Archive for the 'Counterinsurgency' Category

RAND has published a monograph entitled After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq.  Similar to the Leavenworth study On Point II (which The Captain’s Journal could only review it in small bites), a few citations will be made below.  Similar to the Leavenworth study, some of the RAND report focuses on organizational issues.  This bores us.  To be sure, there are some issues of organizational instransigence that become so burdensome that change must occur in order to accomplish the mission.  This is seldom the case.

Corporate America has a habit of reorganizing.  It reorganizes when the organization fails, and sometimes even when it succeeds.  It reorganizes when the management wants to, or for financial gain.  It reorganizes in order to grant promotions, and in order to take them away.  The U.S. military might do well to study corporate America concerning some things, but organizational structure (and change of such) is not one of them.  The workers go on working in spite of the organization – and its constant change.  The story of Iraq is not one of organization.  It is one of heart, soul and mind.

We’ll supply a few quotes and then offer some comments.

Page xx: Two particular sets of assumptions guided U.S. prewar planning for the postwar period. First, administration officials assumed that the military campaign would have a decisive end, and would produce a stable security situation. They intended to shrink the U.S. military presence down to two divisions—between 30,000 and 40,000 troops—by the fall of 2003. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz succinctly expressed this assumption during congressional testimony on February 27, 2003, when he stated, “It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army.”  Second, they assumed that the Iraqi population would welcome U.S. forces. Three days before the war, Vice President Richard Cheney clearly articulated this view by stating, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Iraqi exiles supported this belief by emphasizing that the Iraqis would greet U.S. forces with “sweets and flowers.”

Page xxvi: Looking back, we can see that the failure to plan for and adequately resource stability operations had serious repercussions that affected the United States throughout the occupation period and continue to affect U.S. military forces in Iraq. Because U.S. forces were not directed to establish law and order—and may not have had enough forces for this mission anyway—they stood aside while looters ravaged Iraq’s infrastructure and destroyed the facilities that the military campaign had taken great pains to ensure remained intact. Because Iraq’s own police and military evaporated shortly after Saddam fell, ordinary Iraqis lived in a basically lawless society for months, during which, among other things, insurgents, terrorists, and criminal gangs assembled with impunity. And because U.S. forces have had to focus on providing security for their own personnel (both military and civilian) as much as for Iraqis, the buildup of coalition forces did not bring the degree of safety and security it might have brought had order been imposed from the start.

Page xxvii: … few military voices besides that of Army Chief of Staff General Eric K. Shinseki called attention to the possibility of a major, long-term security challenge in post-Saddam Iraq. One reason other military voices remained muted was that the military operated within the prevailing assumptions set by senior civilian officials, which did not identify security as a problem. Also, as General Franks makes clear in his memoirs, the senior Army planner for OIF was reluctant to take responsibility for security and stabilization missions in the aftermath of major combat. This was not seen as the military’s role or mission.

Page xviii: Although CENTCOM’s commander, General Tommy Franks, refers to Phase IV frequently in his memoirs, for example, he never identifies the specific mission that U.S. forces should have had during that time. To the contrary: He expresses the strong sentiment that his civilian superiors should focus on postwar operations while he focused on the war itself. He goes on to argue that civic action sets the preconditions for security rather than the other way around. And he justifies his decision to retire right after combat ended because the mission was changing and a new commander should be there throughout Phase IV.

What the hell is Wolfowitz talking about?  Where did he hear that assertion?  Who taught him that?  It isn’t at all difficult to imagine that it would take more troops to maintain order than to topple the regime.  Wolfowitz simply asserted axioms in his testimony and took them to be fact.  Actually, it’s worse than that.  Wolfowitz had heard before that it would take more troops than planned from General Eric Shinseki and General Anthony Zinni, and then had to go back in front of the press again and insult Shinseki in order to save his axiom.

There were two failures here.  The first was with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and their group think mentality in which they bullied generals to agree (or at least stay silent).  What is indeed difficult to imagine is that men would have reached the age Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney were and still have been unable to think critically.  The second failure is with generals who are equally unable to think critically.  Jumping to the last quote, the notion (viz. Tommy Franks) that civic actions set the preconditions for security is directly contrary to what we have argued in too many articles to cite: security sets the preconditions for civic actions and reconstruction.  This seems so basic that any child experienced at playing on a schoolyard would know it.

A test was performed by criminals immediately upon the fall of the regime.  This test ascertained whether the U.S. troops could maintain security, law and order.  It is easy to argue that more troops would have been better early on (and we have many times argued just that point), but this issue requires a more nuanced understanding.  The ROE (rules of engagement) and RUF (rules for the use of force) essentially follow the SCOTUS decision in Tennessee v. Garner, and disallow deadly force for anything but self defense.

Here, more troops to watch as looters took what they wanted wouldn’t have helped.  It was left to individual property owners to take up arms and – you guessed it – use deadly force to protect their belongings.  Thus, since nothing will change regarding the ROE or RUF, the Iraq experience has shown us a gaping hole in our ability to provide law and order in a society which is accustomed to the use of deadly force (like Iraq).  The notions of restrictive ROE/RUF and maintenance of post-invasion law and order in a society such as Iraq (or many other Middle East or African countries) might be irreconcilable.  To date, The Captain’s Journal is the only voice speaking on this issue.  In the future, it should be understood that the ROE/RUF will change, or there will be anarchy after a regime is toppled.  Take your pick.

The one place that the military can learn from corporate America is rejection of the notion of group think and also of unchallenged assumptions.  It was too easy for Tommy Franks.  Given the military assets in the possession of the U.S. at the time of the invasion, our grandmother could have led the toppling of the Saddam regime.

Critical thinking, challenging of assumptions, elevation and highlighting of disagreements rather than agreements, and scholarship.  These are the elements of the Armed Forces of tomorrow – if it is to be successful, whether in near-peer or counterinsurgency warfare.

