Archive for the 'Counterinsurgency' Category

In The British Approach to Counterinsurgency (and in the associated comments), The Captain’s Journal made it clear that while the British had good reason to celebrate the passage of a hydroelectric turbine to the Kajaki dam in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, unfortunately it had to pass through some foreboding terrain, area owned by the Taliban. This is a pointer to larger problems. Indeed, 200 Taliban had to be killed on the way to the dam. This should cause the celebratory mood to pause long enough to consider how the dam, its transmission lines, its operators and the electrical grid in the towns are to be protected. We linked previous articles in which we had discussed these same issues regarding infrastructure in Iraq.

In one such instance, al Qaeda interfered with an irrigation canal simply by shoveling dirt into it. In other instances the electricity grid had proven to be unreliable due to its far flung and widely distributed nature. Killing the Taliban, we argued, is necessary for the protection of the infrastructure. In order to protect the infrastructure, one has to neutralize its enemies. Now, defense analysts and experts are weighing in echoing these same themes.

British forces pulled off an epic mission to deliver a 200-tonne turbine to a dam in the heart of Taliban territory in Helmand, but the $100m project must overcome serious obstacles before it can improve the lives of local Afghans, security analysts said yesterday.

Nearly 5,000 troops were involved in the operation to bring the turbine and other machinery through 100 miles of insurgent strongholds to the village of Kajaki, where it will be used to refurbish an ageing hydroelectric dam.

However, engineers predict it will take months before the dam is running at full capacity, and it will be at least two years before the electricity it generates reaches the 1.8 million intended beneficiaries, who live in remote villages in the Helmand river valley.

Even then, electricity supplies are likely to face disruption from Taliban attacks unless the region is cleared of militants, analysts said.

The area is not densely populated, so the power lines must cover many miles of hostile land to reach the remote villages that are due to be linked up to the dam. British troops in Helmand control an area of only a few miles radius beyond the Kajaki dam, so pylons and substations will have to cross what is now a stronghold for militants operating in the region.

“The power lines coming out of Kajaki are going to be extremely vulnerable to attack,” said Matthew Clements, Eurasia analyst at Jane’s Defence. “The arrival of the extra turbine is a major blow to the Taliban, so they are going to be keen to make sure the project fails.”

[ … ]

“In Iraq we’ve seen that overhead power lines are extremely difficult to protect, and there’s no point generating electricity if you can’t distribute it,” said Paul Smyth, head of operational studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies.

It’s a matter of focus. Although there is no on-off digital switch to stop the insurgency, and although the notions of kinetic operations and infrastructure cannot be completely sequential, still, there must be some basic level of security in order for nonkinetic operations to be successful. Killing 200+ Taliban shouldn’t be seen merely as an effect of the recent British operations in Southern Afghanistan. It should be one of the primary goals.

We have made it clear that we are glad to have the British as our allies in the war against the transnational insurgency in which we find ourselves. Furthermore, the Brits are able to field enlisted men who are as brave as any warrior on the planet. But fawning – and false – news coverage of British operations doesn’t help to gain an accurate picture of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan. Reader and commenter Dawg observes that the British media has ascribed the victory in Garmsir to the British.

The Captain’s Journal found this source a day or so before Dawg, and sent a rebuke to the editorial staff of the Independent, stating that given the copious data showing that the U.S. Marines retook Garmser from the Taliban, their article was the worst example of journalistic dishonesty we had ever witnessed.

However, that doesn’t mean that the British are not seeing significant combat in Southern Afghanistan. They are, but we have a question as to use of forces and overall strategy.

British commanders estimate that more than 200 Taliban were killed as they tried to prevent the convoy of 100 vehicles from getting the machinery to Kajaki hydroelectric dam where it will provide a significant increase in energy for up to two million Afghans.

The operation has been described as the biggest of its kind since the Second World War.

For the last five days the force has fought through the heart of Taliban territory to push through the 220 tonne turbine and other equipment that included a 90 tonne crane to lift it into place.

With a third turbine fixed at Kajaki it will mean that the extra electricity could double the irrigation output allowing farmers to plant two crops of wheat a year. With a dramatic rise in world wheat prices this could crucially mean that it becomes more profitable than producing opium which would deprive the Taliban of a major source of revenue.

Escorted by attack helicopters, armoured vehicles and men of the Parachute Regiment, the trucks trundled into Kajaki.

For the first 50 miles of its journey from the southern city of Kandahar the convoy was protected by American and Canadian troops. But for the second 50 mile leg through Taliban strongholds more than 3,000 British troops were needed to fight off the insurgents.

Lt Col Dave Wilson, of 23 Engineer Regiment, said the operation was the most significant “route clearance” operation since the Second World War with the sappers freeing the route of mines and improvised bombs.

“It was a huge achievement,” said Lt Col Wilson. “It was carried out through some of the most heavily mined areas of Afghanistan.”

While medics had prepared for casualties, commanders said there was only one wounded among the British, American, Canadian and Australian troops who took part in the operation – a British soldier was crushed when a trailer collapsed on him.

“As a template for the rest of this country, it’s shown that when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question,” said Lt Col James Learmont of 7 Para Royal Horse Artillery.

The Kajaki dam has been the object of intense combat.

But even this combat intensive effort to get the necessary electrical infrastructure to the dam won’t prevent it from being the object of more combat. If anything, it will probably encourage kinetic operations and an insecure environment, just as it did in Iraq when al Qaeda targeted electricity and water supplies. Observing that “when we want to, at a time and a place of our choosing, we can overmatch the Taliban, no question,” completely misses the point. Spot encounters don’t win a counterinsurgency.

