Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

CSM on the insurgency in Southern Afghanistan.

US and Afghan security officials say that in Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, border police training has been going on for much longer.

“We’ve only been focusing on the border police in the south for nine months,” says Hix. Until now, the focus in Afghanistan’s violent south has been on building the region’s district police forces, and “there just weren’t enough resources to train the border police,” he explains.

It took longer to begin training programs for border patrol officers in the south, because the fight here is viewed by US military commanders as less of a commuter’s war. Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban movement, and, unlike the northern and eastern regions of Afghanistan, homegrown insurgents are plentiful.

“In the east, they have a much bigger Pakistan problem than we do,” says Hix, referring to Pakistan’s tribal areas across the border. where militants enjoy safe haven and can enter Afghanistan freely. “Down here, a lot of the enemy is local. In the south, the enemy is enabled by forces in Pakistan, not dependent on Pakistan.”

As for corruption, he says that “there will always be smuggling. Always has been, always will be, as there is in every country in the world. But coalition monitors tell me that pilferage here is less than the percentage of pilferage that has been documented at some Western ports of entry.”

Afghan security officials understand all too well the problems facing the ABP.

“I believe in the border police’s efforts, and I believe they’re capable,” says Brig. Gen. Shermohammed Zazi, who commands the Afghan National Army’s 205 Corps in Kandahar. “But they don’t have enough personnel to cover a 1,000-plus kilometer border, and they don’t have proper equipment.”

And of course, the border has two sides. Some ABP officials complain that their Pakistani counterparts, though better funded, are less effective than the Afghans are.

Still, resources for the border police on the Afghan side are what most concern coalition forces here.

In southern Afghanistan, district-level police number between 6,000 and 7,000, about twice the size of the border patrol. Money for the ABP comes out of the larger police budget, making it difficult to gauge the exact cost of the program. Hix has promised to provide Hakim with up-armored Humvees and other equipment once it becomes available.

The six-week training currently offered by the coalition is less about police work and more about how to survive contact with insurgents. Unlike district police, the border guards operate in small units on far-flung outposts, with little backup.

It’s a dangerous job, and the training includes an emergency medical care component to help stem casualties.

While Afghan and US security officials are optimistic about the program, the ABP has a long way to go.

“Here,” says Hix, “hope is in degrees.”

In the Northern and Eastern reaches of Afghanistan we are fighting the Tehrik-i-Taliban and the Haqqani network of fighters, both of whom find safe haven in Pakistan.  But it’s important to remember that the Afgan Taliban have their leaders and headquarters just across the Pakistan border in Quetta.  200 Afghan Border Police cannot possibly hope to accomplish this mission.  But there is hope on the way.

Some 7,000 new U.S. troops ordered to Afghanistan by President Barack Obama are fanning out across the country’s dangerous south on a mission to defeat an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency.

Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Abe Sipe says 7,000 troops from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade are now in the country. The brigade is based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The Marines represent the first wave of 21,000 troops ordered to Afghanistan this summer. Most of the buildup will take place in Helmand and Kandahar.

The two southern provinces lie at the heart of the insurgency and are close to the border with Pakistan, where the Taliban’s top leadership is believed to be based.

The lot appears to be cast for the U.S. Marines.  While Army, Army SOF and the CIA are taking on the border regions with Northern Pakistan, the Marines have been assigned to the indigenous insurgency in the South.

TheStar.com gives us a very important look into IEDs, patrols and counterinsurgency from Camp Carwile, Afghanistan.  The entire report is duplicated below since all of it contributes to our own analysis.

CAMP CARWILE, Afghanistan – The United States has 39,000 troops in Afghanistan and thousands more on the way, but soldiers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep the area around the capital safe from roadside bombs and gunfire.

Last Monday, four American soldiers stationed at Camp Carwile, just a few hours outside Kabul, were killed by roadside bombs that blew their armoured Humvees into the air. Two days later, three more patrols were hit by bombs. In that incident, no one was killed.

U.S. patrols are using cellphone jammers to try to thwart radio-controlled bombs, and they are installing vehicles with metal detectors. But while these techniques may be effective on dirt roads, on highways insurgents are switching to pressure-plate bombs that explode when driven over; setting off bombs with command wire; and putting explosives in concrete and steel culverts under paved roads.

Taliban fighters set up beyond the tree line hundreds of metres away and wait for American patrols.

