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Amid robust public debate concerning counterinsurgency and whether it works – and if so, what brand works – two successful counterinsurgency campaigns may be briefly studied to ascertain the common elements.  At the recommendation of Professor Gian Gentile I have studied a paper by Karl Hack entitled “The Malayan Emergency as Counter-Insurgency Paradigm,” The Journal of Strategic Studies Vol. 32, No. 3, 383-414, June 2009.  Hack argues (quite persuasively) that during the Malayan emergency (1948 – 1960, repeatedly cited for COIN examples) Britain applied distinct elements to different phases of the campaign, with the notion of winning hearts and minds coming after a phase of aggressive patrols, population control, etc.  It is naive, argues Hack, to believe that the blend of policies found at the optimization phase will work at the outset of the conflict.  This is important to remember as we ramp up reconstruction teams for Afghanistan in unsecured areas.

The next successful example is the campaign for Anbar.  The much heralded tribal awakening (lead by Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha) unique to Ramadi followed on the heels of significant kinetics to shut down the smuggling lines of Sheik Risha and even kill his tribal members in noteworthy gunfights.  In Haditha it required sand berms surrounding the city (to keep fighters from infiltrating from Syria) along with a police strong man, Deputy Commander Lt. Col. Muhada Mahzir.  In Al Qaim it required heavy kinetics by the U.S. Marines followed on by a police chief strong man named Abu Ahmed.  In Fallujah it required heavy kinetics by the U.S. Marines followed on by biometrics, aggressive policing and patrols, gated communities, payment to the Sons of Iraq, and aggressive Iraqi police (and this in 2007 following even heavier kinetics during al Fajr in 2004).

Creation of utopia or comprehensive state-building wasn’t in the stable of features brought to bear on either campaign discussed above, and yet they were more than marginally successful.  But creation of the circumstances necessary for population control wasn’t quick or easy, and there are no magical formulae to incant in order to effect these conditions.  That’s why Gentile has argued that the center of gravity may not be the population, and it must be discovered by the forces involved in the conflict.  I have gone further and argued that a campaign may not (and in many cases probably doesn’t) have a center of gravity, necessitating multiple lines of effort.

In all cases of successful counterinsurgency there have been enough troops (and the necessary tactics) to effect population control, and thus the idea of small units in forbidding human and physical terrain such as Wanat and Kamdesh are a profoundly bad idea, leading in the end to dead U.S. troops and ruined national reputation before the population we wish to control.

Andy McCarthy argues that McChrystal should be granted his troops for the campaign in Afghanistan (while also strangely arguing that the strategy isn’t clear – why would we sacrifice troops if the strategy isn’t clear?), and then later argues against the practice of counterinsurgency.  More correctly, he is arguing against the practice of state building and population-centric counterinsurgency.  The opposing view is expressed by Joshua Foust when he expresses doubt about the fact that the Marines can successfully occupy Garmsir but haven’t brought enough ANA and ANP forces or good Afghan governance with them for any kind of staying power.  The Marines “thought” they had it right each time they swept through Garmsir.

But the facts are suitable to another narrative.  The British could never hold Garmsir, which is why the U.S. Marine Corps 24th MEU was deployed there in 2008.  They subsequently turned over to the British, who then could not hold the terrain.  Hence, Operation Khanjar was necessary to once again retake Garmsir.  The problem is not that the basic schema was wrong.  The problem is that there have never been enough troops implementing the right tactics to hold the terrain once it has been taken.  The 24th MEU had to leave.  More U.S. Marines should have been deployed because creating good governance and population control – and killing the enemy – don’t happen overnight (as if we can wave a magic wand and deploy good governors and policemen).

McCarthy is right in that creating a utopia is neither a possibility nor a necessity in Afghanistan, but wrong in the implicit presupposition that counterinsurgency done right cannot work.  Foust is right in that there needs to be follow-on stability, but as we have pointed out the ANA and ANP cannot now provide that security and population control.  We have much less with which to work in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq.  That’s why General Petraeus said that of the “long war,” Afghanistan would be the longest campaign.