The point is that in order for infrastructure to work, the enemies of that infrastructure must be targeted. The dam won’t long operate if its operators are all killed, or if other replacement parts have to undergo such intensive operations in order to be deployed at the plant. Infrastructure is good, as is good governance. But for these softer tactics in counterinsurgency to be successful, the Taliban must be engaged and killed. The softer side of counterinsurgency might win a lasting peace, but cannot win kinetic operations.

Prior:

The Role of Electricity in State Stabilization

Targeting the Insurgency Versus Protecting the Infrastructure

Completely aside from any political point or campaign (TCJ is conservative), and in spite of having lost readers and links because of our stand, The Captain’s Journal has made it clear for more than half a year that the security situation in Afghanistan is degrading. We have pointed out that many NATO troops operate under rules of engagement that prevent them from participating in any offensive operations, that NATO has no coherent strategy of engagement with and provision of security for the population, and that the Taliban, once restricted primarily to asymmetric operations, have been able to field hundreds of fighters in heavily conventional operations such as the battle of Wanat, in a raging battle that U.S. soldiers describe as pure chaos.

While U.S. Army intelligence and senior command in Afghanistan was denying that there would be a spring offensive, we were describing the dual front strategy of the Taliban (with the Taliban directed towards Afghanistan, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban directed towards Pakistan, but assisting the Taliban), and the choking of NATO supplies through the Khyber Pass and Torkham Crossing (and even down to Karachi). None of this is to deny that U.S. soldiers (and Marines) have fought bravely and efficiently, but we have always claimed that we needed to increase the force size. The Financial Times has a sobering commentary on the Taliban creeping closer to Kabul that runs in the same theme as our reports.

Maidan Shah is a 30-minute drive from central Kabul, but locals say the mobile phone masts on a dusty hillock on the edge of town mark the beginning of Taliban territory.

The town is the capital of Wardak, one of several provinces to the south, west and east of Kabul where the Taliban are successfully stripping away support among ordinary Afghans for their government and the foreign troops that keep it in power.

Taliban commanders have been boasting for some time about their plan to surround the capital. And analysts say recent events are strikingly similar to the successful attempt by mujahideen “holy warriors” to cut off the Afghan capital in the early 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

“It’s rather like reading a book that seems familiar and realising that you have read it all before,” says Peter Jouvenal, a journalist who covered the conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s and now lives in Kabul.

In the early 1990s Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamist leader still at large today, choked off supplies to the capital, where the communist government left behind after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 struggled to stay in office. Working with the Taliban, he repeated the trick in 1996 as they again laid siege to the city.

“It is a very old and effective tactic,” says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and the Taliban. But one, he adds, that this time is aimed as much at the US and its Nato allies as the government in Kabul. “They are not trying to take cities, but this is a strategic offensive to gain as much ground as possible in the gap between the US presidential election and the next administration getting into office.

“They want to paralyse the Afghan government, create a crisis within Nato and force the west to negotiate in the spring.”

Haji Mohamad Hasrat Jan, head of the provincial council, says the government has lost its grip on Wardak over the past 12 months and now controls only the provincial capital. “The police, officials and MPs are afraid to go out into the districts because they are all in Taliban hands,” he says. “Even in the district centres authority does not stretch outside the official compounds.”

This report is eerily similar to our previous discussions about Afghani citizens working for NATO forces who were fearful for their lives and begging for protection, afraid to leave the gates of FOBs even to travel home to their families.

There are a host of reports on the situation that point to problems with poppy and a narco-state, corruption in government, the re-emergence of warlords, the ineptitude of the central authorities, the lack of infrastructure, the killing of aid workers, and other disheartening trends and events. But Reuters recently published an article that explains why the security situation is degrading.

Afghans believe the United States knows about al Qaeda bases in Pakistan, but does not hit them because it wants an unstable Afghanistan to justify its presence for wider regional goals, a state newspaper said on Wednesday.

While many Afghans have vented such thoughts for some time, it was the first time a state newspaper which generally reflects the government’s view has expressed them, and may point to a souring of relations between Afghanistan and its biggest backer.

Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major U.S. allies in its war against Islamic militants, have hit new lows with the Afghan government accusing Pakistan of funding and training Taliban and al Qaeda fighters for cross-border attacks.

Nearly seven years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban government for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks, the heads of the militant groups are still at large and are thought to be hiding in Pakistan.

With more than 70,000 mainly Western troops based in Afghanistan, many Afghans believe the United States and its allies are deliberately not doing enough to halt the threat.

The United States always said it would attack the militants wherever they were, but in reality it has not done so, the state-run Anis daily said.

“The Afghan people have long doubted such claims of foreigners, especially of Britain and America, and their trust about crushing al Qaeda and terrorism has fallen,” Anis said.

The perspective suffers from the “man on the moon” problem.

The troubles of the United States in Iraq have been blamed on many causes: too few troops, wrong strategies, flawed intelligence, a very stubborn commander-in-chief.

The Man on the Moon rarely rates a public mention.

But the Man on the Moon looms so large in relations between the U.S. and 28 million Iraqis that every U.S. field commander knows his job would be easier if no American had ever set foot on the moon.

The Man on the Moon even gets a specific mention in the counterinsurgency manual the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps adopted last December. It is now taught at every U.S. military college and has the following passage:

“U.S. forces start with a built-in challenge because of their reputation for accomplishment, what some call ‘the man on the moon syndrome.’ This refers to the expressed disbelief that a nation able to put a man on the moon cannot quickly restore basic services.

“In some cultures, failure to deliver promised results is automatically interpreted as deliberate deception rather than good intentions gone awry.”

While the “man on the moon” problem was learned by U.S. forces in Iraq, it is equally applicable to Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan don’t realize that NATO has no overarching counterinsurgency strategy, or that many of the 70,000 troops cannot fire their weapons except in self defense. All they see is a degrading security situation, and since America is capable of anything if it can land a man on the moon, then there must be an ulterior motive, or so the Afghan people think.

