence, they are Afghans and their problems can only be solved by Afghans.  When they go into hostile villages like Ganjagal it should be a fully supported advance to contact and if they attack us they need to be crushed – all of them.

Well, I appreciate Tim’s perspective that my approach is reasoned.  It could have been better.  But right back at you, Tim.  Your post is great and readers should drop by and spend some time.  Tim, a retired Marine who is currently in theater, is a must read on Afghanistan.

I won’t link up the responses and sideways glances that I have gotten over the original post, but while some agree, many in the COIN (counterinsurgency) world still chuckle and think to themselves, “That clumsy, oafish Herschel … when will he get it?  Doesn’t he understand that killing civilians will extend the campaign and possibly lose it because the very people we need to protect will turn against us?”

As a matter of fact, I have argued for air power only because we are under-resourced in the theater, literally begging for more troops, and specifically Marines.  Look at any of my posts on Now Zad.  With a larger footprint we can avoid the air-induced noncombatant casualties.

But in a tip of the hat to C. S. Lewis – yes, C.S. Lewis – I feel that those COIN proponents who chuckle at my oafish ways think that I don’t understand the deep magic of population-centric counterinsurgency (if you’ve never read the Chronicles of Narnia to your children, you won’t understand this analogy – just soldier on as if you do).

Whether I understand the deep magic or not, I have argued for more troops and against hard line and enforceable ROE which prevents return fire because noncombatants may be killed.  I have opposed this because I believed that it will give the insurgents safe haven.  In fact, officials have now admitted as such.  But there is nuance too.  If we are going to implement such rules it is necessary to engage in the chase upon insurgent withdrawal.  We don’t have the troops to do so, even though the locals have told us that we need to chase and kill every last Taliban.

So we are told that we cannot return fire if noncombatants may be injured.  We cannot engaged in the chase because we don’t have the troops or helicopters.  But we need to engage the chase according to the locals.  What lessons can we learn from this other than we need more troops?

Well, the attempt to proceduralize every jot and tittle of counterinsurgency is a error of enormous proportions.  The best approach to this is to allow the enlisted men, the NCOs and the field grade officers the latitude to make the decisions they need in order to win both hearts and minds and the fight against the enemy.  Teaching and enabling is a function of senior leadership.  Proscribing every detail of a campaign should not be.

Tim Lynch adds to my points by explaining that the population engaged that fateful day didn’t want to be protected from the Taliban.  They are Afghanistan’s problem, but the role the U.S. Marines play is to close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver.  That proceduralizing guidance into formal rules of engagement when every situation is unique is a bad idea may be the deeper magic of counterinsurgency.  Yes.  The deeper magic.

Jules Crittenden has a roundup of reactions to the British Special Boat Service troops’ rescue of the NYT reporter (also see The Washington Post).  Its’ impressive to me that the British took on this responsibility.  But it is the solemn duty of a country to mourn its lost, grieve its wounded, and bear the national burden of moral judgments during a time of war.  To be sure, there are limits as we have discussed in the release of the photo of young Joshua Bernard.  The concern there is not national exposure but protection of the family.

But as a country laments and engages in outrage, sometimes it’s simply appropriate to listen rather than critique.  My own feeling about this is that I support embedded reporting.  Ernie Pyle did it, and still maintained his independence from the story lines coming from the public relations efforts.  Ernie Pyle died too, but embedding is still the way to go.  But when embedding is done the reporter is obligated – morally and legally – to follow the rules set in place by those who are protecting him or her.

If a reporter wants to get the scoop or turn the story without the aid of or reference to our troops (Nir Rosen comes to mind), then my feeling is that when you play the dice you take your chances.  In a world that increasingly looks for cradle to grave security from the state, taking chances is seen as a way to strike it rich but a way to do so while relying on the government as a safety net.  It shouldn’t be that way.

But on a more personal level (as a Marine father), it needs to be remembered that every casualty is a son of America.  It’s easy to depersonalize casualties for those who are not close to someone who has lost a child to the war(s).  The country blocks out the information, but when it’s in front of you every day it’s a difficult task to accomplish.  As casualties mount, the country increasingly needs to see the moral imperative for the losses.