In the article concerning On Point II we supplied preliminary observations on the voluminous report concerning unpreparedness for post-invasion Iraq.  One nuance of doctrine and terminology stands out in the crowd of ideas in the report, and is worthy of a bit of unpacking.  On page 87 we read:

To face this evolving and complex threat, American Soldiers began conducting full spectrum operations designed to directly and indirectly engage the insurgent enemy. This response is the subject of the second part of this chapter. At times, US Army units launched focused combat operations—often described using the unofficial term “kinetic operations”—to destroy insurgent forces and capabilities. However, from the very beginning of the full spectrum campaign, US forces also mounted broader efforts to build popular support for the new Iraqi Government and the Coalition project in Iraq. These operations, sometimes called “nonkinetic” operations, concentrated on the reconstruction of the Iraqi infrastructure, the establishment of representative government, the training of ISF, and general efforts to improve the quality of life for the population.

With the following doctrinaire footnote: The 2008 version of FM 3-0, Operations, uses the terms “lethal” and “nonlethal” actions instead of “kinetic” and “nonkinetic.”

This isn’t the first occasion we have noticed the distinction between kinetic versus nonkinetic operations and lethal versus nonlethal operations.  We had previously discussed this with another interested party who brought up the same thing in response to one (or more) of our articles.

The definition of kinetic is “relating to or characterized by motion – supply motive force.”  This seems to be an apt definition of numerous tactics employed in the battle space.  For instance, a satellite patrol conducted for the purpose of finding the enemy or ridding the streets of gangs, criminals and/or insurgents, should count as kinetic operations, whether there was force employed or even whether that force was lethal or nonlethal.  Similarly, an intelligence-driven raid where no shot was fired and the target surrendered without resistance should be considered a very dynamic operation, and thus a part of kinetics.

A leisurely stroll by a squad down a street in Fallujah to meet and greet the citizens and assess atmospherics should be considered nonkinetic operations, and would only transition to kinetic operations if shots were taken.  Also, the transition to kinetic operations would become effective whether or not a shot was fired in response, and whether there was any lethality involved on either part.

The distinction we are drawing is this.  Lethal and nonlethal should be seen as subsets of kinetic operations, not replacements for the concept, no matter which phrase came first historically.  Nonkinetic operations by definition can only be nonlethal.

On the other hand, to opt for lethal and nonlethal as replacements for kinetic and nonkinetic operations would imply the following: a patrol where no shots were fired, and yet casualties sustained due to shots being taken from the enemy, would have to be categorized as nonlethal operations if the casualty survived (and perhaps even if not, since no lethality was employed by U.S. forces).  This is absurd.

Regarding common, ordinary, everyday usage (regardless of how they may be described in an Army Field Manual), the terms lethal and nonlethal are poor terms to describe the totality of U.S. operations.  They are very wooden and un-malleable terms which cannot hope to encompass all potential actions or reactions in the battle space.  The Captain’s Journal recommends that the doctrinaire writers go back to the drawing board on this one.

Colonel Tom McGrath recently met with bloggers to discuss the recent events surrounding the prison break in Kandahar and subsequent combat that occurred in the villages around Kandahar.  A number of interesting exchanges took place.

Q Sure, I mean, you know, the question that I’d really hope to ask, after the obligatory thank-you for taking the time with us, was basically the media impressions of this were that it was a fairly large, well-organized raid on the part of the Taliban.  And the impression I’m getting from listening to you is pretty substantially different. Am I correct in that?

COL. MCGRATH: Yeah, I mean, listen, I’ll give them credit. They pulled it off. It was successful. So you know, it’s all about the results.  And they got what they wanted. But I don’t think it was that big of a success, because we pursued them up into the district and we were able to kill them and capture them and push them out of the district very quickly within a matter of days — (inaudible) — weeks or months, which has happened before.  So I don’t —

Q Not so much asking about sort of the outcomes as sort of the scale on which they could operate, I mean, to the extent that they had 40 or 50 people as opposed to the extent they had 5 people.

COL. MCGRATH: Yeah, I don’t think it was, no. The numbers: I’m not really sure. We’ll never know. It could have been that large or that small.  But you know, they’re walking around the city like you and I. It doesn’t take much to burst into a compound and, you know, push the doors open and let some folks out.  You know, someone had written that it was as good as, you know, a ranger-style raid or a commando-style raid. I don’t buy that. If it was so good, they would have been able to get away, reconsolidate and attack us and
hurt us. But it was the other way around.

Regardless of the way the main stream media put it, The Captain’s Journal compared it more to a Mad Max movie than some special operation by well-honed troops.

You simply cannot make this stuff up.  In a scene reminiscent of Mad Max or The Road Warrior, 30 motorcyclists managed to take out a prison and release 1150 criminals, 400 Taliban among them.  Where was the force protection?  Where were the vehicle barriers (you know, those mechanically operated devices that flatten your tires if you go over them the wrong way)?  Where were the concrete truck barricades?  Where was the training?  Where was the supervision?  Forget expensive UAVs and road construction for a minute.  What about spending a little money on teaching the Afghan police about combat and force protection.  Failure to do so has cost us the freedom of 400 Taliban – and potentially U.S. lives to capture or kill them again.

The point was not the brilliance of the Taliban, but the abject failure of the prison system and police.  What did Col. McGrath have to say about that issue?

… like I said, their prisons aren’t like our prisons or jails. They’re pretty much just edifices with doors and things like that, so if a big explosion comes though, there’s a lot of mayhem, they’re able to push their way out or — many are unlocked, what might be a lock or not — there might even not be locks in there as far as I know, and just make their way — made a run for it.

Our point exactly.  There is good news too.  The Afghan Army readied themselves quickly, went after the Taliban, and within a couple of days have driven them from the Kandahar area (read the full interview of Col. McGrath).  They are getting better.  But there is a caveat.  Our friend Richard S. Lowry asked some hard questions since TCJ couldn’t be in on the discussion.

Q Great. We’ve heard reports back here after the prison break that there were roughly 1,100 prisoners that got away and 400 of them were Taliban.  Assuming those numbers are right, and what you’ve told us just in the last few minutes, it looks like there’s 900 to a thousand of them that are still at large. Is there any ongoing operation that you can tell us about to hunt these people down?