Poverty doesn’t create radical Islamic insurgencies, since Bangladesh is among the most impoverished countries on earth but doesn’t suffer from the transnational actors that afflict Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Raising Afghanistan from its impoverishment to a nation of relative wealth may be an impossible task, but may be unnecessary (contra the population-centric COIN advocates).  The Taliban continue their propaganda campaign, lately by telling us effectively that they won’t allow al Qaeda back in (or at least that they have no global aspirations).  This is a dubious claim given the mutual admiration, respect and even love between UBL and Mullah Omar. Hakimullah Mehsud, new head of Pakistan’s Tehrik-i-Taliban (and who may be much worse than the deceased Baitullah Mehsud), has said that the relationship between al Qaeda and the TTP is one of love and affection.

As for Garmsir, there are fighters that simply must be killed.

CAMP DELHI, Afghanistan, Oct 3 (Reuters) – On the frontline of Washington’s counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, intelligence officer Hajji Mir Hamzai stands before a map and tells a young Marine where the Taliban are next likely to strike.

“I know here and here, I have heard they want to place bombs,” Hamzai, an Afghan who works for the National Directorate of Security points to a wall and tells Captain Trevor Hunt through a translator.

Hunt wants to know if any of the Taliban in Garmsir district can be turned into allies.

“All Taliban are the same,” said Hamzai, whose three brothers were killed in two separate suicide attacks by the Taliban.

“There is another type which is also called Taliban. They are simple. They are not politicians, they are just locals … But the ones that fight, the only way is to kill them,” said Hamzai, who uses a network of undercover agents to gather information.

As there is in every insurgency, there are locals who will put away their weapons when they learn that the costs are too high to continue – but the corollary is that until they are persuaded of this fact they will not put away their weapons.  But there is a hard core element that must be killed.  This requires troops, as does long term securing and controlling the population.

We needn’t create a utopia, any more than we need to impose Western-style democracy.  The religious and social underpinnings aren’t even in place to support such framework.  But we must kill the globalists and we must control the population until such time as a reliable security apparatus is prepared to fill in behind us once we leave.  This will be a long-duration effort.  At one and the same time, this is the maximum and minimum we can hope to accomplish in this campaign.  We don’t have the national resources or staying power to do more, but if we do less we will likely suffer having to repeat Operation Enduring Freedom because of the mistakes made the first time around.  This is the nexus which defines success.

After the Army’s AR 15-6 investigation, General Petraeus has ordered a new investigation of the Battle of Wanat, in what may be deemed a victory for the fathers of both 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Private Gunnar Zwilling who had requested such an investigation.

The increased attention brought to bear on the Battle of Wanat comes partially as a result of an unpublished study by an Army Historian at the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth named Douglas R. Cubbison which I have reviewed as I stated two months ago.

I found that Mr. Cubbison did a remarkably able job of laying out the framework, historical and military, for the engagement, and made careful use of the facts to weave a narrative together of the event and things that lead to it.  Where I found Mr. Cubbison’s study lacking was his focus on heavy kinetics and the lack of meetings with elders.  In other words, the failure at Wanat had to do with the failure to implement proper counterinsurgency, i.e., winning hearts and minds, or so much of his study concluded.

To be sure, Mr. Cubbison does outline a number of tactical failures, but as I stated two months ago, in my humble opinion Mr. Cubbison’s analysis goes awry when tackling the elements of population-centric counterinsurgency.  Colonel William B. Ostlund documents the kinetic engagements during the deployment in his analysis of lessons learned.

Ultimately, the task force was involved in 1,100 enemy contacts. Those engagements required:
●5,400 fire missions (expending 36,500 rounds).
●3,800 aerial deliveries (bombs and gun runs).
●23 Javelin anti-tank missiles.
●108 TOW missiles.
●Hundreds of grenades thrown.
The enemy routinely engaged at the maximum effective
range, but on at least five occasions were close enough to touch Americans. Twenty-six members of Task Force Rock gave their lives in Kunar Province. Other noteworthy Soldier statistics include:
●143 wounded.
●Three nominated for the Medal of Honor.
●Two nominated for the Distinguished Service Cross (one awarded by the time of this publication).
●25 Silver Stars awarded.
●90 Bronze Star Medals with Valor awarded.
●Over 300 Army Commendation Medals with Valor awarded.