There you have it – the reason we are losing in Afghanistan, in spite of the hard efforts and blood, sweat and tears of so many brave American warriors. The population sees the security situation degrading and has lost faith that things will get any better. They will side with the stronger horse, and right now, it isn’t the U.S. or NATO. This perspective must change before the situation on the ground in Afghanistan changes. If Operation Iraqi Freedom has taught us anything, it has certainly taught us that the small footprint model for counterinsurgency in this part of the world is a loser.

**** UPDATE ****

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. The Independent has a related report.

Troop numbers in Afghanistan must increase to contain the surge in violence, says the commander of British forces in Helmand.

In an interview with The Independent ahead of Gordon Brown’s visit to the province yesterday, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said: “We are probably still on a growth trajectory before we get to the stage when the UK presence can begin to thin out.” The commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade estimated it would be up to five years before Britain could consider dropping troop numbers.

Senior military officers are reported to have held preliminary talks on increasing British soldiers in Afghanistan from 8,000 to 12,000 – a dramatic difference from the 3,300 initially expected to hold the ground when the UK force took over Helmand in 2006. The boost in numbers ties in with suggestions that troop levels in Iraq be scaled back.

Senior Nato commanders are said to be “screaming out” for more boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

It’s good to see acknowledgement of the situation, even if seven months behind The Captain’s Journal. However, we have already weighed in concerning the bare minimum we think is needed in Afghanistan.

Properly resourcing the campaign will require at least – but not limited to – three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (outfitted with V-22s, Harriers and all of the RCT support staff) and three Brigades (preferably at least one or two of which are highly mobile, rapid reaction Stryker Brigades). These forces must be deployed in the East and South and especially along the border, brought out from under the control of NATO and reporting only to CENTCOM. Finally, NATO must implement a sound, coherent counterinsurgency strategy across the board in the balance of Afghanistan.

We need more than the Brits are requesting – or at least, this is our view.

Reuters brings us an interesting report on counterinsurgency in Sadr City.

SADR CITY, Iraq, Aug 11 (Reuters) – A strapping U.S. soldier, his flak jacket draped with weaponry and his rifle pointed at his feet, extends an application for a small business grant to Iraqi shopkeeper Warad Mutaab Qaataa.

Qaataa, a balding, soft-bellied man, watches nervously from across his tiny living room as Captain Beau Hunt tells him how to apply for up to $2,500 to enlarge the small shop he runs from his home in Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum.

Not long ago, U.S. soldiers raided his home at gunpoint in the middle of the night. Now, they are back offering cash.

Qaataa says business is picking up slowly. “Of course, the situation is far better than it was,” he said.

The grant is one small part of the U.S. push to resurrect this mainly Shi’ite area that until a few months ago was in the iron grip of the Mehdi Army — the feared militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sadr City has quietened down since fierce fighting this spring allowed U.S. and Iraqi troops to take control of the area, a major boost for the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki …

U.S. troops say the best way to ensure that the fighters don’t come back is to improve life in Sadr City, where power flickers on a few hours a day and rotting trash piles on curbs.

A balance needs to be struck here.  TCJ has strongly supported the so-called concerned citizens program (later called “Sons of Iraq”), which involved payment for work (usually security) in order to prevent some portion of the Sunni insurgency.  But then again, the Sunnis were more than willing to work with the U.S., and most had no love for the radical al Qaeda brand of terrorism.

Poverty can foment insurgency, and this can be dealt with by traditional means.  But as we’ve pointed out before, Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries in the world and 90% Muslim, but without the radical Islamists.  Poverty doesn’t foment radical, militant Islam.  That’s just a myth.

The fighters of the Mahdi militia, following their religiously radical leader, Moqtada al Sadr, seem much more religiously motivated than the Sunni fighters were, and therefore less amenable to the methods and tactics used in Anbar.

Reconstruction, reliable power, business loans and other forms of good will and needed resources are good tactics to befriend the locals and obtain intelligence and reciprocal good will.  Thus this is a valid and needed part of counterinsurgency.  But as for the hard core fighters who won’t reconcile and the religiously motivated radicals, the best way to ensure that they don’t come back is to kill them.

In RAND Study on Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan we disapproved of the small footprint model for counterinsurgency advocated by Seth G. Jones. Another RAND study has been issued entitled How Terrorists Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa’ida, by Seth G. Jones and Martin C. Libicki. The report is available for download, so the reader can study it later (or perhaps has already studied it). But the summary statement reads thusly:

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process (43 percent) or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent). Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory. This has significant implications for dealing with al Qa’ida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy: Policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention. The authors report that religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups and rarely achieve their objectives. The largest groups achieve their goals more often and last longer than the smallest ones do. Finally, groups from upper-income countries are more likely to be left-wing or nationalist and less likely to have religion as their motivation. The authors conclude that policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa’ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase “war on terrorism” since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa’ida.

This amounts to 83% – according to Jones and Libicki – of terrorists who either joined the political process or were arrested by the police. So then the solution must be non-military, or so Jones and Libicki conclude.

But they fundamentally fail to understand the nature of the enemy, and so it’s not surprising that the study reaches the wrong conclusions. In Why is there Jihad, we linked a recent report by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point that studied the internet interview of Ayman al-Zawahiri. They noted many interesting things, but one crucial point to understanding their global movement.

Over the past year, Zawahiri and other senior al-Qa’ida figures have been waging a vigorous propaganda campaign against the Palestinian organization HAMAS. Although Jihadists unanimously denounce Israel they continue to disagree over whether HAMAS should be considered a legitimate Islamic movement. For Zawahiri, HAMAS’ embrace of nationalism, democracy, and its legacy in the Muslim Brotherhood—arguably the three things al-Qa’ida hates most—delegitimizes the group.