COL. MCGRATH: There was about 900, we think, that got out. There was reports, you know, there were 400 Taliban, 200 Taliban. I’d say it was more probably 200 to 300 that were in there, Taliban. We conducted the operations in the Arghandab, and I told you we killed about 80, took another 25 prisoner, killed another 20 or 30 southwest of the city. But there’s ongoing operations – – I can’t get into detail — to continue to fight the Taliban and pursue the Taliban.

Q So you’re pretty confident that you got a vast majority of the Taliban in the first 24 to 48 hours that escaped?

COL. MCGRATH: No, I can’t speculate. They don’t keep very good records at the prison. We haven’t been through the training with the prison yet. That’s something — probably be down the road. It’s not on my — I don’t do the prisons over here. So I just don’t know, to be honest with you.

Col. McGrath wisely refused to speak authoritatively concerning numbers.  But based on previous reports, it appears that there are several hundred Taliban still at large from this prison break.  They melted away into the villages to fight again another day rather than take anyone on in direct kinetic engagements.  Or, they melted away into the nearby mountains.

A view of the Arghandabd district in the southern city of Kandahar, June 19, 2008 (Reuters)

The Taliban have history in the mountains around Kandahar, where Mullah Omar had a wealthy dwelling in spite of the poverty of the people in the region.  We have seen it before.  In December of 2001 upon the fall of Kandahar, Muhammad Omar and the Taliban fled to the mountains in the area.  Three months ago in Taking the High Ground in Afghanistan we commented that Afghan and IASF forces must be prepared to engage in the chase in the high ground.

Winning or losing the campaign will not come down to being able to rapidly deploy and temporarily drive the Taliban from their domiciles.  The lessons learned in Iraq – constant contact with both the enemy and population, intelligence-driven raids, security, relentless pressure on the enemy, relationships with the people – must be applied in Afghanistan.  Whack-a-mole counterinsurgency will not work.

In Concerning the U.S.-Iraq Security Arrangement we discussed the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq over exactly what the U.S. force presence should look like in the future.  We concluded with the position that an empowered Iran would result from a rapid stand-down of U.S. forces in Iraq, and that a once-in-a generation opportunity existed to impede Iranian intentions of hegemony by our continued existence in Iraq.

David Ignatius recently had an article where he discussed the “right Iraqi footprint,” citing David Kilcullen.

I’ve been helped in thinking about the future of Iraq by conversations over the past week with Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, a retired Australian army officer and an expert in counterinsurgency. He was a key member of the team that drafted Gen. David Petraeus’s Iraq campaign plan. He was speaking in a private capacity at an academic conference sponsored by the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies — and he stressed that he was offering ideas about the future, rather than a critique of past or present strategy.

Kilcullen’s key point is that we need to use the breathing space the surge has created to transition to a presence in Iraq that is less costly and more sustainable. By congressional estimates, we’re spending about $400 million a day on the war; at that rate, we are walking into the trap Osama bin Laden described in 2004, when he said he wanted to draw us so deep into conflict that we would eventually leave the region exhausted and bankrupt, the way the Soviets departed Afghanistan.

Kilcullen argues, as Abizaid did, that our heavy military occupation of Iraq has created enemies unnecessarily. It’s human nature: People don’t like to see another country’s army patrolling their streets. It’s the “antibody response,” he says. “Our large-scale presence, although essential for current stability, also creates an angry reaction — and therefore can’t be a permanent solution. We need to focus on what General Petraeus has called ‘sustainable security.’ ”

The alternative to our big, uniformed force in Iraq is a lighter, smaller, more nimble residual force. This force could concentrate on the tasks that most Iraqis and Americans seem to think are sensible — fighting al-Qaeda terrorists and training the Iraqi military and other proxy forces. “Over the long run, we need to go cheap, quiet, low-footprint,” argues Kilcullen.

Is The Captain’s Journal out of accord with Kilcullen?  Not by a long shot.  In fact, we heartily concur with Kilcullen’s position, as any regular reader knows (see Observations on Timeliness from the Small Wars Manual, where we feared that the protracted operations were leading to the perception of the U.S. as occupier rather than liberator).

There are seasons in counterinsurgency, and a finite period of time in which to accomplish certain important milestones and results.  We were advocating the “surge” and “security plan” from the inception of The Captain’s Journal.  We have also been among the first to raise warning flags about Operation Enduring Freedom, advocating vigorously for more troops, a change in rules of engagement for NATO troops, and a comprehensive strategic approach.

This buildup of troops, we have known for some time, could only come from a decrease in troop presence in Iraq.  But we also know that after pacification of parts of Iraq and standing up the internal Iraqi system, further troops presence would only cause a diminution of the view of the U.S. mission among Iraqis.  The Marines in Anbar should be standing down very soon, if they haven’t already.  The season of combat is over, the season of transition teams and proper governance is in full swing, and even that will be standing down soon.

We advocated more rapid confrontation of the problematic Shi’a South for the same reasons that we advocated a rapid buildup in Afghanistan.  Seasons run their own course, and cannot be repeated or slowed.  Kilcullen is right on the money concerning footprint.  It should have started large in Iraq, and had to wait on the surge.  It will end small, but the very concerns we are addressing here speak volumes about the campaign in Afghanistan which is older than Operation Iraqi Freedom.

It is necessary to end with the right force size and mission in Iraq, and this doesn’t mean complete withdrawal any more than it means continued heavy force projection.  The campaign in Afghanistan has yet to see the right size force.

We have covered the hard core, robust kinetic engagement of the U.S. Marines in the Helmand Province in and around the city of Garmser, Afghanistan.  The British drove them to the fight, everyone else watched and the Taliban died.  But is this all there is to U.S. Marine style counterinsurgency?  Not even nearly.  Michael M. Phillips of the Wall Street Journal has given us a thinking man’s discussion of counterinsurgency in After Battle in Afghanistan Villages, Marines Open Complaint Shop.

During a month of house-to-house combat, First Lt. Steven Bechtel’s men fired about 500 mortar rounds at Taliban insurgents.

Now, he’s paying the price.

Just two days after the main Taliban force was routed, Lt. Bechtel put aside his weapons and opened what amounts to a wartime complaints desk in a mud-brick hut. The lieutenant and his men spend their time cataloging the destruction and issuing vouchers to compensate villagers for their losses, whether caused by U.S. missiles or Taliban grenades.