Mr. Cubbison reviews this data and remarks that:

“TF Rock was unable to provide commensurate statistics for Shuras conducted, VETCAPS and MEDCAPS performed, quantities of Humanitarian Supplies distributed, economic development projects initiated, schools constructed, or similar economic, political and diplomatic initiatives.”

Later, he also concludes that population-centric counterinsurgency is not consistent with such heavy kinetics.  I have always attempted to be open, honest and clear with my readers on this issue.  I reject the single center of gravity focus of the Clausewitz school and favor the notion of lines of effort in any counterinsurgency campaign.  There is absolutely no reason to place protecting the population over against killing the enemy.  Moreover, many COIN campaigns can be more neatly placed into phases, with heavier kinetics dominating the initial stages and more population-centric tactics dominating the subsequent stages.

The Washington Post has a recent article that, while initially pointing to under-resourcing of the efforts in the smaller, less population-heavy provinces, nonetheless steps on the same terrain as the Cubbison study.

Before Brostrom moved to Wanat, he went home on leave to see his parents in Hawaii, where they had settled after his father retired from the Army. One evening, he showed his father videos from Afghanistan. Most of the clips were of Brostrom and his troops under fire at the Bella outpost.

In one video, Brostrom’s battalion fired artillery and white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, at a distant campfire in the mountains where it had killed insurgents earlier that day. Someone had come to collect the bodies. The soldiers were determined to kill them.

“Here comes a mighty big explosion on this little candlelight ceremony that the Taliban is having for their buddies that died there earlier,” one of the soldiers says on the video. “This is going to be glorious. It is going to be a bloodbath.”

A few seconds later, the mountainside exploded with fire, and the soldiers let up a raucous cheer.

Human rights groups have criticized the United States for employing white phosphorus to kill enemy fighters, but this type of use is permitted under military rules. The elder Brostrom weighed his words carefully before he spoke. “How do you know those people dragging the bodies away weren’t villagers coming to get their relatives?” he asked.

“They are all [expletive] Taliban up there,” the son replied.

The father continued to press his doubts. The son maintained that the hard-nosed approach was the only thing keeping him alive in a hopeless corner of Afghanistan. Finally, the young lieutenant snapped. “You don’t understand,” he said.

“You’re right, son. I don’t,” the father replied. “I don’t understand it. But I am worried. I am really worried.”

[ … ]

A few days after the platoon arrived, a Wanat village elder gave Brostrom a list of Afghans who had been killed in a helicopter attack the previous week. The dead included insurgents but also several local medical personnel who had worked closely with U.S. soldiers. The incident had infuriated people throughout the valley.

On July 13, their fifth day at the Wanat base, Brostrom and Dzwik ordered all of the soldiers to rise at 3:30 a.m. and man their fighting positions. In Afghanistan, the hours just before dawn are typically the most deadly.

Shortly after 4 a.m., an estimated 200 insurgents let loose a torrent of rocket-propelled-grenade fire, destroying the base’s anti-tank missile system and its mortar tubes. Then they trained their guns on the observation post.

The Washington Post makes it seem as if the ham handedness of the U.S. efforts was at least a contributing cause of the event.  But there are many things that this account doesn’t tell us.  For instance, the town elders had tried to tell the U.S. troops for months that a large scale attack was imminent, and had in fact requested that the Army, which had tried for eleven months to get jirga approval for Vehicle Patrol Base Wanat, simply ignore the highly political inner workings of the jirga and put up the base without approval.

Eleven months delay allowed the Taliban to mass troops, and this plus the horrible terrain of Observation Post Top Side allowed the Taliban to successfully attack with some 300 fighters – near half Battalion size force.  Whether the people of the valley were infuriated or not had nothing to do with the massing of Taliban forces, the fact that the people had no control over the Taliban, or the fact that the elders had already informed the American troops that an attack was coming based on their own observations.