It’s just the way it is.  War is a costly and awful thing, and a country must be dedicated to the cause for what it sees as good and morally justified reasons in order to maintain commitment.  I cannot possibly see how the UK can justify the loss of one of its sons for a New York Times reporter.  Some discussions on this issue will foray into policy.  I’m not talking about policy.  I’m talking about value judgments.  In order to understand this from the perspective of a British parent who has lost his son to save a reporter, one needs to think viscerally and personally.  Policy just won’t do.  Sometimes it’s appropriate to ponder over the dark things that other people experience.  It helps to form values.

Colonel Gian Gentile continues to point out the obvious dictum that counterinsurgency is not a strategy.  It is a set of tactics rolled up into a discrete form of military operation.  But it may not be so obvious to everyone.  Beyond implementing certain kinds of tactics (tactics that by themselves, i.e., without the necessary force projection, do nothing, or worse yet, harm the campaign), what is the overarching plan for the campaign?

The populist narrative can be found at a recent Huffington Post article.

From a strategic and financial perspective, the push to bolster the numbers and quality of the Afghan forces makes clear sense. On the strategic level, the coalition simply doesn’t have enough troops to satisfy the “clear, hold and build” formula of the counterinsurgency campaign against the Taliban. Earlier this year, the Director of National Intelligence, former Admiral Dennis Blair, told Congress that the Afghan forces were less than one-tenth the size necessary to defend country. And as McChrystal has noted, “The demand and the supply don’t line up, even with the new troops that are coming in.” The financial equation is equally apparent. In pure dollar terms, the U.S. can field and train 60 Afghans for the price of one deployed American soldier.

Tactics and dollars are important criterion by which to evaluate the proposal; however, the real value of increasing the strength and size of the Afghan forces is less obvious. A successful counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan will require the coalition to protect the civilian population and win their support in the fight against the Taliban. With these goals in mind, strengthening the Afghanistan National Army and Police may represent the single most important aspect of McChyrstal’s new strategy.

Why? Because bolstering the Afghan security forces will not only restore trust in coalition forces, but also build Afghans’ confidence in the future of the country.

So the overall strategic goal is to train the Afghan National Army, start them up more quickly, and make the size of the ANA larger.  It’s simple math according to the Huffington Post.  Get 60 for one – what a deal.  But like used car salesmen, when you’re told that there is a deal waiting for you, it’s a lie.  There are no deals, and how a country with the GNP of Afghanistan is going to support a professional ANA of this size of simply not yet even on the drawing board of the planners.

Recall our coverage of the ANA? We have watched watched the ANA engage in drug abuse, smoke hashish before patrols, collude with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops, themselves claim that they cannot hold Helmand without Marines and fear being killed if they even go out into the streets, be relatively ineffective against Taliban fighters, sleep on their watch, and claim to be on vacation in the Helmand Province.

But if the Huffington Post is the idiot’s narrative for the “new strategy,” there is a moderately more sophisticated version on the other side of the political isle.  It comes from Fred Kagan, who argued at the National Review Online (a link that is no longer valid) that the number of forces per non-combatant required in FM 3-24 could be filled by ANA, not U.S. or NATO forces.  So Kagan argues for the same counterinsurgency tactics as a strategy, but concurs with the notion of a rapid startup of ANA in lieu of U.S. force presence.

“The surge of forces that some (including me) are proposing is intended to bridge the gap between current Afghan capacity and their future capacity, while simultaneously reducing the insurgency’s capabilities. Whatever may happen in Afghanistan, counterinsurgency theory does not call for the deployment of hundreds of thousands of coalition forces for decades.”

The Afghan National Police are horrible, and even more horrible still.  The ANP cannot be relied upon any time soon, but is the assessment we have made of the ANA above still accurate after lo these many days (30 or so) since we opined?  Well, when Julie Jacobson isn’t wasting her time taking photos that should never have been published, she is actually doing some fairly good reporting in certain instances (but one has to wade through the trash to find it).  This kind of report is what she should have been doing all along, since it actually informs the reader.

It was freakin’ hot. About 115 degrees. The patrol started at 11 a.m. I don’t know whose bright idea it was to start it at that time. We started walking in two columns. Not five minutes out of the post gunfire erupted from the hillside to our right. We all just started running for cover behind walls. The ANA dropped into holes to provide cover but I don’t think they ever fired a shot. They just kind of sat there staring. All the cover fire came from the Marine support vehicles.

So the ANA dropped into holes and never fired in this kinetic engagement.  How are they doing with the whole winning hearts and minds tactic?  This account gives us pause.