“We’re very sorry for the damage to your doors, but we had to make sure the Taliban didn’t leave any bombs or weapons inside,” Lt. Bechtel last week told Abdul Majid, a 70-year-old with a weathered face, a dense white beard and a cane made from a tree limb.

“It’s no problem,” Mr. Majid responded. “You’re paying for it.”

The First Battalion of the Sixth Marine Regiment was recently deployed to Afghanistan as part of a force, 3,000-strong, helping to turn the tide against a resurgent Taliban. What resulted was a conventional battle that raged through the villages and poppy fields of Garmsir District, a major waypoint for insurgents leaving safe havens in Pakistan, a sign of how far Western gains have slipped recently.

The fighting sent civilians fleeing into the surrounding desert. After the violence ebbed, the villagers returned, in many cases to homes cracked open by artillery, bombs, missiles and rocket-propelled grenades. Soon they were lined up at Lt. Bechtel’s door, testing the Marines’ ability to shift gears on the fly, from combat to the struggle for popular allegiance. Winning over the locals has always been a goal; now, it’s happening in double-quick time.

“It just switched suddenly one day,” says Lt. Bechtel, a soft-spoken 24-year-old from Naples, Fla., who decided in the eighth grade that he wanted to be a Marine. “All of the sudden there were civilians in the area.”

More than 200 villagers have applied for compensation already, and a vendor has set up shop outside the coiled razor-wire barrier selling cigarettes and soda to the petitioners. At the first coils, the villagers, all men or boys, must lift their shirts or robes to show that they aren’t wearing suicide vests. At the guard post, a Marine sentry pats them down before they’re allowed to approach the office.

The walls inside are adorned with posters of sumptuous feasts and the holy city of Medina. They’re property of the compound’s owner. The Marines commandeered the man’s residence during the fighting, and now scores of men from the battalion’s Alpha Company camp in his buildings and sandy yard, for which they pay the equivalent of $60 a month in rent. The troops promise to leave as soon as they have built a base of their own. But the owner comes by almost daily to demand his house back, or at least more rent.

The first time a villager comes to the complaint office, the lieutenant or his No. 2, Sgt. James Blake, a 25-year-old from Merrimack, N.H., jots down the claim on a piece of yellow legal paper. The petitioner takes the note to a Marine patrol in his neighborhood. The Marines verify the damage and send the man back to Lt. Bechtel.

At the second meeting, the Marines tally up the cost, using data on an Excel spreadsheet that the lieutenant, who majored in mechanical-engineering at Virginia Military Institute, compiled using prices gathered from the local market.

The Marines have a penchant for personal responsibility and equipment and ordnance accountability.  Every round is intended to kill the enemy, and yet every round is tracked for its affect.  Tear down a door?  We pay.  Kill a goat?  We pay.  Break a window?  We replace it.  And … we track it all in EXCEL.  The same thing was done in Fallujah during Operation Alljah.

The tired and badly simplistic phrase “winning hearts and minds” should be forever forgotten in favor of what they Marines have done in Anbar, Iraq and Helmand, Afghanistan.  It is about kinetics, security for the population, cultural understanding, family honor, property ownership, boundaries of behavior, and holding the terrain to ensure long term stability and governance.

Today’s warriors not only have to be qualified at warcraft, they must be warrior scholars, capable of cultural assimilation, at least pseudo-qualified in anthropology and psychology, and prepared for stability operations.  And the Marines are not only up to the task, they are the best in the world.

Lastly, the WSJ article leaves this account with a caveat.

On a single day last week , the Marines pledged $12,100 in reparations. “I’d rather be shooting mortars,” says Sgt. Blake. “But I understand why we’re doing this, paying for the damage we caused. And I like helping people out as much as we can.”

Mr. Majid, the elderly petitioner, patted Lt. Bechtel on the shoulder and removed his own blue turban — gestures of gratitude — when offered 36,000 afghanis, or about $720, to repair his house and restore his fields. Afterward, he requested medicine for his headaches and help feeding his family. By the time he left, Mr. Majid had a new radio, a few packaged military meals, Tylenol for his head and antidiarrhea medicine for his grandson.

There’s one flaw in the Marines’ campaign. While they freely issue compensation vouchers, they don’t have any actual money to give out yet. The cash, the Marines tell the villagers, will be here on July 1. The date has already slipped once, from mid-June, and some people doubt they’ll ever see the money. “If we don’t pay them on the first,” Sgt. Blake said, “it’s going to be bad.”

You better believe it.  The money had better be there because it affects the reputation of the U.S. Marines and the COIN effort underway in Afghanistan.  Time for the DoD to “belly up to the bar.”

Prior:

The Warrior Scholar

Marines in Helmand

We recently covered the break of approximately 400 low- and mid-level Taliban fighters from prison by motorcyclists and suicide bombers.  The families of these fighters were said to be slaughtering sheep in anticipation of their return.  Now for the consequences of the laxity in prison and judicial operations.  The freed Taliban fighters are massing in villages around Kandahar and digging in anticipating a fight with the Afghan Army or ISAF.

The Taliban dug into defensive positions in a cluster of villages near Kandahar yesterday in apparent preparation for a battle on the doorstep of Afghanistan’s second city.

The brazen gambit came days after the Taliban smashed into Kandahar’s main prison, freeing 400 militants, and deepening the sense of crisis in the country.

Local elders said fighters had flooded into Arghandab, a rural sprawl of farmhouses and vineyards that stretches north-west of Kandahar city. “They have blown up several bridges and are planting mines everywhere,” Muhammad Usman, a taxi driver who had evacuated a family, told reporters in Kandahar.

The Afghan army flew 700 soldiers into Kandahar and Nato redeployed Canadian soldiers in response to the Taliban actions. But the US-led coalition – which operates under a separate chain of command – disputed the seriousness of the threat, saying it had deployed a patrol to Arghandab and found “no evidence that militants control the area”.