“Sometimes they dig a hole in the main asphalt highway, put in the bomb, fill it in, melt tires overtop, and then spread dirt over that section,” says Lt. Alvin Cavalier, whose platoon scours roads for improvised explosive devices. “No one can say they aren’t effective.”

Besides the threat of IEDs, soldiers say they’re constantly targeted by mortars and gunfire, and efforts to cultivate relations with villagers are meeting with difficulty.

“We took out this high-value insurgent target a month or so back, and people here were acting like he was Robin Hood,” says Sgt.-Maj. Dewayne Blackmon. “The whole town was in mourning over his death. They closed all the stores like he was a local hero. How do you change something like that?

“I understand it, I really do,” Blackmon continues. “The Taliban shows up and says, `If you cooperate with the Americans, we will kill you.’ They don’t know how long we are really going to be in Afghanistan. So what choice do they have?

“This war isn’t going to be won on technology. We need to be doing a better job relationship building.”

Even relations between U.S. and Afghan soldiers are sometimes fractious. Afghan soldiers are no longer allowed on the U.S. section of Carwile after some were discovered stealing from American soldiers, and now, while U.S. troops live two or three to a room in wooden cabins and enjoy amenities such as a gym, large-screen TV and ping-pong table, Afghan troops live together in a single canvas tent, exposed to bone-rattling winds whipping off the nearby mountains.

“The Americans keep promising they’ll help us build a hut, but it never comes,” says Fawad Seddiqi, a 20-year-old translator who works for the U.S. Army but lives in the Afghan section of the base.

U.S. troops say they have reason to be wary of local Afghan soldiers and police. In March, Cavalier headed out from Carwile with his platoon on a routine patrol to scour the roads for bombs. During the patrol, a suspected drug smuggler and Taliban conspirator was detained. But the soldiers were ordered to turn the suspect over to Afghan police.

Two hours later, when U.S. Special Forces arrived at the base to question the suspect, he’d vanished.

Analysis & Commentary

This report documents a failing counterinsurgency effort – failing because wrong strategy has informed the tactics, techniques and procedures.  To begin with, why are Special Forces being brought in to interrogate a suspect?  Because of knowledge of Dari or Pashto?  Not a knowledge that is likely any better than their translator.  This is a misuse of Special Forces, who ought to be embedded as trainers with the Afghan forces (SF) or attached to infantry (SOF).

Speaking of translators, Sgt. Maj. Blackmon is right.  The U.S. needs to build better relationships.  During the Marines’ tenure in Anbar, the Arabic translators were often considered as Marines themselves, and in fact, Iraqi translators have been allowed Stateside and joined the Marines.  What is their translator doing garrisoned with the Afghans?  A translator is perhaps the most important asset in the U.S. arsenal.  Why isn’t he happy and fulfilled in his job?  Why is a situation allowed to exist where he has unaddressed complaints?

Speaking of being garrisoned, why aren’t the forces out on foot patrol for extended periods of time?  What good does having a large screen TV and ping pong table do for the counterinsurgency effort?  Sgt. Blackmon is right again.  Technology will not win the war, from TVs to armored vehicles and cellphone jammers.  Infantry on foot will.

Every technological advantage we have will be turned against us with some low level, cheap and easy defeater by innovative insurgents.  MRAPS and other armored personnel carriers are merely ways to keep the U.S. from engaging both the enemy and the population.  Infantry belongs on foot.

Corporal William Ash, a squad leader from 1st Platoon, Bravo Company, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), along with a stray dog lead a patrol through a city in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. When the platoon moved into the area, they found two stray dogs, and each time the Marines head out on patrol the dogs are right at the Marines’ side.

Camp Carwile may be a good place to rest, eat and relax in between patrols, all the while providing good force protection.  But this force protection has a purpose.  It is to allow resupply, regrouping and recuperation.  It should only be a temporary station between protracted, continual multi-day foot patrols from smaller FOBs and combat outposts.

Killing insurgents like Sir Robin Hood will convince the population that it’s too dangerous to fight the Army.  Spending time with the population will convince them that the Army is able to protect them from people like Robin Hood, who in reality, brings violence and takes what little wealth they have.  Sgt. Blackmon needn’t worry – they don’t really want Robin Hood there.  They want security.