The U.S. military is reaching out to civilians more now that NATO’s top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has made gaining popular support the crux of his counterinsurgency strategy.

While that includes doling out cash, it also means consulting villagers in a region where local councils are a normal means of decision-making — including allowing residents directly affected by operations to air their grievances.

Abdul-Hamid, his wife, and their 10 children, for instance, endured a terrifying, middle-of-the-night ordeal on the outskirts of Dahaneh, a longtime Taliban stronghold stormed last week by Marines from Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines.

The Marines arrived by helicopter in the middle of the night, shoving M-16s in the family members’ faces as multiple squads stormed through. At one point, one of the farmer’s adult sons cried softly because his plastic handcuffs were so tight his fingers turned purple.

The Marines then used explosives to burst through the wall into the compound belonging to Abdul-Hamid’s neighbor. A baby started crying after the second explosion sent shrapnel and debris flying high over Abdul-Hamid’s courtyard.

Minutes later, the Taliban in town had regrouped and begun firing rockets, mortars and missiles at the Marines resisting from Abdul-Hamid’s and his neighbor’s compounds.

Barely two days after that, Abdul-Hamid sat down with village elders, Afghan army officers and a dozen Marines, discussing how to improve relations and bring normalcy back to Dahaneh.

The elders wanted their detained clansmen freed, which Marines said would happen once they’d been fully investigated. The elders assured the troops that no Taliban were left in town and pledged to press fleeing civilians to return.

Abdul-Hamid wanted the troops to return to his house, where Afghan soldiers who’d moved in along with the Marines were already plucking chickens from his courtyard.

There you have it.  Plucking the chickens of the locals.  The reality of the situation is that the planning for ANA troops has been there all along.  There is nothing new regardless of what the Huffington Post says, and this still won’t work in the short term regardless of what Fred Kagan says.  Afghanistan is a long term commitment, and without the force projection by professional troops such as the U.S. Army and Marines, the campaign is lost.

In a sad for the U.S. Marine Corps, four Marines have perished in Afghanistan.   Lamenting their deaths and praying for their families is appropriate, but it’s also important to note the circumstances surrounding this incident.

Four U.S. Marines died Tuesday when they walked into a well-laid ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter for the Marine commander also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle, which lasted seven hours.

Three American service members and 14 Afghan security force members were wounded.

It was the largest number of American military trainers to die in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The battle took place around the remote hamlet of Gangigal, in a valley about six miles from the Pakistani border, after local elders invited the U.S. and Afghan forces for a meeting.

American officers said there was no doubt that they’d walked into a trap, as the insurgents were dug in at the village, and had preset their weapons and their fields of fire.

Again, this is a sad day for the Marines, but I sense that there is more here than casualties.  Or better said, there is more here than a mere tactical or intelligence failure.  I fear that we are attempting to win hearts and minds without the necessary concomitant force projection.  We all know that the Anbar experience will not directly apply to Helmand, or Kunar, or anywhere else for that matter.  But if we can look past that nuance we can learn from the campaign for Anbar and what lessons it might have for us in Afghanistan.

Recall the example of Abu Ahmed and Al-Qaim.

The 40-year-old is a hero to the 50,000 residents of Al-Qaim for having chased Al-Qaeda from the agricultural centre where houses line the green and blue waters of the Euphrates.

In the main street, with its fruit and vegetable stalls, its workshops and restaurants, men with pistols in their belts approach Abu Ahmed to kiss his cheek and right shoulder in a mark of respect.

It was not always this way.

He tells how one evening in May 2005 he decided that the disciples of Osama bin Laden went too far — they killed his cousin Jamaa Mahal.

“I started shooting in the air and throughout the town bursts of gunfire echoed across the sky. My family understood that the time had come. And we started the war against Al-Qaeda.”

It took three battles in the streets of Al-Qaim — in June, in July and then in November 2005 — to finish off the extremists who had come from Arab countries to fight the Americans.

Abu Ahmed, initially defeated by better equipped forces, had to flee to the desert region of Akashat, around 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of Al-Qaim. There he sought help from the US Marines.

“With their help we were able to liberate Al-Qaim,” he said, sitting in his house with its maroon tiled facade.

This alliance between a Sunni tribe and American troops was to be the first, and it give birth to a strategy of other US-paid Sunni fighters ready to mobilise against Al-Qaeda.