A Nato spokesman, Mark Laity, said the alliance had a “very mixed picture” about the size of the buildup. “We assume insurgents are there but we have little evidence of hundreds. You have some displaced people who are panicky, some bad guys who are exaggerating and so it’s hard to know what is happening,” he said.

Laity said Nato aircraft had dropped leaflets on the area urging residents to stay indoors. “We’re emphasising potential threats,” he said.

The Taliban have long prized Arghandab, whose pomegranate orchards and vineyards make for ideal guerrilla fighting ground. Soviet troops never managed to capture the area during the 10-year occupation that ended in 1989. But it has been vulnerable since the death last year of two leaders of the local Alokozai tribe, Mullah Naqibullah and Abdul Hakim Jan – one from a heart attack, the other in a suicide bombing …

One commander, Mullah Ahmedullah, said escaped prisoners from Friday night’s jailbreak were among their ranks.

“We’ve occupied most of the area and it’s a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the Nato and Afghan forces,” he told the Associated Press.

So the ISAF has “deployed a patrol” to the area and found no evidence that the Taliban control anything.  This sounds similar to the claim that there wasn’t going to be a spring offensive.  The Captain’s Journal will make a prediction.  First, when fighting starts, it will then be ascertained that the Taliban didn’t give away their force size to this patrol (as if they are supposed to walk up and surrender intelligence to the ISAF).  Second, the Taliban will make this as much of an asymmetric fight as they capable.

They have learned their lesson well from other kinetic engagements, and they will use roadside bombs, mines, fire and melt away, and snipers, and they will hide amongst the population.  And the lesson for ISAF and the Afghan Army?  It would be nice, this idea that they would meet on the field of battle and conduct squad rushes against a uniformed army.  But it won’t happen, and coalition forces need to be as adaptable as the Taliban have proven to be.

Sending a patrol into the area is not the ticket.  Countersnipers, robust ROE, distributed operations, night time operations, route interdiction, UAV surveillance, checkpoints, starting and fainting away and later conducting the operation on our own time table to keep the enemy guessing … these ideas are winners, along with force projection.  When command thinks they have enough troops, they need to double the force size.

If the Taliban choose to confront the ISAF in kinetic operations, then the battle plan may be easier than we thought.  But according to the reports from the field to The Captain’s Journal, it won’t happen this way.  If the Taliban fire and melt away and the fighting ends in the immediate area, it is too soon for the ISAF to claim victory.  Counterinsurgency takes time and commitment.  Keep the faith.

Six months agoThe Captain’s Journal was issuing warnings about Operation Enduring Freedom being headed in the wrong direction, while General Rodriguez (and U.S. intelligence in Afghanistan) were denying that there would be any such thing as a spring Taliban offensive.  The only offensive, they claimed, would be the U.S. offensive to route the Taliban.  True, the Marines have had tremendous success in and around Garmser, but this is only localized success at the hands of a few companies of Marines.  If there is any current doubt about the need for force projection – a recurring theme as our readers know – May’s combat deaths in Afghanistan outnumbered Iraq.

It’s a grim gauge of U.S. wars going in opposite directions: American and allied combat deaths in Afghanistan in May passed the monthly toll in Iraq for the first time.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the statistical comparison to dramatize his point to NATO defense ministers that they need to do more to get Afghanistan moving in a better direction. He wants more allied combat troops, more trainers and more public commitment.

More positively, the May death totals point to security improvements in Iraq that few thought likely a year ago.

But the deterioration in Afghanistan suggests a troubling additional possibility: a widening of the war to Pakistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaida have found haven.

By the Pentagon’s count, 15 U.S. and two allied troops were killed in action in Iraq last month, a total of 17. In Afghanistan it was 19, including 14 Americans and five coalition troops. One month does not make a trend, but in this case the statistics are so out of whack with perceptions of the two wars that Gates could use them to drive home his point about Afghanistan.

Even when non-combat deaths are included, the overall May toll was greater in Afghanistan than in Iraq: a total of 22 in Afghanistan, including 17 Americans, compared with 21 in Iraq, including 19 Americans, according to an Associated Press count.

The comparison is even more remarkable if you consider that there are about three times more U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Since the Iraq war began in March 2003, there have been just under 4,100 U.S. deaths — including more than 3,300 killed in action — according to the Pentagon’s count. In the Afghan campaign, which began in October 2001, the U.S. death total is just over 500, including 313 killed in action.

We also covered the recent Afghan prison break in Kandaharreleasing 450 Taliban back into the population.  So as to remediate any doubt remaining about a resurgent Taliban, their public relations has given us a glimpse into the operation.

Yesterday, Sarposa’s entire population of 1,100 inmates – including murderers, bandits and about 450 hardened Islamic militants – was enjoying freedom after an audacious Taliban attack engineered one of the biggest mass jail breaks in history.

In a spectacular raid which confounded hopes that the Taliban was now on the back foot, a group of about 30 heavily armed insurgents launched an assault on the prison on Friday evening, using two suicide bombers to blow open the gates and then massacring at least 15 dazed guards as they tried to put up a fight.

The inmates fled into the night through the lush pomegranate groves that surround the building before coalition troops could arrive from their base on the far side of the city. Convoys of Taliban-driven getaway minibuses were waiting nearby with engines running.

Yesterday, as coalition and Afghan officials launched an urgent review of security in every jail in the country and declared a state of emergency in Kandahar, Taliban supporters around the region began slaughtering sheep in anticipation of being reunited with their jailed relations.

There is another problem regarding prisons.  The recent SCOTUS decision will make it difficult to bring arrested enemy combatants to the U.S. for formal prosecution, but building prisons in Afghanistan just got harder.

“There has been no agreement with the ministry of justice. We cannot speak about this.” Members of the Afghan parliament also pleaded ignorance of the plans.

“This issue has not been referred to parliament,” said Shukria Barakzai, a member of the lower house. She insisted that parliamentary action would be required before construction can start.

“According to the laws of Afghanistan, the land cannot be given away,” she said. “No country has a right to make a prison here. And not a single criminal should be handed over to foreigners. This prison at Bagram not only violates the constitution, it calls into question the legitimacy of the present government.”

President Hamid Karzai refused to comment on the issue.

But others say plans for the new prison have become an issue between Washington and Kabul.