The Center for a New American Security, which is advising the Obama administration, has released Triage: The Next Twelve Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Permit us a few observations?  On page 4 we read that they advocate that we:

Adopt a truly population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes protecting the population rather than controlling physical terrain or killing the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Notice how killing Taliban and al Qaeda has been set in juxtaposition over against protecting the population, as if the two are mutually exclusive.  We have dealt with this before in Center of Gravity Versus Lines of Effort in COIN, where we argued that the Clausewitzian concept of a single center of gravity should be jettisoned in favor of multiple lines of operation and lines of effort.  As far as protecting the population and killing the enemy, it isn’t EITHER-OR, it’s BOTH-AND.   But we have to get off of the huge FOBs in order to do it.  Dealing with this in a little more visceral way, let’s allow Greyhawk to respond as he did in a comment at Abu Muqawama.

I may be wrong – but there seems to be some fundamental misunderstanding of COIN in general and “protecting the population” at play here.

The idea that those are somehow efforts that don’t involve killing bad guys and blowing things up is wrong. I know this is obvious to 90% of the people who comment here, but there’s also a growing number of people seeking understanding of this newfangled “COIN” business who may be under the impression that it’s some sort of bloodless warfare – and some may scan these comments for illumination. If you aren’t among that number skip this rest of this.

In Iraq for the early days of the surge we did not pull away from contact for fear of hurting someone – in fact we did the opposite. We plopped ourselves down in various neighborhoods (very much to protect the populations therein) knowing full well a bit of the old ultra violence would ensue. Check the death tolls* – civilian or military – for late winter to early summer ’07 to see the result.

We killed bad guys (“irreconcilables”) in droves. If they didn’t come to us, we air assaulted (sorry – delivered troops via helicopter) to them. And if CAS (sorry – close air support, aka death from above via fixed or rotary wing aircraft…) was needed for TIC (sorry – troops in contact, meaning exchanging gunfire with the enemy), CAS was delivered. (Do not, however, take this to mean wanton, indiscriminate slaughter.)

COIN is not a fluffy bunny warfare world where no one gets hurt and we all ride unicorns over rainbows. It is very much killing the enemy. Protecting the population requires it.

To be completely fair, they do tip the hat to “lines of operation” on page 15, but this still doesn’t undo the basic presupposition where one aspect of counterinsurgency is set over against another.  But it gets a little better.  On page 19 and following, CNAS may even be taking a page from us when they take direct aim at the HVT concept.  If they are advocating a stand-down from the high value target campaign, they we heartily agree.  We have gone further in advocating the re-attachment of SOF to infantry, and getting infantry all places, everywhere, all of the time.

But of course, this requires troops.  What is strangely missing in this report is advocacy for large troop additions.  It isn’t mere coincidence that John Nagl, who once advocated 600,000 troops for Afghanistan, now heads up CNAS which is advising the Obama administration.  It has become apparent that this administration will not contribute more than around 68,000 troops to Afghanistan.

The report may not be the triage it was meant to be.  Instead, it may be well intentioned [politically affected?] analysis that sends too few men on an impossible mission.

After publishing A Half-Dozen Gargantuan Bases where we discussed the cloistering of Army troops on large FOBs in Afghanistan, we had reactions across the spectrum from Joshua Foust who believes that Philip Smucker’s piece exaggerated the risks in most areas of Afghanistan, to other contacts (active duty Army in Afghanistan) who responded that Smucker had gotten it exactly right.

Friend of The Captain’s Journal Tim Lynch of Free Range International provides a recent significant addition to this narrative.  For folks who get fumed at inter-service rivalries, you may stop reading now.  But a serious reading of Tim’s commentary shows that it isn’t about inter-service rivalries.  It’s about much more than that – institutional intransigence.

As I mentioned in my last post I do not really know what our mission in Afghanistan is. We are engaged in a counterinsurgency war but confine the troops to large FOB’s which directly contradicts our counterinsurgency doctrine. Our troops do not have sustained meaningful contact with local Afghans, cannot provide any real security to them, and due to Big Army casualty policies are forced to ride around in large multimillion dollar MRAP’s where they are subject to IED strikes which they cannot prevent because they do not control one meter of ground outside their FOBs …