We have previously discussed the Taliban tactic of massing of forces to outnumber U.S. Soldiers or Marines.  The Battle of Wanat occurred in the Nuristan Province.  Not twenty miles from this battle and in the same Province, the Taliban have massed troops once again, killing eight American Soldiers and two Afghan troops.

Eight American soldiers and two Afghan troops have been killed in the deadliest attack on coalition troops for more than a year, officials say.

The battle happened in Nuristan province in the remote east of the country when military outposts were attacked, a Nato statement said.

The Taliban said it carried out the attack. Reports say local officials including a police chief were captured.

Violence has escalated in the east as insurgents relocate from the south.

In a statement, Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said that tribal militia launched attacks on the foreign and Afghan military outposts from a mosque and a nearby village.

The attack is thought to have taken place in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan, and lasted several hours.

About 300 militants attacked one outpost at the foot of a hill, before turning their fire on a US base on higher ground, attacking from two sides, a provincial police chief said.

One Nato spokesman called it a “complex attack in a difficult area”.

Counterinsurgency doctrine says that you must have the support of the population in order to flush out the insurgents.  But what the doctrine doesn’t mention is that force projection is the necessary pre-condition for any of that other doctrine to obtain.  The population will not ally with the weaker side, and not only are heavy kinetics necessary up front in any such campaign, but the troops necessary to pull this off must be in place.

While it might be easy to point the finger at failing to win hearts and minds, it’s much more difficult (and more salient) to ask why any counterinsurgent would be able to win hearts and minds by continually placing platoon-size forces into hostile provinces to be overrun by half-Battalion size enemy forces?

Prior:

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Contribution of the Afghan National Army in the Battle of Wanat

Investigating the Battle of Wanat

Analysis of the Battle of Wanat

60 Minutes did a report on General Stanley McChrystal in which the main theme was that General McChrystal is trying to deprogram eight years of bad habits in Afghanistan.  Killing civilians, running drivers off of the road, and generally being insensitive to the human terrain have kept us from winning the campaign.  It’s the ham handedness that is killing the effort – or so the report goes.  The exercise of air power has come to a virtual standstill in Afghanistan, and to contrast the current state of affairs with the previous, 60 minutes shows McChrystal visiting a town’s marketplace versus what I recognized to be a YouTube video of an A-10 run against a Taliban hideout.

The interviewer presses the issue of combat power.

“The hallmark of American military power was its overwhelming firepower. Now you’re describing a situation in which firepower is almost beside the point?” Martin asked.

“You know, the favorite saying of, ‘To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ We can’t operate that way. We can’t walk with only a hammer in our hands,” McChrystal replied.

Thus McChrystal has issued a tactical directive that has essentially redounded to revised rules of engagement.  But this narrative is not compelling to those who have followed the campaign.  True enough, there are too many troops at large megabases in Afghanistan who ought to be on FOBs.  True enough, the campaign has had to rely very heavily on air power.  The large megabases can be emptied, but the need for air power still exists due to the force size.

The Taliban now have a permanent presence in 80% of Afghanistan due to lack of forces to counter their efforts and provide security.  While improvements can be made in the efficiency of the campaign, the narrative that bad habits have caused the diminution of the effort thus far is made-for-television theater, ending perfectly with a champion general who can repair the broken campaign and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

But it isn’t that simple, and McChrystal know it.  His request for more troops is meeting electoral politics head on, with political advisers being lined up to bolster a potential coming decision not to send more troops.  The never serious National Security Advisor Jim Jones has said of the deadline for deciding more troop levels “I don’t have a deadline in my mind. I think the most important thing is to do it right. But it is going to have a high priority in the administration to do this pretty relentlessly. We have a lot of other things on the table as well.”