To which we observed:

Nationalism is evil and out of accord with the global aspirations of al Qaeda. Nation-states are not just not helpful, or even a necessary evil. They are quite literally an obstacle to jihad, not because they share the loyalties of jihadists, but rather, because they fundamentally don’t acquiesce to the vision of world conquest in the name of Islam and the forcible implementation of Sharia law. What we see as a transnational insurgency is to the jihadists simply a world wide struggle. They don’t recognize nation-states as legitimate.

This is the Sunni perspective, but the radical Shi’a perspective is the same. From Michael Ledeen’s The Iranian Time Bomb, Khomeini succinctly states their view:

“We do not worship Iran. We worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.”

Ledeen summarizes their views: “Without exception, their core beliefs are totally contrary to the notion that they are a traditional nation-state” [page 17]. Baitullah Mehsud has also shown that his perspective is global, contrary to the views of earlier generations of Taliban. Neither al Qaeda nor the Taliban are about to engage in local or even national politics. It violates the stipulations of their faith.

As for the high value target initiative, the U.S. has been engaged in this for six or more years in both Afghanistan and Iraq (and now Pakistan). It has consumed an incredible amount of money, time, resources, intelligence assets, and firepower, but has only moderate results to show for the expenditure.

The security situation in Afghanistan is headed in the wrong direction, while Iraq has been secured. Counterinsurgency requires force projection, a doctrine we have argued for two years. It has worked in Iraq, and will be required in Afghanistan. A few more policing assets in Afghanistan and Pakistan would mean simply a few more policing assets to die at the hands of Taliban and al Qaeda.

The answer is not black or special operations, police, surreptitious behind-the-scenes deals, prison cells, interrogations, incorporation of the enemy into politics, or negotiations. The immediate answer to the problem of an enemy who would kill you is to kill the enemy with fire and maneuver.

Senator John McCain is being taken to task for alleged discrepancies in his surge narrative.  Joe Conason with Salon has recently discussed “McCain’s embarrassing assertion that the Sunni insurgency’s turn toward the U.S. and away from al-Qaida came because of the surge.”  Conason’s discussion is pedestrian and rather boring, but a more sophisticated hit job is being proffered by Professor Colin Kahl – now advisor to Barack Obama – entitled When to Leave Iraq.

I will only deal with one major aspect of the commentary, that being his citation of Major Niel Smith’s paper and the alleged obsession of the Anbar tribes with the stateside talk of withdrawal.  According to Kahl, “In short, contrary to the Bush administration’s claims, the Awakening began before the surge and was driven in part by Democratic pressure to withdraw.”

Whether anyone in the administration ever claimed that the surge drove the tribal awakening is beyond the scope of the discussion here (and really is quite irrelevant).  What is more important is the order of things and how the surge played a role in the stabilization of Iraq.  Unlike Professor Kahl, I had an opportunity to review a pre-publication version of Major Smith’s paper.  Major Smith forwarded his paper to me, probably as a result of many exchanges Smith and I had over e-mail and also in discussion threads at the Small Wars Council.  I am a student of the campaign for Anbar (because of my son’s deployment to Fallujah), and Major Smith (himself more than just a student – a veteran of the campaign in Ramadi) and I have had some interesting and spirited discussions.

For some reason, Professor Kahl didn’t link Smith’s Leavenworth paper Anbar Awakens: The Tipping Point.  Had his readers been given the opportunity to read Smith’s paper, they might have come away with a somewhat more nuanced understanding of the campaign than Kahl did.  While the observations of Captain Travis Patriquin were important, there were also the other aspects of the Anbar campaign that focused more heavily in kinetic operations.

Winning Anbar can properly be said to have been Diplomacy with a Gun.  Even Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, leader of the awakening movement, had to have his smuggling lines cut by kinetic operations by U.S. forces before he “saw the light” and sided with the U.S.  As one essential element of the campaign, security had to exist as the basis for any meaningful exchange between the U.S. and the tribes.

MacFarland says he soon realized the key was to win over the tribal leaders, or sheiks.

“The prize in the counterinsurgency fight is not terrain,” he says. “It’s the people. When you’ve secured the people, you have won the war. The sheiks lead the people.”

But the sheiks were sitting on the fence.

They were not sympathetic to al-Qaeda, but they tolerated its members, MacFarland says.

The sheiks’ outlook had been shaped by watching an earlier clash between Iraqi nationalists — primarily former members of Saddam Hussein’s ruling Baath Party — and hard-core al-Qaeda operatives who were a mix of foreign fighters and Iraqis. Al-Qaeda beat the nationalists. That rattled the sheiks.

“Al-Qaeda just mopped up the floor with those guys,” he says.

“We get there in late May and early June 2006, and the tribes are on the sidelines. They’d seen the insurgents take a beating. After watching that, they’re like, ‘Let’s see which way this is going to go.’ “

This understanding should be coupled with even more nuanced and adaptable versions of counterinsurgency, such as the use of sand berms around Haditha (that I discussed a year and a half ago) to prevent the influx of Syrian fighters, along with coercive pressure on the tribal leaders.  While Major Smith is right in his assertion that tactics in Ramadi were prototypes of counterinsurgency that were used elsewhere in Anbar, Ramadi didn’t mark the first time counterinsurgency was practiced in Anbar.

The Military Channel recently played a narrated movie entitled Alpha Company: Iraq Diary, by filmmaker Gordon Forbes (a series my friend Bill Ardolino had the good sense to recommend long before I did).  This lengthy series is well worth the study time, and shows a very sophisticated application of counterinsurgency even as early as 2005 in and around Fallujah.  It shows a closer focus on “knock and talks,” intelligence driven raids and other aspects of soft counterinsurgency than implemented even later in other parts of Anbar.