While in the VIP barracks – a wooded B hut with my own little bed and table, I listened to the staff officers as they prepared to fly out to various other FOB’s to attend conferences of great import. One discussion I remember is an upcoming multi-day confab concerning “Water Shed Management.” Why the hell are we concerning ourselves with Afghan water shed management?  We have FOB’s sitting in important cities in which the main canals are full of garbage, human and animal waste, large protozoan parasites, and toxic sludge but instead of taking care of that simple problem we are conducting huge meetings on big box FOB’s with lots of senior officers about water shed management.  You know why? Because dozens of senior officers, Department of State flunkies, and US AID techno weenies can spend their entire tour preparing slides, looking at studies, conducting historical research, looking up old hands from the American heyday of public works projects in the Helmund Valley (back in the 50’s and 60’s) to produce a product which in the end is meaningless to the Afghans but shows “forward thinking” on behalf of the fobbits. They then can have multi-day super high speed presentations about water shed management without ever having to leave the FOB’s, deal with a real Afghan, or actually see, taste or feel any real water. It is virtual stability operations done by people who want to help but can’t so they do the next best thing which it to switch on the denial mechanism resident in us all and plow ahead on complex projects designed by complex people who are spending a virtual tour in Afghanistan …

His entire commentary is highly recommended, but now we come to the hard stuff.

You will not hear much about the Marines in the months ahead because they run counter to the preferred MSM narrative but the Afghans in the Helmund valley know who they are and they, according to our local sources (which are extensive in the region…The Boss was exporting fruit and cotton out of here back in 97 when the Taliban ruled and has more than a few reliable sources) the Afghans eagerly await the arrival of the Marines as they understand the Marines are here to stay. The Afghans in the Helmund like the Marines who they feel treat them with more respect than the other forces operating in the region. They also admire the tenacity of Marine infantry and their propensity to operate in small units while taking on large formation of Taliban. I have cited in previous posts examples from the mighty 3rd Battalion 8th Marines who had platoons numbering around 30 Marines attacking groups of Taliban numbering in the hundreds.  They beat on these thugs like a drum while sustaining zero causalities. Old Terry the Taliban doesn’t like fighting the Marines – he would rather throw acid on little girls or behead stoned ANP troops but that is the way it is going to be this summer.  They can run or they can die – there are no other options for the frigging cowards …

The number of enemy killed is meaningless – you have to kill the right guys – the bomb makers, foreign trainers, leaders, and money men. These are the “high value targets” (HVT’s) our tier one special ops guys go after in raids launched from afar based on suspect intelligence which more often results in the killing of innocent Afghans. The only way to separate HVT’s from the people is to be out in the districts with the people – no other method will work which is exactly what our counterinsurgency doctrine says should be done. There is only one large outfit in Afghanistan with the training, ability, attitude, courage and balls to do that – the United States Marine Corps. There are plenty of American Army and ISAF units who can do the same – again it is the institutions which are flawed not the individuals. But the Marines produce competent combat leaders who retain the hunger for the fight at the senior level. They also have the confidence in their small unit leaders to allow them to go outside the wire and stay there.

The Army SF teams, SEALS, SAS operators and small unit fighters from other lands who are as lethal and dedicated as the Marines all welcome the MEB.  They prefer Marine helicopter gunships – primitive though they are when compared to the Army Apache – because Marine pilots fly right into the teeth of dug in enemy to take them on at ridiculously low altitudes and at close ranges. An Army SF guy I talked with said that when his men were pinned down fighting for their lives it was a Marine Huey pilot who hovered right above them spraying mini-gun fire into the faces of the Taliban. Col Mellinger who is the operations officer for the 2^nd MEB confirmed the story adding that the pilot took 3 AK rounds in the only place on the bird which would not bring it down – the self sealing fuel tanks. No stand off rocket shots for Marine pilots; they want to get close enough to shoot pistols at the Taliban. The various special operators out there now, preparing the battle space for the 2^nd MEB  love Marine air… who wouldn’t?

Tim’s words folks, not mine.  There’s more than a little Oorah in Tim’s commentary, but coming from someone who is in theater and not constrained by hurting feelings, it’s meaningful to read confirmatory analysis.  At TCJ we have been highly critical of these tier one SOF raids that are launched from suspect intelligence and in reality accomplish very little of benefit.  It has been a constant theme, and re-attaching SOF to infantry, and then getting infantry off of the FOBs has been exactly our own counsel.

Note also that there is none of this “butterflies are beautiful and we love you so love us back” counterinsurgency doctrine from Tim.  Tim advocates killing Taliban, but making sure that it’s Taliban with the big T.  The only way to do this is to be amongst the people.

If you have heard it once here at TCJ, you have heard it a thousand times.  And now you’ve heard it from Tim Lynch.  Stop the ridiculous PowerPoint presentations.  Ban them.  Deploy to far flung areas and be amongst the people.  Kill Taliban.