It resulted in the Sunni province of Al-Anbar being pacified in two years.

The US military, which since it led the Spring 2003 invasion of Iraq had sought to control the frontier with Syria, found in the men of Abu Ahmed an auxiliary force completely au fait with all the routes used by the smugglers.

And while Abu Ahmed has been able to receive the homage and rewards which are seen as his right as a warlord, he is very aware that the current calm is a fragile one.

“I’ve drawn up my will several times,” he said. “I expect to die.”

The myth has it that Ramadi and Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was the first such instance of coupling of Marines and indigenous fighters.  It wasn’t.  The myth also says that we finally awoke and attempted to court the friendship of the local sheiks.  Maybe there is an element of truth to that in certain parts of Anbar (not in Fallujah at any time, and not in Haditha), but the initial seeds of the awakening had to do with the indigenous fighters observing that the Marines had force projection and were willing to use it.

Granted that there is a huge difference between Anbar and the Kunar Province where Marines are embedded with the Afghan National Army.  But that’s the point, isn’t it?  The ANA isn’t ready, there aren’t enough Marines, and the locals take advantage of Marines who are implementing counterinsurgency tactics taken directly from FM 3-24.

This was my fear – that counterinsurgency tactics advocated in FM 3-24 would become so religiously ingrained into the thinking of the armed forces that they would believe that it applies in any situation and without the necessary force projection to back up the nice intent.

Carrots and stick, folks.  All carrots and no sticks makes for brave warriors who perish on the field of battle because the local fighters have little to fear – not because of our own warriors, but because of the lack of resourcing and tactics being implemented.

UPDATE:

It now appears that this may be yet another example of a rules of engagement problem.

GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition.

“We will do to you what we did to the Russians,” the insurgent’s leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.

Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to arrive, despite earlier assurances that air cover would be five minutes away.

U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at attackers dug into the slopes and tree lines — despite being told repeatedly that they weren’t near the village.

“We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo. We have no air. We’ve lost today,” Marine Maj. Kevin Williams, 37, said through his translator to his Afghan counterpart, responding to the latter’s repeated demands for helicopters.

Four U.S. Marines were killed Tuesday, the most U.S. service members assigned as trainers to the Afghan National Army to be lost in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Eight Afghan troops and police and the Marine commander’s Afghan interpreter also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle that raged from dawn until 2 p.m. around this remote hamlet in eastern Kunar province, close to the Pakistan border.

Three Americans and 19 Afghans were wounded, and U.S. forces later recovered the bodies of two insurgents, although they believe more were killed.

The Marines were cut down as they sought cover in a trench at the base of the village’s first layer cake-style stone house. Much of their ammunition was gone. One Marine was bending over a second, tending his wounds, when both were killed, said Marine Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 21, of Greensburg, Ky., who retrieved their bodies.

I said it would happen, and only recently “officials” have admitted that the new Afghanistan ROE have opened up new space for the insurgents.  Now it has cost the lives of four more U.S. Marines.  How many more Marines will have to die before this issue is addressed?  The new ROE should have been dealt with as a classified memorandum of encouragement and understanding to consider holistic consequences of actions rather than a change to formal rules by which our Marines and Soldiers are prosecuted by courts.  Yet the damage has been and continues to be done by poor decisions at the highest levels of leadership.

Damn the ROE.

In response to Publishing the Marine Photo: Remember the Words of Christ, John Bernard, 1stsgt USMC ret., speaks.

I am Lcpl Joshua Bernard’s Father. I deeply appreciate your intense concern over this immoral act and believe these folks are working without a functional conscience as described in Romans chapter 1. Having said that; I will make the same point here that I have now made repeatedly in interviews. We cannot let this ‘distraction’ change the important elements of the greater story and that is the implimentation of the new ROE. There aren’t 1000 Afghan lives that are worth a single Marine’s life. I say this because I am first an American and Marine – not a world citizen. We have a right and responsibility to export violence to defend these shores and our citizenry. Anything less and we will be judged ‘found wanting’ as the Bible describes those who fail to do what they know to be right. It is time for us to hold our elected officials accountable and renind them that they are Americans and for the attrocities against our Warriors that they are complicit in. Keep fighting the fight guys, here in your blog as I am with this small window of opportunity I have been given through the shed blood of my only son.

John Bernard
1stsgt USMC ret.

For more, see Proud to be a Marine.