In fact, Operation Alljah in Fallujah in 2007 involved more kinetic engagements than Alpha Company’s operations did two years earlier (much of 2/6 Golf Company earned their combat action ribbons within six days of leaving Camp Lejeune for Fallujah, and continued to engage in heavy kinetics through the summer).  This is not by accident.  The practice of counterinsurgency for two years running in the Anbar Province, including not only Major Smith’s operations in Ramadi but also all of the other aspects discussed above, drove al Qaeda and the remaining indigenous insurgency into the Fallujah area of operations in early 2007.  In short, two years of counterinsurgency was successful, setting up the operations in Fallujah in 2007.

Operation Alljah involved not only heavy kinetics, but also the implementation of gated communities, biometrics, and block captains (or muktars).  The remaining indigenous insurgency stood down and returned to their homes throughout Anbar upon heavy kinetic engagements, while al Qaeda stood their ground and died or fled Northwest to the Diyala Province (or towards Mosul).

This is where the surge came in.  The increase in troop commitments in and around Baghdad, along with intelligence-driven raids and constant contact with the population, made it impossible for al Qaeda to seek safe haven in Baghdad.  Many al Qaeda fighters died in Fallujah in the summer of 2007, and thus Anbar was essentially won with the last major Marine Corps operation in Anbar having been successful.

The Anbar campaign was in many ways a precursor to and the formative basis for the surge and security plan, but given the proximate need of each one for the other in order to finish al Qaeda in the South and West, they were symbiotically connected and essentially coupled.

Perhaps professor Kahl didn’t find it convenient to contact Major Smith before publication of his commentary on withdrawal from Iraq to see what Smith thought of the surge.  Smith answers it for us anyway.

As a personal opinion, I doubt that we would have had the flexibility to break Baghdad’s “cycle of violence” without the addition of extra troops, combined with a coherent and synchronized operational plan based off of organizational learning. The Awakening probably would have occurred in Anbar regardless, but I doubt it could have spread into the “Sons of Iraq” movement without the addition of troops to mitigate the sectarian cycle of violence combined with evolved COIN practices (the above plus things like gated communities in B’Dad).

Whether gated communities in Fallujah and Baghdad, biometrics throughout Anbar and Baghdad, payment for the services Sons of Iraq, hard core kinetic engagements in Fallujah in the summer of 2007 and throughout 2005 – 2007 in Ramadi, sand berms around Haditha, the proximity of troops in Baghdad preventing al Qaeda from garrisoning in Baghdad, air power and intelligence driven raids, or other complicated aspects of counterinsurgency, the fact of the matter is that this conversation is one that many of us have had for a very long time now.  Counterinsurgency is a very complicated affair, and lifting one aspect of it out of context and elevating it to a position of exclusive use is for dolts.

In the future you will likely hear that the talk of withdrawal caused the tribal awakening, the surge wasn’t necessary, and support for it was mistaken.  When you hear this, rest assurred that it is based on information that was lifted out of context and for which there is no backdrop.  Professor Kahl liked citing Major Smith’s paper on the issue of withdrawal being pressure on the tribal leaders.

It was easy, however, to avoid the other parts of the paper that didn’t fit into his neatly outlined narrative, like Smith’s edict “Never stop looking for another way to attack the enemy.”  While Smith contributed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and I sent a son to fight there, Kahl is about two years too late to make any sort of meaningful contribution to understanding the campaign.  For this reason, Barack Obama’s understanding of the campaign is hopelessly impoverished.

Ann Marlowe, who has just completed her 10th trip to Afghanistan and third embed with U.S. forces, has a commentary at the Wall Street Journal claiming that Afghanistan doesn’t need a surge of troops.

Afghanistan needs many things, but two more brigades of U.S. troops are not among them.

Barack Obama said: “We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there.” Mr. Obama should have supported the surge in Iraq, but that doesn’t mean that advocating one in Afghanistan makes sense.

Yes, Barack Obama should have supported the surge in Iraq, but let’s stop and observe two things.  First of all, if this is about Barack Obama, then we are entirely in her camp.  Obama’s thinking, which clearly never graduated beyond his childish Marxist college days, adds nothing to the debate about Afghanistan, Iraq, national security, or any other weighty issue.  But it’s about more than that, because Ann has weighed in on one of the most important campaigns of the twenty first century.

This is the problem with going on record with such issues.  The Captain’s Journal went on record more than half a year ago saying that the forces and force projection in Afghanistan were not sufficient.  The fact that Obama is now singing the same song is not relevant to us; nor does it put us in the same camp on Iraq.  Everyone is spuriously correct from time to time.

But back to Ann’s commentary for our second observation.  Ann is right concerning the fact that two more brigades are not appropriate for Afghanistan, even if spuriously so.  Properly resourcing the campaign will require at least – but not limited to – three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (outfitted with V-22s, Harriers and all of the RCT support staff) and three Brigades (preferably at least one or two of which are highly mobile, rapid reaction Stryker Brigades).  These forces must be deployed in the East and South and especially along the border, brought out from under the control of NATO and reporting only to CENTCOM.  Finally, NATO must implement a sound, coherent counterinsurgency strategy across the board in the balance of Afghanistan.

The forces and realignment above are bare minimum (we retain the right to weigh in later if the Pentagon implements our proposal and we need more resources later).  As for Ann, her commentary goes down hill at this point.

Afghanistan’s problems are not the same as Iraq’s. Its people aren’t recovering from a brutal, all-controlling tyranny, but from decades of chaos and centuries of bad government. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is largely illiterate and has a relatively undeveloped civil society. Afghan society still centers around the family and, for men, the mosque. Its society and traditions are still largely intact, in contrast to Iraq’s fractured, urbanized and half-modernized population.

The Afghan insurgency has no broad popular base and doesn’t mirror an obvious religious or ethnic fault line. It is also far more linked with Pakistani support than the Iraqi insurgency or militias were with Iran. Afghanistan needs a better president, judiciary and police force — and a Pakistani government that is not playing footsie with the Taliban.