We have been a critic of the specific use in which special operations forces have been employed in Afghanistan.  Just to rehearse two recent examples, in Lt. Gen. McChrystal Testifies we said:

TCJ had also hoped that General McChrystal would attach Army SOF to units in the field rather than use them on raids.  No such thing is on his mind, apparently.  Now, we have admitted before of our being nonplussed at this idea, this notion of SOF being the direct action kinetics troops, with so-called General Purpose troops being the defensive forces.  TCJ opposes this …

In A Half Dozen Gargantuan Bases, we said:

Even many of the Army SOF are base-bound except for their forays into the wild via helicopter rides to the next raid.  Some Army are doing it right (e.g., the Korangal Valley), as are the Marines in Helmand.  But the gargantuan bases are an obstacle to success in Afghanistan.  Empty them.  Send the Army on dismounted patrols, open vehicle patrol bases, smaller FOBs, and combat outposts.  Get amongst the people.

Regular readers of TCJ know that this is only a small sampling of our advocacy for re-attaching SOF to infantry as specialized billets.  Now comes developments in the area of use of SOF in Afghanistan.

McChrystal has asked two veteran special operators on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, which he directs, to accompany him to Afghanistan once he wins Senate approval for a fourth star. The two are Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, who headed intelligence for the chief terrorist hunting unit in Iraq; and Brig Gen. Austin Miller, a Joint Staff director for special operations.

Military sources say Brig. Gen. Ed Reeder, who commands special operations in Afghanistan, went in-country earlier this year to revamp the way Green Beret “A” Teams, Delta Force and other special operators conduct counter-insurgency.

Green Berets, the same group that led the 2001 ouster of the Taliban from power, now primarily work out of fire support bases, often independently of conventional forces. They fight to control the Taliban-infested border with Pakistan, and train the Afghan army.

Critics within special operations have said the A Teams need to work more closely with conventional forces and with NATO counterparts. “This would give us a needed one-two punch,” said a former operator who served in Afghanistan.

Recalling the ridiculous red tape in NATO’s Afghanistan, TCJ is in favor of returning this to as much of a U.S. operation as possible (including the British, by the way).  This isn’t to show disrespect to our NATO allies, but rather, to say that the effort must be led by the U.S.  But aside from that nuance (” … and with NATO counterparts”), we are certainly one of the critics of SOF.

Note that we aren’t critical of SF (Green Berets) being embedded with the Afghan Army anywhere.  With their language training, that’s there job.  We are indeed critical of SOF (Rangers, et. al.) being detached from infantry and the very counterinsurgency campaign that they should be supporting.  As we have said before, it is almost as bad an idea to separate SOF from the larger COIN campaign as it is to separate infantry from kinetics.

So TCJ nailed it, and we’ve been doing the fancy dancing.  Or did we, and should we?  How will this play out, and what will McChrystal do?  How will he use SOF?  Will this still be a HVT campaign to find and capture mid-level Taliban commanders, sending them to jail only to be set free and resume activities later, or will it become a real counterinsurgency campaign?  Time will tell, but this critic will continue to monitor the situation.

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This is what’s called close air support (CAS).  Warning: graphic language.

For the Aussies, it isn’t clear, but it had better be from home or they’ll get pissy.

There have been few if any complaints about the Dutch troops in Afghanistan from the other countries in the coalition forming the International Support and Assistance Force (ISAF). Generally they are regarded as valuable colleagues doing a good job.

However, there is one problem being experienced by the 800 Australian troops who share the Tarin Kowt military base in Uruzgan province with Dutch troops. The Dutch are in charge of the mess and the Aussies are less than happy about the food. There have been so many complaints about the Dutch food being “tasteless” and “not fresh” that the issue has been raised in the parliament in Canberra.

At a special defence budget hearing, Australia’s military commander air chief marshall Angus Houston commented: “It’s not Aussie food, it’s European food. People have been quite strong in their views about the European food”. Senator David Johnston said, “I think it was an insult to them. The least they could expect when they are deployed for six months is that they can eat proper food”.

The Dutch cooks at Tarin Kowt serve around 2500 soldiers a day, a mix of Dutch, Australian, French, Slovakian and British troops. The food is prepared in the Netherlands, frozen and then shipped to Karachi in Pakistan. From there it goes by road to Afghanistan. With delays at the border, the journey can take as much as two or three months. Because of food safety considerations, ISAF bases are not permitted to use local Afghan fruit or vegetables. Those are flown in from Dubai.