Since no thinking American wants the National Security Advisor to worry about “other things on the table” as opposed to national security, the administration knows that it needs more firepower if it’s to deny McChrystal his troops.  Enter Colin Powell, who went on record saying “The question the president has to answer is, ‘What will more troops do?’ ” You have to not just add troops. You need a clear definition of your mission and then you can determine whether you need more troops or other resources.”

As if on cue, Jones warns that “it remains possible that, after a decision on strategy by the president, McChrystal might change his mind about the need for more troops. “We will ask General McChrystal, and say, ‘Okay, now that you’ve heard what our strategy is, does this affect your thinking in terms of your resources and, if so, how?’ ”

What would that strategy be?  As advocated by Senator Kerry, it’s likely to be a small footprint model, more oriented towards counterterrorism rather than counterinsurgency, thus returning us to the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom and the main reason we have watched the slow demise of the campaign.

McChrystal wants to conduct counterinsurgency, but not just any kind of counterinsurgency.  He has made protecting the population the center of gravity, the be all and end all of our efforts.  This has led to the tactical directive concerning kinetics when civilians could possibly be present.  The McChrystal interview with 60 minutes focused on the issue of civilian deaths above every other aspect of the effort.

But in a report that got almost no attention in military blogs, the locals aren’t giving this message to McChrystal.  Concerning the recent targeting of a stolen fuel tanker by an F-15, McChrystal found unexpected support from the Afghans.

At midday Saturday, after visiting the hospital and flying over the bombing site in a helicopter, the team met with two local officials. The NATO officers were expecting anger and calls for compensation. What they received was a totally unanticipated sort of criticism.

“I don’t agree with the rumor that there were a lot of civilian casualties,” said one key local official, who said he did not want to be named because he fears Taliban retribution. “Who goes out at 2 in the morning for fuel? These were bad people, and this was a good operation.”

A few hours later, McChrystal arrived at the reconstruction team’s base in Kunduz. A group of leaders from the area, including the chairman of the provincial council and the police chief, were there to meet him. So, too, were members of an investigative team dispatched by President Hamid Karzai.

McChrystal began expressing sympathy “for anyone who has been hurt or killed.”

The council chairman, Ahmadullah Wardak, cut him off. He wanted to talk about the deteriorating security situation in Kunduz, where Taliban activity has increased significantly in recent months. NATO forces in the area, he told the fact-finding team before McChrystal arrived, need to be acting “more strongly” in the area.

His concern is shared by some officials at the NATO mission headquarters, who contend that German troops in Kunduz have not been confronting the rise in Taliban activity with enough ground patrols and comprehensive counterinsurgency tactics.

“If we do three more operations like was done the other night, stability will come to Kunduz,” Wardak told McChrystal. “If people do not want to live in peace and harmony, that’s not our fault.”

McChrystal seemed to be caught off guard.

“We’ve been too nice to the thugs,” Wardak continued.

As McChrystal drove to the bombing site — defying German suggestions that the area was too dangerous — one senior NATO official noted that the lack of opposition from local officials, despite relatively clear evidence that some civilians were killed, could help to de-escalate tensions.

“We got real lucky here,” the official said.

But McChrystal still had a message to deliver. Even if the Afghan officials were not angry, he certainly did not seem pleased.

After fording the muddy river to see the bombing site — getting his pants wet up to his knees — he addressed a small group of journalists at the reconstruction team headquarters and said it was “clear there were some civilians harmed at that site.” He said NATO would fully investigate the incident.

“It’s a serious event that’s going to be a test of whether we are willing to be transparent and whether we are willing to show that we are going to protect the Afghan people,” he said.

McChrystal was caught off guard because what he heard from the Afghans doesn’t match the doctrine.  McChrystal knows doctrine, and the Afghans know unintended consequences.  They know that Taliban theft of fuel tankers meets with doom to the people around the tanker (unless McChrystal has his way).  They know that if the rules say that no fires can be directed towards domiciles that could potentially have noncombatants, even in self defense, the Taliban will surround themselves with noncombatants, in the end making it more dangerous for everyone.

To run the campaign as McChrystal wants – with diminished air support, with no fires towards areas where noncombatants could be located, with extensive dismounted patrols, and with no artillery support – means that he probably needs even more troops than he has requested.  It may not matter if the Obama administration has its way.