“The government will not say this formally, but this issue has been raised between high-ranking authorities of Afghanistan and the United States,” said Fazel Rahman Oria, editor of Erada Daily newspaper.

“It shows the climate of distrust between the two countries.” Oria also speculated that building a massive detention facility could deepen growing resentment of the foreign military presence in the country.

The rules of engagement orient U.S. servicemen to arrest combatants, while the SCOTUS gives them constitutional rights and foreign countries prohibit the construction of prisons to hold them.  And in another sign of shifting tactics away from direct kinetic confrontation and towards standoff weapons and covert action, four U.S. Marines out of Twentynine Palms died from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in what was the “worst single attack on U.S. or coalition forces in Afghanistan this year.”  The campaign badly needs force projection to kill the enemy.

Background & Report

In Competing Strategies in Afghanistan we documented the push by Hamid Karzai, Secretary Miliband and Secretary Des Browne to negotiate with the Taliban.  The Canadian liberal Senators have now put their weight behind the same plan, with the Tory Senators waffling over the idea.

The wide-ranging report also calls for the military to extend tour lengths to between nine and 12 months from the current six-month rotation, something that is being actively considered by Canada’s war planners.

“We’re aware this is a very contentious issue related to families,” Kenny said. “But it will have significant advantages in terms of creating a better relationship in Afghanistan.”

The Senators said it would also cut down on the number of soldiers who have to deploy several times to the country, and presumably ease the emotional burden on their families.

But the most contentious recommendation of the report, and the one least likely to be accepted by the Tories, is that Canadian soldiers and government officials try to make contact with the Taliban insurgency. The government has repeatedly rejected this course of action even though other NATO countries have made it a common practice.

“We’ve been very careful about it,” Kenny said, noting that Tory Senators objected to the recommendation. “We believe that these communications should take place only in circumstances where we think that some specific progress can be made.”

TheStar.com even showed a nice picture of what reconciliation looks like with a picture of Taliban surrendering their weapons.

But a different picture has been painted of the Taliban intentions.

“In the daytime we are farmers; at night we are Taliban,” he said, smiling.

Recent news reports published across the world would suggest the insurgency in Afghanistan is close to being defeated. In particular, they have focused on the southern province of Helmand, where a surge in US troops has allowed Nato-led forces to take new ground.

But when The National interviewed two Taliban commanders this month, it heard, and saw, a radically different story.

In the spring of 2007, Ghafar and his colleague, Zahir Jan, travelled to Kandahar from their homes in Helmand, where they claimed innocent women and children had been buried under the rubble of buildings destroyed by air strikes. At the time, both said they were fighting to defend their religion, their country and their families.

Since then, the violence has continued unabated. The Taliban and foreign soldiers – most notably the British – have suffered heavy casualties. Thousands upon thousands of Afghan civilians have been forced to flee the fighting.

Given the intensity of the combat, two men who live through it on a daily basis could be forgiven for feeling at least a little weary. Yet, if anything, Ghafar and Zahir Jan appeared more relaxed and determined than they were a year ago.

Speaking on the condition that the location of the interview would not be revealed, they came across as happy and eager to fight. For them, each death – no matter whose side it is on – means they are a step closer to bringing the conflict to an end.

“You know, the Taliban and the Americans are as different as fire and water. Maybe the water will kill the fire or the fire will kill the water, but one of these things has to happen,” Zahir Jan said …

Offhandedly, they said the United States deserves to be attacked on its own soil and suggested the Taliban could eventually send suicide bombers to the United States. They said they were “thousands times more confident” of victory in Afghanistan than they had been before, thanks largely to growing support from the population and improved weaponry.

“We have very advanced rockets. You can split them into three parts and carry them on donkeys. Then you just walk along and when you see a convoy of troops you can fix them together and fire them very quickly,” Zahir Jan said.

“If the foreigners did not have their planes, then within five days I guarantee we would be in the streets of Kabul.”

Analysis & Commentary

It has been said that the counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan now includes a mixture of drug runners, criminals, warlords, and Taliban.  True, as we have noted in The Disaggregation of the Taliban.  But as we have also noted, wheat is replacing poppy throughout Afghanistan as the money crop, and nothing stops the Taliban from extortion of farmers over the safe transport of wheat.  In fact, nothing has stopped the Taliban from extortion of wireless phone companies in Afghanistan.  The problem is not wheat, wireless phone companies or poppy.  The problem is the Taliban.

Although widely known for corruption and helping only a little in the campaign against the Taliban, the Karzai government is not why NATO and U.S. forces are in Afghanistan.  There are many corrupt governments in the world, but only a few of them have Taliban.  Criminality, drugs, corruption, lack of infrastructure, and a host of other things have managed to divert attention off of the real problem in Afghanistan.

When reconciliation with the Sunni insurgency began in Anbar, Shiekh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha and his tribe had already begun to fight al Qaeda.  Over the course of the next two years the Sunni insurgency would lay down arms, put on police uniforms, and maintain security for the population while working alongside Americans.  In Fallujah in 2007, the Iraqi Police worked hard to emulate and impress the Marines, whom they almost worshiped.  The most recent reconciliation involves more than 500 such fighters in Sunni enclaves within mostly Shi’a Balad, Iraq, these fighters also agreeing to be tried in court for any crimes.

What’s the difference?  The Sunni fighters in Iraq didn’t fight for religious reasons.  The compelling reasons were political and financial.  Any reconciliation with rogue elements in Afghanistan must target warlords, criminals and other non-religiously motivated people.  Rather than these elements, NATO is choosing the only group which will not ever reconcile due to their belief system – the Taliban.

Just like Baitullah Mehsud of the Tehrik-i-Taliban who has recently said that he wants to “fight against Americans,” the Afghan Taliban commanders see that the West and their world view are unable to be reconciled, and they want attacks on American soil again.

Unlike the Pakistani Taliban who are overt with their views, the Afghan Taliban are playing NATO for fools.  “In the daytime we are farmers; at night we are Taliban.”  Even if violence had essentially disappeared from the scene in Afghanistan, leading to the redeployment of NATO forces home, the problem will not have gone away.  The radical ideology remains, and not just in the countryside.  Secret Taliban cells are spreading lessons of jihad in Kabul University.