Houston told the Australian parliament: “We listen to our people. Our people have indicated they’d like some Aussie food.” A team of Australian military cooks has been rushed to Afghanistan.

Hmmm … proper food.  Well, the eating establishment looks something like this.

It is fairly well known that Australia won’t allow any troops but their Special Operations Forces to actually participate in kinetic operations in Afghanistan.  Now here is a picture of vittles for the U.S. Marines in Helmand (Garmser, where is there no electricity).

Well, perhaps if Australia would allow their infantrymen to deploy and perform infantry tactics and maneuvers in Afghanistan, they wouldn’t be so obsessed with “proper” vittles at a posh FOB as the Aussie SOF.

Philip Smucker in the Asia Times:

Although the US is not technically losing, it would be extremely hard to argue that Afghanistan’s safety has not been sacrificed due to the policies of a risk-averse American government. A basic premise of the US military’s own strategy is that ultimate success is gained “by protecting the populace, not the counter-insurgency force”. This principle is violated daily.

The Pentagon’s high-tech-centric approach to the fight in Afghanistan has produced – since 9/11 – a half-dozen gargantuan bases – with more on the way. These are little more than anachronistic monuments to the US military’s superior firepower. At Bagram and Jalalabad air bases, aerial drones, commanded by joystick pilots in the deserts of Nevada, circle and land. Invisible F-16s and F-15s lay figure-eight smoke trails in the blue skies above Tora Bora. At dusk, the snow line of the Hindu Kush is flush with Apache attack helicopters and larger Chinooks. None of them are the key to victory.

In the last several months of living and talking to American soldiers and officers in the field, particularly along the eastern front, I have been impressed with their understanding of what it will take to win in Afghanistan. One enthusiastic young Southerner, Major Tommy Cardone, boiled it down to a useful campaign slogan, “It’s the people, stupid!” Indeed, I was left with the impression that the US military does have a strategy; if only the cautious generals and politicians in Washington will allow it to be implemented.

To win in Afghanistan, the US military – and its Afghan partners – must follow best-practices counter-insurgency down to the last of Afghanistan’s 40,000 villages. Only by taking the fight – along with Afghan soldiers and policemen – to the countryside will the Taliban be isolated and excluded from what Chairman Mao Zedong once referred to as the sea of the people.

Regular readers know that we have always held a nuanced view of counterinsurgency.  There is no reason for FM 3-24 to place protection of the population in juxtaposition over against killing insurgents.  It isn’t an EITHER-OR choice.  It is BOTH-AND.  They are corollary and coupled propositions, not a dilemma.  See for instance the Marine operations in Helmand in 2008 in which the Marines killed some 400 Taliban fighters, but also in which the population made it clear that they wanted the Marines to stay.  From our Following the Marines Through Helmand III:

Take particular note of the words of town elder Abdul Nabi: “We are grateful for the security.  We don’t need your help, just security.”  Similar words were spoken at a meeting in Ghazni with the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan: ““We don’t want food, we don’t want schools, we want security!” said one woman council member.”

Again, similar words were spoken upon the initial liberation of Garmser by the U.S. Marines: “The next day, at a meeting of Marines and Afghan elders, the bearded, turban-wearing men told Marine Capt. Charles O’Neill that the two sides could “join together” to fight the Taliban. “When you protect us, we will be able to protect you,” the leader of the elders said.”

The narrative emerging is not one of largesse, roads, education, crop rotation, irrigation and all of the other elements of the soft side of counterinsurgency.  To be sure, these elements are necessary and good, but sequentially they come after security.

While it isn’t necessarily true – this narrative of the Army on large FOBs in Iraq until Petraeus arrrived (some Army units were conducting dismounted patrols and living amongst the people) – this problem of gargantuan bases in Afghanistan seems to be recurring.  Andrew Lubin, who has also been to Afghanistan and comments wisely on his experiences, says:

Get the Army off their huge stupid bases where bureaucracy flourishes. Put them in the field where they belong. Their “creature comforts” have gotten out of control…Burger Kings, Orange Julius, jewelry stores, -do you know they now offer massage services at Bagram? In a war zone?