General McChrystal’s report to Secretary Gates lays the groundwork for a request for 40,000+ more U.S. troops.  The actual need for troops will be higher than that.  McChrystal’s report relies heavily on Afghan National Security Forces (Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police), closely following the strategy laid out by CNAS to ramp up the readiness of ANA.  But the left side of the isle doesn’t have the sole claim for plans to rely heavily on ANA.  Kimberly and Frederick Kagan also recommend a similar reliance on a rapid increase in the size of the ANA to provide the necessary troops for population security.

But recall the problems that we have documented concerning the ANA.

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

There has been robust debate concerning whether these examples are typical of regular behavior, but the reports of ANA problems keep being filed.  One particularly troubling one comes from David Pugliese the Ottawa Citizen.

Army staff and National Defence headquarters officials were told in 2007 that young boys had allegedly been sexually abused by Afghan security forces at a Canadian base in Afghanistan, but the concern at the time was that the incident might be reported in the news media, according to military records obtained by the Citizen.

In addition, last year Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to the senior army leadership the concerns raised by military police who said they had been told by their commanders not to interfere in incidents in which Afghan forces were having sex with children.

The newly released records raise questions about a military investigation that earlier this year concluded that allegations about sexual abuse of Afghan children by members of the Afghan army and police were unfounded. The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service also stated that its thorough investigation concluded allegations of such incidents were never reported to Canadian military commanders.

The allegations first surfaced publicly in June 2008 after concerns about the incidents, originally raised by soldiers and military chaplains, were reported in the news media.

Former Cpl. Travis Schouten told military officials he had witnessed an Afghan boy being sodomized by two Afghan security personnel at Canada’s Forward Operating Base Wilson in Afghanistan in 2006. Another soldier also came forward to a Toronto newspaper to report a similar occurrence at the same base in 2006. A military chaplain talked about the abuse in a report sent up the chain of command at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. Two other chaplains have also come forward to state that soldiers came to them upset about such abuses.

The issue is sensitive for the Canadian Forces and the federal government as the Afghanistan mission has been promoted to the public as being about protecting Afghan civilians. The Afghan National Army and police are seen as key to Canada’s military withdrawal from that country in 2011.

It is the position of the Canadian Forces that its troops have no jurisdiction over the activities of Afghan military and police personnel, even those operating on Canadian bases.

The military records obtained by the Citizen through the Access to Information law note that a 90-minute meeting was held between an army public affairs staff member and a member of army commander Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie’s executive staff in the summer/fall of 2007. According to the June 2008 e-mail written by Lt.-Col. Stephane Grenier, an adviser on operational stress injuries, the meeting focused on various controversies that might be brought out in the news media, including, “ANP/ANA members having anal sex with young boys.”

ANP stands for Afghan National Police while ANA refers to Afghan National Army.

A second meeting about Afghan police and soldiers having sex with children was held later that week at National Defence headquarters involving senior members of the Defence Department’s civilian and military public affairs staff, according to the e-mail.

In addition, on June 18, 2008, Brig.-Gen. J.C. Collin, commander of Land Force Central Area, passed on to Leslie’s staff and Brig.-Gen. Ian Poulter the concerns raised by several military police officers. Collin called the e-mail from the military police commander, “rather disconcerting.”

Included were details from military police who noted it was well known among Canadian troops that ANA and ANP personnel had sex with kids. Another was upset that military police were told not to intervene in such matters, according to the e-mail.

Also queued up is a recent report by Ann Jones for the Asia Times.

In the heat of this summer, I went out to the training fields near Kabul where Afghan army recruits are put through their paces, and it was quickly evident just what’s getting lost in translation. Our trainers, soldiers from the Illinois National Guard, were masterful. Professional and highly skilled, they were dedicated to carrying out their mission – and doing the job well. They were also big, strong, camouflaged, combat-booted, supersized American men, their bodies swollen by flack jackets and lashed with knives, handguns, and god only knows what else. Any American could be proud of their commitment to tough duty.