These are two important and pregnant paragraphs, so let’s unpack them a bit.  It’s difficult to imagine, but Ann doesn’t see public raping of women for not wearing their Burka properly, public executions of potential Taliban detractors, schools which have been shut down (especially for women), extortion and kidnapping of children for the purpose of Taliban training as brutal tyranny.  It assuredly is, and this is important for the purposes of understanding the single most important thing in counterinsurgency.  Security.

As we have discussed in our coverage of Marine operations in Helmand:

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.

The Afghanis don’t care much about the things Ann does.  As for the Taliban in Pakistan, they came like a embryo from the Taliban in Afghanistan, and have evolved into something even worse.  We have addressed the issue of Pakistan by saying that the Pashtun have rejected the U.S.-led war on terror, and the initial place to engage the Taliban is Afghanistan.  We will get little if any help from Pakistan, and continuing to rely on them is a pipe dream.  Only after we have shown commitment to the campaign will Pakistan reconsider its position.

Ms. Marlowe could embed ten thousand times and it wouldn’t change her predisposition to see things her way.  We recently said of COIN that “there is no magic to perform, no secret Gnostic words to utter, no tricks.  Troops are necessary, and warrior-scholars who can fight a battle as well as govern a city council meeting.”

But The Captain’s Journal can smell the deep magic of counterinsurgency from a mile away.  Find that single center of gravity, that pressure point that only a few are smart enough to understand, and suddenly counterinsurgency becomes much easier.  Ann believes in the magician’s incantation version of counterinsurgency.  It isn’t about religious radicalism, killings, lack of security, overbearing rules and regulations, and brutality.  All Afghanistan needs is a good president, good judges and a good police force.

Every country needs a good president, good judges and good police.  As we have pointed out before, “In this version of the problem, the root of the extremism becomes disenfranchisement, poverty, and valid grievances which require redress (regardless of the example of Bangladesh, which is 90% Muslim and one of the poorest nations on earth, but without the violent extremism).”

But in the end, the similarity between Iraq and Afghanistan is that the population wants and needs security for a legitimate government to be emplaced and grow and mature.  Contrary to Ann’s view, The Captain’s Journal doesn’t believe in magic.  We believe in killing the enemy, contact with the population and intelligence-driven operations.  Special operations actions against high value targets (as recommended in Ann’s commentary) might make for interesting media reports and good movies back in the States, but black operations and surreptitious engagements don’t win the population.

The Marines did it in Garmser, and it can be done in the balance of Afghanistan while the believers in magic cite their incantations as they hope for special operations and a new President to bail them out of the mess that is OEF.  In the mean time, what Barack Obama says about Afghanistan continues to be as irrelevant as what he says about Iraq.  So we’ll continue to ignore him.

It was a very bad weekend for U.S. Soldiers in the Kunar Province of Afghanistan.  A combat outpost in the Kunar Province has sustained heavy fighting with the Taliban, and nine U.S. Soldiers have been killed, while fifteen were wounded (along with four Afghan troops).  What can we learn from the deaths of nine Soldiers?  We’ll focus our efforts under four headings: (1) The Taliban spring offensive, (2) the evolution of Taliban tactics and capabilities, (3) small, disconnected combat outposts, and (4) inadequate forces.

The Taliban Spring Offensive

We have covered the escalation of violence and insurgent activity in Afghanistan recently, but as far back as five months ago U.S. Army intelligence and General Rodriguez were claiming that the Taliban efforts inside Pakistan would effectively kill any chances it had inside Afghanistan, thus negating any consideration of a Taliban spring offensive.  The Captain’s Journal called this out as an analysis and intelligence blunder, and we were right.

Violence and insurgent activity have increased yearly since 2002.  Generals (and Colonels) and intelligence analysts who examine and assess the data and conclude that a spring offensive is unlikely, while at the same time the Pentagon knows better and planned for one by deploying 3200 Marines to the theater, should be replaced if they haven’t already been.  They are at best an impediment to the success of the campaign.

Critical analysis capabilities and an understanding of the ebb and flow of military campaigns (especially insurgencies) should be one of the minimum qualifications for holding a position of such power and authority in the U.S. armed forces.

Evolution of Taliban Tactics

While we have pointed out that Taliban tactics would evolve over time to one of fire and melt away, roadside bombs, suicide bombs and otherwise asymmetric guerrilla warfare, this attack seems to have been much more sophisticated and conventional in both its planning and execution.

A Taliban attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers, the biggest single American loss in Afghanistan since 2005, was a well-planned, complex assault which briefly breached the defenses of an outpost near the Pakistan border.

The Taliban have largely shied away from large-scale attacks on foreign forces since suffering severe casualties in assaults on NATO bases in the south in 2006. Instead the militants have scaled up hit-and-run attacks and suicide and roadside bombs.

“The insurgents went into an adjacent village, drove the villagers out, used their homes and a mosque as a base from which to launch the attack and fire on the outpost,” said NATO spokesman Mark Laity on Monday.

The Taliban also chose the timing wisely.

Troops from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the Afghan army only moved into the combat outpost in the mountainous and forested Pech Valley district of Kunar province days before and the defenses were not fully constructed.

Which raises the question of force protection and combat outposts.

Combat Outposts

The use of combat outposts in Ramadi and elsewhere in the Anbar Province (where they were introduced well before the surge and security plan for Baghdad) involved connectedness to other combat outposts in the case of resupply or reinforcement issues.  The combat outposts were not randomly placed throughout Anbar, and neither were they garrisoned before ready for force protection.