There exists a once in a generation opportunity to defeat one of the most dangerous, violent and insidious forces on the planet, but for the sake of temporary peace it seems that some are willing to stand down from the fight, pretending that the intentions of the Taliban are sincere.  While this game is futile and pointless, the real problem is that it is affecting strategy and wasting valuable and irreplaceable time in the campaign.  Thus, we play the game at our own peril.

Seth G. Jones of RAND National Defense Research Institute has published Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan.  It will required several assessments to analyze the entirety of the paper, and in lieu of attempting to assess the paper chronologically, we will address it thematically.  Several quotes will be supplied (mainly from Chapter 2 which is entitled Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare).  The last quote is from the recommendations section at the end of the paper.

RAND Study

One of the key challenges in waging effective counterinsurgency operations is understanding the variables that impact their success (or failure).  Most assessments of counterinsurgency operations tend to ignore or downplay the role of indigenous forces and mistakenly focus on how to improve the capabilities of outside forces to directly defeat insurgents. This might include revising the U.S. military’s organizationalstructure or increasing external resources (such as troops) to directly counterinsurgents. This approach assumes the recipe for a successful counterinsurgency is adapting the U.S. military’scapabilities so it can win the support of the local population and defeat insurgents. The problem with this approach is that it ignores or underestimates the most critical actor in a counterinsurgency campaign: the indigenous government and its security forces.

This mistake is common in the counterinsurgency literature. John Nagl argues, for example, that success in counterinsurgency operations is largely a function of an external military’s ability to adapt its organizational structure and strategy to win the support of the local population and directly defeat insurgents. But he largely ignores the role of the indigenous government and its security forces.

This focus on winning counterinsurgency campaigns by improving the capabilities of external actors has become conventional wisdom among numerous military officials and counterinsurgency experts. However, such a strategy is misplaced. While improving the U.S. military’sability to directly counter insurgents may be necessary to a successful counterinsurgency campaign, it is not sufficient. In particular, it underestimates the importance of indigenous forces: Most counterinsurgency campaigns are not won or lost by external forces, but by indigenous forces. The quality of indigenous forces and government has significantly impacted the outcome of past counterinsurgencies.

Indeed, there are dangers in focusing too heavily on a lead U.S. role and improving U.S. military capabilities to directly act against insurgents. First, U.S. forces are unlikely to remain for the duration of any counterinsurgency effort, at least as a major combatant force.  Insurgencies are usually of short duration only if the indigenous government collapses at an early stage. An analysis of all insurgencies since 1945 shows that successful counterinsurgency campaigns last for an average of 14 years, and unsuccessful ones last for an average of 11years. Many also end in a draw, with neither side winning. Insurgencies can also have long tails: Approximately 25 percent of insurgencies won by the government and 11 percent won by insurgents last more than 20 years.  Since indigenous forces eventually have to win the war on their own, they must develop the capacity to do so. If they do not develop this capacity, indigenous forces are likely to lose the war once international assistance ends.  Second, indigenous forces usually know the population and terrain better than external actors and are better able to gather intelligence. Third, a lead U.S. role may be interpreted by the population as an occupation, eliciting nationalist reactions that impede success.  Fourth, a lead indigenous role can provide a focus for national aspirations and show the population that they—and not foreign forces—control their destiny. Competent governments that can provide services to their population in a timely manner can best prevent and overcome insurgencies.

Recommendations section: Where possible, U.S. counterinsurgency forces should be kept to a minimum and supported with civil-affairs and psychological operations units.

Analysis & Commentary

Jones is obviously well-studied and presents the data clearly, and the citations above are all the more remarkable because of these facts.  Without even a careful reading of the text, Jones is calling for the small footprint model of counterinsurgency.

Jones presents data and analysis to support a number of self-evident truths, such as the need to stand up the country’s own counterinsurgency forces as U.S. forces stand down, the need for a government essentially without corruption, and so forth.  But the leap from these truths to the necessity for a small footprint is not obviously or logically a necessary one.

More to the point, it is remarkable that this analysis was written in 2008.  General Abizaid and his successors were under orders to train the Iraqi Security Forces, and while some forces were deployed in the field conducting regular counterinsurgency operations, many weren’t until the security plan.

The Marines didn’t pay much attention to things going on outside of the Anbar Province, having had that AO turned over to them in 2004.  After a halting start in Fallujah, al Fajr set the stage for things to come in the province.  To rehearse an old theme, the tribal turn against al Qaeda and the insurgency didn’t occur in a vacuum.  Not only did al Qaeda’s brutality aid the turning, Shiekh Abdul Abu Sattar Risha had smuggling lines completely cut by U.S. kinetic operations.  Al Qaeda had become brutal, but the U.S. was an impediment to the welfare of his tribe.  He chose to fight al Qaeda, and even after beginning this part of the awakening a U.S. tank was parked in his front yard to protect his home and family.  The Sunnis turned on al Qaeda and sided with the U.S. because it was advantageous to do so.

Force projection was the hallmark of the Marine campaign in Anbar, with constant contact with both the enemy and population.  The small footprint or minimal force projection model was not applied in Anbar.  Subsequently after implementation of the security plan in and around Baghdad, it is simply impossible to argue that the small footprint model was used by Petraeus.

In fact, the opposite is true.  If there is any legacy of the small footprint model it is that in part it led to the necessity for the surge and security plan.  The notion of standing up the Iraqi Army suffered in the wake of cultural differences (e.g., the foreign idea of NCOs) as well as porous borders and a transnational insurgency.  Without a heavier footprint than in the early phases of OIF, the institutions couldn’t stand up and become disentangled from corruption (and still haven’t completely).

Turning East to Operation Enduring Freedom, it is no secret that the campaign is under-resourced by a wide margin, as the retiring General McNeill has said so.  The strategy planned for the future of Afghanistan is to negotiate with the Taliban from a position of weakness rather than from a position of strength as was done with the Sunni insurgency in Anbar.  The desperation is obvious, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai while offering peace talks has said he would personally go and talk to the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if he knew his whereabouts or “his phone number.”  This last point should be reconsidered for its power and pedagogical value.  Karzai is talking about making peace with (and thus legitimizing) the very forces which made safe haven for al Qaeda prior to 9/11.