Even many of the Army SOF are base-bound except for their forays into the wild via helicopter rides to the next raid.  Some Army are doing it right (e.g., the Korangal Valley), as are the Marines in Helmand.  But the gargantuan bases are an obstacle to success in Afghanistan.  Empty them.  Send the Army on dismounted patrols, open vehicle patrol bases, smaller FOBs, and combat outposts.  Get amongst the people.  Only then will they sense that you are committed and give you intelligence – leading ultimately to killing Taliban, which will then further contribute to their security, and so on the process goes.

Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has recently testified before Congress concerning both his nomination to lead the Afghan campaign and the recent air strikes involving noncombatant casualties.

On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, nominated to be the American commander in Afghanistan, vowed that reducing civilian casualties would be “essential to our credibility.”

Any American victory would be “hollow and unsustainable” if it led to popular resentment among Afghanistan’s citizens, General McChrystal told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a confirmation hearing.

According to the senior military official, the report on the May 4 raids found that one plane was cleared to attack Taliban fighters, but then had to circle back and did not reconfirm the target before dropping bombs, leaving open the possibility that the militants might have fled the site or that civilians might have entered the target area in the intervening few minutes.

In another case, a compound of buildings where militants were massing for a possible counterattack against American and Afghan troops was struck in violation of rules that required a more imminent threat to justify putting high-density village dwellings at risk, the official said.

“In several instances where there was a legitimate threat, the choice of how to deal with that threat did not comply with the standing rules of engagement,” said the military official, who provided a broad summary of the report’s initial findings on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry was not yet complete …

During his testimony, General McChrystal said that strikes by warplanes and Special Operations ground units would remain an essential part of combat in Afghanistan. But he promised to make sure that these attacks were based on solid intelligence and that they would be as precise as possible. American success in Afghanistan should be measured by “the number of Afghans shielded from violence,” not the number of enemies killed, he said.

The inquiry into the May 4 strikes in the western province of Farah illustrated the difficult, split-second decisions facing young officers in the heat of combat as they balance using lethal force to protect their troops under fire with detailed rules restricting the use of firepower to prevent civilian deaths.

In the report, the investigating officer, Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, analyzed each of the airstrikes carried out by three aircraft-carrier-based Navy F/A-18 strike aircraft and an Air Force B-1 bomber against targets in the village of Granai, in a battle that lasted more than seven hours.

In each case, the senior military official said, General Thomas determined that the targets that had been struck posed legitimate threats to Afghan or American forces, which included one group of Marines assigned to train the Afghans and another assigned to a Special Operations task force.

TCJ doesn’t like how this testimony is going.  The General knows that the subject engagement was quite protracted, and that another “circle back” probably wouldn’t have changed things.  Yet he should also know what The Captain’s Journal has been able to uncover with a little bit of analysis, i.e., that the Taliban mass troops against smaller U.S. forces, and that in order to prevent being overrun air power has become necessary under such conditions.  He had the ideal chance to tell Congress that 68,000 U.S. troops is not enough, but instead of debating the merits of force projection in COIN, the conversation was directed at tactical ROE and “circle backs.”  This is not a good sign.

TCJ had also hoped that General McChrystal would attach Army SOF to units in the field rather than use them on raids.  No such thing is on his mind, apparently.  Now, we have admitted before of our being nonplussed at this idea, this notion of SOF being the direct action kinetics troops, with so-called General Purpose troops being the defensive forces.  TCJ opposes this, even though with this being a Marine-centric blog, we have no dog in the fight (except a belief in what is most effective for American forces).

We understand, actually.  Women are not allowed in the Army SOF, similar to Marine infantry.  The Army General Purpose forces have become a sociological experiment, and thus PFC Elizabeth went on patrol in Iraq.  She said, “It’s kind of scary because you don’t know if someone is going to pull a gun out …”

But the Russian campaign in Afghanistan saw a very high number (and proportion) of lower extremity injuries in women, and completely dysfunctional non-combat effective units because of this.  It’s even worse now with the total weight that the U.S. warrior must carry across the line, up to and even over 120 pounds at times.  Even men in their prime – 20 to 22 years of age – cannot accomplish this in high elevations across undulating terrain for protracted durations without permanent affects on their bodies.

So even though the GP Army has done the politically correct thing, the Generals rely on the SOF to get the direct action kinetics done.  Not so in the Marines.  There is no such distinction, and in fact, Force Recon and Scout Sniper, attached to Marine infantry, might even see less kinetics than infantry because of the focus on intelligence gathering.  There could never have been such a distinction with the Marines having succeeded in the Anbar Province.  Or in other words, if there had been such a distinction, the Marines would have failed in Anbar.