The force size in this combat outpost was small: 45 U.S. troops and 25 Afghan troops.  The nearest help was air power, which was used with effectiveness, but not before a large number of troops were killed or wounded.  With nine U.S. soldiers killed, this is an appalling 20% of U.S. Soldiers lost.  With fifteen more wounded, this amounts to approximately half of the U.S. soldiers garrisoned at this outpost counted as casualties.  Further, because force protection was not possible at this point, the Taliban were the ones to engage in the chase rather than U.S. troops.

The governor of neighbouring Nuristan province, Hazrat Noor, said: “After the attack the US troops decided to move their base to the district centre of Wanat and they tried to build shelters there in the bazaar overnight. Now the Taleban have attacked again.” US strategy in Afghanistan has focused increasingly on the use of smaller and more numerous bases, called combat outposts. They aim to give US forces greater influence in local communities. However, American military commanders have privately admitted that such small bases could prove vulnerable if the Taleban was able to concentrate enough fighters and take the base by surprise, as apparently happened yesterday.

Finally, while the loss was horrible, it is necessary to think about the effectiveness of the battle.  Normally U.S. troops inflict a kill ratio of 10:1.  Forty insurgents were killed in the battle, dropping the results to a rate of about 4:1.  This is not high enough.

Inadequate Forces

As we have been arguing for half a year, more forces are needed in Afghanistan, and not of the kind which cannot engage in kinetic operations (e.g., the Germans) due to political decisions at home.  Combat outposts are effective when combined with the proper size force to make almost constant contact with the enemy and population, and engage in the chase of insurgents.  None of these things obtained in the battle in Kunar.

Summary

Due to the high losses, this unit is likely combat ineffective and needs replacement (or at least reinforcements) soon.  This time around, additional troops need to be committed to the area of operation in recognition of its strategic importance.  The Captain’s Journal has already recommended the redeployment of the Marines to Afghanistan.

Both the size of the ISAF and the insurgency are growing in Afghanistan, but the the rates of growth are disparate.

Each year since 2002, the number of U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan has grown. And each year, during the “fighting season” of spring and summer, the number of attacks by the Taliban has also increased, prompting commanders to conclude that still more troops are needed. This year is no exception. There are 66,000 foreign troops from 40 countries in Afghanistan, including 37,500 Americans; the force under NATO command has grown by 20,000 in 18 months. But Taliban attacks are up 40 percent in eastern provinces this year compared with 2007, and there has been another spike in coalition casualties. In May and June, more Western soldiers died in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that “at least” three additional brigades, or about 10,500 more troops, are needed for combat operations and training of the Afghan army.

Will the escalation never end? The war in Afghanistan sometimes appears to suffer from a syndrome that also plagued the United States in Vietnam: incremental increases in troops that are never enough to turn the situation around. Had former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld deployed 60,000 troops in 2002 — rather than 5,000 — Afghanistan might have been pacified. Now it seems that a “surge” of troops, like that successfully applied to Iraq last year, might be needed to turn the tide of the war.

The problem is that large numbers of fresh troops are unavailable. The U.S. military currently lacks the reserves, and NATO nations can’t or won’t provide them. Germany, Britain and France have recently pledged more soldiers, but the numbers are relatively small.

There have been more U.S. and NATO troops killed in Afghanistan in June than in Iraq for the second straight month.  But more to the point, many of the NATO troops aren’t allowed in kinetic engagements, so deploying more German troops doesn’t help if their mission is unnecessary.  To comprehend the full force of the report, it should be realized that some troops are taking a disproportionate level of the burden (e.g., U.S. troops), and the Marines’ deployment to Afghanistan has been bloody.

For the Marine Corps this year Afghanistan has proven a deadly and treacherous place.

Whereas 18 months ago the service was absorbing dozens of casualties per month in attacks throughout the once-restive al Anbar province in Iraq, today the bloodletting is in Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban insurgency and an undermanned, politically-constrained NATO force has lead to a sharp rise in leathernecks killed or wounded.

In June alone — when seasonal thaws lead to increased attacks from insurgent groups — the force of some 3,200 Marines there suffered 10 killed in action, including one Navy corpsman. By comparison, of the 23,000 Marines in Iraq, six were killed in June.

So far this year 13 Marines have been killed in combat in Afghanistan while 17 have been killed in Iraq. 

And for the Marine battalion commander in Afghanistan who lost nine of those killed in action in June, the deaths are hitting his unit hard.

Note again that the Marine Corps had in Afghanistan 167% of the casualties it took in Iraq, with roughly seven times as many Marines deployed in Iraq.  This is a remarkable statistic, and states clearer than any other argument where the “tip of the spear” should be deployed.

There is action on the political front with Pakistan, who is apparently getting edgy with their territorial rights (seasoned with a big dose of fear of the Tehrik-i-Taliban).

When Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani meets President George W. Bush at the White House on June 28, he will tell the US leader that Islamabad will tolerate a US incursion into Fata if it is directed specifically against Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden or Ayman Al Zawahiri – but nobody else, says a report published on Friday.

Quoting senior US and Pakistani officials, the Time magazine reported that the prime minister, however, would also tell Mr Bush that Pakistan would not allow incursions into its territory for any other Al Qaeda or Taliban leaders.

“If they do a raid and they find No. 3 or No. 4 or No. 5 but don’t get Bin Laden, it’s going to be a realproblem,” said the report, quoting a senior Pakistani official.

Ahead of the events again, The Captain’s Journal had previously said that Afghanistan would remain the focal point for kinetic operations against the Taliban, and that Pakistan could not be counted as allies in the fight.  This remains true despite arguments to the contrary.  “Expert” Jeremy Shapiro (Brookings Institution, RAND, Georgetown) stated to Spiegel that there is no need for additional troops.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Policy-makers in the US and Europe are shocked by the gloomy Pentagon assessment for Afghanistan. You, however, are pleading for more optimism. Why?