The most recent success in Afghanistan, the Helmand Province, is a success because of force projection by U.S. Marines.  Security is the necessary precondition for standing up the institutions that Jones wants to rely upon.  As one tribal elder in Garmser said to the Marines after entering, “When you protect us, we will be able to protect you.”

This protection doesn’t come with the small footprint model of COIN.  The two most recent insurgencies in history, involving not only radicalized elements but also transnational engagement, are evidence that the large footprint model for COIN is a winner.  Seth Jones has made a number of salient observations concerning COIN in the RAND paper, but almost-failed-nation-states which are vulnerable to criminals and transnational insurgents require nontrivial force size and obvious force projection (such as was the case in Anbar).  Whatever good might come from Jones’ study, his paper, at least on this point, seems badly dated and out of context given the recent conduct of COIN in OIF and OEF.

Further reading:

International Herald Tribune, U.S. think tank: Pakistan helped train Taliban, gave info on U.S. troops

MSNBC, U.S. think tank: Pakistan officials help Taliban

In spite of the success the U.S. Marines have had in the Helmand Province (and the example that this has provided to NATO), the balance of NATO forces in Afghanistan are focused primarily on force protection, and in order to procure that protection, some shady deals have been struck.  Spiegel recently interviewed Hamid Karzai, and while the entire piece is worth studying, one exchange stands out as descriptive of the campaign thus far.  NATO forces are buying protection from criminals and warlords.

SPIEGEL: Dirty deals are still necessary for the stability of Afghanistan?

Karzai: Absolutely necessary, because we lack the power to solve these problems in other ways. What do you want? War? Let me give you an example. We wanted to arrest a really terrible warlord, but we couldn’t do it because he is being protected by a particular country. We found out that he was being paid $30,000 a month to stay on his good side. They even used his soldiers as guards …

SPIEGEL: That sounds like the story of Commander Nasir Mohammed in Badakhshan, a province where German soldiers are based.

Karzai: I don’t want to name the country because it will hurt a close friend and ally. But there are also many other countries who contract the Afghan militias and their leaders. So I can only work where I can act, and I must always calculate what will happen before doing anything.

Karzai has just described an incredibly weak government, along with an incredibly weak campaign if the Germans are paying criminals $30,000 per month for protection.  In this case, the Germans don’t have the force (or rules of engagement) necessary to accomplish force protection, and thus they are buying it.

Another extreme example comes from the Norwegians.

The Norwegian base at Meymaneh is less secure than similar bases belonging to other ISAF forces. “The officers are angry, and I can see why,” says Vice Admiral Jan Reksten, in charge of the Norwegian contingent in Afghanistan.

Faryab province in northwestern Afghanistan has become increasingly restless in recent years. Taliban strength has been growing and there has been fighting in Meymaneh both last fall and in May this year.

Both the military and political heads of the armed forces accept that the base needs strengthening. When the Norwegian force was asked what it needed to defend itself, it asked for 120 troops and long-range weapons. A mobile reaction force was also ordered, so that the allied garrisons in the area could assist each other if any of them came under heavy attack.

Initially they were offered 100 men and long-range weapons. This was pared down to what was termed an absolute minimum of 76, still including mortars.

The most recent tally has fallen to 46 soldiers, with no long-range arms. These will instead be put into storage in Mazar-e-Sharif. This is the sequence of events which has caused tempers to fray.

The base at Meymaneh is a so-called Provincial Reconstruction Team base that provides security and helps with reconstruction in their local area. There are 30 such bases in Afghanistan. The United States alone has 12.

According to defense chief Sverre Diesen and army chief Robert Mood, Meymaneh will in fact be strengthened by the arrival of the arrival of more than 40 troops. The base will house a total of 200 Norwegians, of which 60 are deployed with the helicopter ambulance team currently stationed there. A few Latvian soldiers are also on the base.

“The Swedes, Germans and everyone else have robust rapid response forces. Mortars and armoured assault vehicles are almost always included,” says Col. Ivar Halset, who takes over as commander in Meymaneh in July.

“If we come under the sort of attack we experienced in May, we would no longer have weapons superiority over the Taliban,” adds Halset.

“The nearest reinforcements are an eight hour drive from Meymaneh and a further four to five hours from the areas where trouble is most likely occur,” he concludes.

“When the Norwegian force was asked what it needed to defend itself …” says it all.  The Norwegians are preoccupied with force protection, and as well they should be.  They lack even the basic weapons necessary to do the job, and are so far away from reinforcements (eight hours) and high trouble locations (four hours) that consideration of a combat outpost or counterinsurgency operations is out of the question.

The Australians also admit that more forces are needed.

Defence boss Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston has predicted foreign forces will be in Afghanistan for more than 10 years and thousands more troops are needed there.

He told a Senate Committee yesterday the Australian troops in Oruzgan province had Taliban insurgents on the back foot.

But he admitted they were unable to “hold the ground”.

“We can prevail in small areas but not across the whole province,” he said.

“Large tracts of the province are controlled by the Taliban.

“The ability to hold territory and influence what is happening – that’s the issue. There is a long, long way to go.”

Air Chief Marshal Houston’s sober assessment was backed by Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon.

And then he just as quickly states that not another Australian troop will be committed to the campaign.  Upon his recent retirement, General McNeill made some important observations.

General McNeill’s Isaf control began in February last year. At that time, the force was comprised of 33,000 NATO troops. Since then, 20,000 more have been added, but still more are needed, he said.

“This is an under-resourced war and it needs more manoeuvre units, it needs more flying machines, it needs more intelligence, surveillance and recognisance apparatus”, the general stated.

“I’m not just focused on the US sector, I’m talking about across the country.”

But the example has been given to us.  Ask the Marines in the Helmand Province if they wish to give $30,000 a month to organized crime as protection money.  On second thought, we know the answer to that question before we ask, and hence, we know what needs to be done to win the campaign.  It’s just a matter of doing it.