Again, this is an Army thing, and they have their on issues to deal with.  But you will take note from our articles and others that the Marines in Helmand don’t have women in the infantry, any more than the Army in Korangal does (whoever deployed this unit to Korangal knew better than to send women there).  And neither relies on SOF to be around to conduct direct action kinetics.

In fact, where are the SOF in Korangal?  Missing, apparently, and it’s a big Army operation front to back, just like Helmand is Marine infantry.  If McChrystal wants to put the SOF forces to real use, it’s time to attach them to infantry and send them to Korangal and other such outposts.  Enough of the cloak and dagger stuff conducted out of helicopters from posh FOBs.  Time to get dirty.

One final note.  I have been told (by certain … what you would call Army GP officers) that the tactical connection and communication between SOF and infantry is completely broken.  It doesn’t work.  It’s not only dysfunctional, it is a barrier to good conduct of COIN campaigns.  The solution is to reattach SOF to infantry and erase the differences between PTs and expectations for knowledge of direction action kinetics, and focus on SOF being specialized billets within infantry (such as sniper quals, airborne quals, and so forth).  All of the things that good SOF should know – room clearing, raids, fast roping, squad rushes, terrain seizures, etc. – Marines already know, and Army infantry should know.

McChrystal has an opportunity to raise the bar on all U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan, get the Army off of its huge FOBs, attach SOF to infantry, and go after the Taliban while being out among the population to protect them.  He says he wants to do this, but how will he do so with only 68,000 U.S. troops and the Taliban with the momentum?  He doesn’t tell us.  We know that we want to reclaim the ring road, but how?

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From Time:

Military commanders are keen to wrap up the fights in Buner and Lower Dir within coming days in order to focus their fire on Swat, where an estimated 4,000 well-armed, well-trained militants are dug in on terrain favorable to insurgents. The army claims that the local Taliban there have been reinforced by militants from Waziristan, southern Punjabis who have fought in Kashmir and jihadists from Central Asia. “Ten percent of the militants have come from outside,” General Abbas told reporters in Islamabad on Saturday. “There should be no doubt that the money, arms and equipment [are] coming from the border,” he said, in a reference to Afghanistan as an alleged route for militants traveling to reinforce those fighting in Swat.

The military’s plan for retaking Swat — eliminating the Taliban’s command structure — has been given priority. “In an insurgency, the leadership is the center of gravity,” says General Abbas. Although the military claims to have killed a number of key local commanders during the current offensive, Fazlullah and his top lieutenants remain at large, several of them still using some 36 pirate-radio stations to issue propaganda messages. “The transmission can be heard for two to three minutes before it is jammed,” said General Abbas, “but then they begin using a different frequency.”

Aware that public support for the campaign is likely to ebb, the government and military recognize that they have a limited time frame in which to work …

We had previously remarked that in light of the Taliban slipping away into the night, for success to obtain with this offensive the Pakistan Army must stay and perform long duration counterinsurgency and stability operations.  In spite of having no communication of their strategy up until now, they apparently (accidentally?) divulge one significant plank in their plan: killing “key” commanders.

Regular readers know how TCJ feels about that.  The strategy is a loser.  Granted, Baitullah Mehsud, the man that The Captain’s Journal loves to hate, should be targeted and killed, and it would be a good day for coalition forces were that to happen.  TCJ would celebrate in the superlative, and It would be a holiday for us.  The steaks would hit the grill, the champagne corks would be popped.  This is less true of mid-level commanders who are a “dime a dozen.”

But the celebration would be short, and campaign wouldn’t be over if this happened, any more than the campaign in Iraq was over when Zarqawi was killed.  The high value target campaign in Afghanistan has failed, and has at least given way to the quasi-plausible strategy of reclaiming the ring road.  The Clausewitzian concept of center of gravity caused us to focus on a single thing, concept, target, or power center, perhaps coupled with a paucity of resources and troops.

But when a mid-level Taliban commander is killed, another pops up in his place, and so on through the campaign for the last half decade.  We aren’t told who has taught the Pakistan Army Clausewitz.  Perhaps they have learned it in their military classes where there also learn their neurotic preoccupation with India.  Perhaps they have learned the high value target concept from the U.S.  Wherever they have gotten it, they need to unlearn it in favor of counterinsurgency.  Killing high value targets is no replacement for boots on the ground, and that for a long time.

Rather than focus on center of gravity, the Pakistan Army should think lines of effort and lines of operation.