Shapiro: There is ample reason for gloom, but we need to keep in mind that in the best of circumstances, Afghanistan is a long-term mission. We are talking about a commitment of 10 or 20 years. I believe we have fundamentally the right strategy in place, but even if that is so it will take some time to show progress. I don’t believe we need the major review people are talking about.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Everyone seems to be asking for more troops in Afghanistan, though. President George W. Bush, John McCain, even Barack Obama.

Shapiro: More soldiers could be put to good use there, but they wouldn’t fundamentally change the situation. Let’s assume we would send in 10,000 more, as is contemplated: They could improve the local situation in a few areas for a time, but they would not rectify the problem of the Pakistani border areas and their ability to infiltrate insurgents into Afghanistan. As long as we don’t solve that problem, you could put 100,000 soldiers into Afghanistan and you would still have asymmetric attacks in various parts of Afghanistan and a rate of civilian and military casualties similar to the current one. And I have not yet heard viable suggestions on how to deal with the problem of the Pakistani border areas.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But isn’t it understandable that security is paramount to people in Afghanistan?

Shapiro: Of course, but we can’t solve that problem simply by increasing forces. Achieving overall security in Afghanistan will be a slow process and unfortunately we will have to tolerate violence in the country for a long time.

Some expert.  So that there is no confusion, The Captain’s Journal unequivocally states that the argument above is idiotic.  The population will not “tolerate violence in the country for a long time,” and this is ridiculous counterinsurgency policy.  Additionally, it is immoral and counterproductive.  NATO (and the U.S.) will not be welcome for a “long time” if we continue to tolerate violence.  Shapiro doesn’t understand the ebb and flow of counterinsurgency campaigns.  Also, recognizing that the nature of insurgencies is to engage in asymmetric warfare is correct and has absolutely no relevance to the argument concerning force size.  Shapiro should stay on point.

Again, Syria has been a problem with respect to infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq, but the surge and security plan (along with other events such as the Anbar awakening) has slowed the river of fighters to a trickle.  While harder and more costly, it is possible to fight a transnational insurgency in a local battlespace, as long as global pressure is brought to bear.

Pakistan is a thorny problem, and obviously their pact with the Taliban cannot be honored by the U.S.  But Pakistan’s recalcitrance is no argument for under-resourcing the campaign in Afghanistan.  Recall the words of one Taliban commander: “If NATO remains strong in Afghanistan, it will put pressure on Pakistan. If NATO remains weaker in Afghanistan, it will dare [encourage] Pakistan to support the Taliban.”

We’ll take the admonition of the Taliban over the pontification of Jeremy Shapiro.  More troops will indeed “fundamentally change the situation.”  Similar to other RAND studies (which advocate a very small footprint for COIN), Shapiro behaves as if the last two years in Iraq never occurred and the gains never happened.  The quickest gains in Iraq were at the hands of the U.S. Marines (the experience on which, at least in part, the security plan in Baghdad was based).  They now stand ready to be at the tip of the spear in Afghanistan.

So I’m reading Robert D. Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts.  The Prologue – Injun Country – might very well be the best twelve pages I have ever read.  It should be required reading in all professional military training.  No matter how much reading you have done, no matter who you have met, no matter what your experiences have been, there is no replacement for a careful study of this Chapter.  You cannot understand the current state of affairs in the world today, the so-called global war on terror, until you have read these pages.  Kaplan sums up in a tidy and small package a wealth of knowledge and wisdom concerning the nature of imperial defense of the homeland.  Enough said.  Buy the book and read it.

Kaplan also has much wisdom concerning the nature of embedded reporters and journalists in later pages of the book, but this is a dialogue for another time.  Being an aficionado of the Small Wars Journal myself, I am disappointed that it took reading Kaplan’s book to remind me of several important observations found therein.  On page 270 of Kaplan’s book we read the following:

As if foreseeing the situation in Iraq, the Manual notes that after major fighting:

… hostile forces will withdraw into the more remote parts of the country, or will be dispersed into numerous small groups which continue to oppose the occupation.  Even though the recognized leaders may capitulate, subordinate commanders often refuse to abide by the terms of the capitulation.  Escaping to the hinterland, they assemble heterogeneous armed groups of patriotic soldiers, malcontents, notorious outlaws … and by means of guerrilla warfare, continue to harass and oppose the intervening force in its attempt to restore peace and good order throughout the country as a whole.

Then Kaplan notes other sections of the Small Wars Manual, citing it to recommend that:

To countervail such hostile forces, numerous presence patrols must be organized with the help of the native militias, and outposts erected that are “dispersed over a wide area, in order to afford the maximum protection to the peaceful inhabitants of the country.”

So much for the detractors of the Small Wars Manual.  Seriously.  Summed up in these words are reasons for rejecting any supposed lack of knowledge or anticipation of a developing insurgency after toppling the Iraqi regime, foresight into dismounted patrols, and prediction of the utility of combat outposts.  All the planners had to do was read the Small Wars Manual.  Further, the Marines were the first to employ the concept of combat outposts in Iraq (specifically in Ramadi), and while this evolved to combination outposts / police precincts in Fallujah in 2007, the idea was basically the same (and even more in tune with the Small Wars Manual than in Ramadi).

There is nothing new under the sun.  Combat outposts are not new to Iraq COIN.  They have been employed by the Marines for decades.  And recollecting the nature of the initial combat operations, major urban areas were avoided and bypassed.  MOUT (military operations on urban terrain) has always been hard on any armed forces, and it was left to the subsequent counterinsurgency effort.  Ramadi, Fallujah, Mosul, and many other areas were left untouched for months while the assumed center of gravity was targeted – Baghdad and the center of government.

No matter how much group think was present in the Pentagon prior to the invasion of Iraq, there is simply no excuse for not anticipating the insurgency.  It’s right there in the Small Wars Manual.