The Afghans were puny by comparison: hundreds of little Davids to the overstuffed American Goliaths training them. Keep in mind: Afghan recruits come from a world of desperate poverty. They are almost uniformly malnourished and underweight. Many are no bigger than I am (1.6 meters and thin) – and some probably not much stronger. Like me, many sag under the weight of a standard-issue flack jacket.

Their American trainers spoke of “upper body strength deficiency” and prescribed pushups because their trainees buckle under the backpacks filled with 50 pounds (110 kilograms) of equipment and ammo they are expected to carry. All this material must seem absurd to men whose fathers and brothers, wearing only the old cotton shirts and baggy pants of everyday life and carrying battered Russian Kalashnikov rifles, defeated the Red Army two decades ago. American trainers marvel that, freed from heavy equipment and uniforms, Afghan soldiers can run through the mountains all day – as the Taliban guerrillas in fact do with great effect – but the US military is determined to train them for another style of war.

Still, the new recruits turn out for training in the blistering heat in this stony desert landscape wearing, beneath their heavy uniforms, the smart red, green, and black warm-up outfits intended to encourage them to engage in off-duty exercise. American trainers recognize that recruits regularly wear all their gear at once for fear somebody will steal anything left behind in the barracks, but they take this overdressing as a sign of how much Afghans love the military.

My own reading, based on my observations of Afghan life during the years I’ve spent in that country, is this: It’s a sign of how little they trust one another, or the Americans who gave them the snazzy suits. I think it also indicates the obvious: that these impoverished men in a country without work have joined the Afghan National Army for what they can get out of it (and keep or sell) – and that doesn’t include democracy or glory.

In the current policy debate about the Afghan War in Washington, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin wants the Afghans to defend their country. Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the committee, agrees but says they need even more help from even more Americans. The common ground – the sacred territory Obama gropes for – is that, whatever else happens, the US must speed up the training of “the Afghan security forces”.

American military planners and policymakers already proceed as if, with sufficient training, Afghans can be transformed into scale-model, wind-up American Marines. That is not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. No matter how many of our leaders concur that it must happen – and ever faster …

The current projected “end strength” for the ANA, to be reached in December 2011, is 134,000 men; but Afghan officers told me they’re planning for a force of 200,000, while the Western press often cites 240,000 as the final figure.

The number 400,000 is often mentioned as the supposed end-strength quota for the combined security forces – an army of 240,000 soldiers and a police force with 160,000 men. Yet Afghan National Police officials also speak of a far more inflated figure, 250,000, and they claim that 149,000 men have already been trained. Police training has always proven problematic, however, in part because, from the start, the European allies fundamentally disagreed with the Bush administration about what the role of the Afghan police should be.

Ann goes on to document the poor training of the ANP and the disagreement within both the ISAF and Afghanistan concerning exactly what the capabilities of the ANP should be.  In either case, the ANP are widely known as corrupt and criminal people who don’t have the best interests of the Afghans at heart.  The ANP is horrible, and more horrible still.  Whether it’s the ANP who require bribes or the ANA who pluck the chickens of the locals when they enter their homes, the Afghan National Security Forces are not yet fully trusted by their own people, much less the ISAF, and for very good reason.

There is big trouble looming for those who believe that the ANSF is our strategy for a rapid exit.  This doesn’t mean that the campaign is not winnable.  It does mean, however, that there will be no rapid exit if we are to succeed.  Western armies are the greatest on earth, no only with the requisite moral and social underpinnings of the institutions but also an NCO corps that makes them unique compared to Middle Eastern armies.  Standing up an Afghanistan army will be very difficult, especially one that is large enough to assist in the campaign but also small enough to be supported by the GNP of the country.  Whatever final size obtains, it will almost certainly be too large to be supported by Afghanistan alone.

The need of the hour is ANSF that is somewhat smaller, but much more reliable, more well trained and disciplined, and more respected by the Afghans.  The need is not numbers.  The need is an ANSF that actually contributes to the campaign.  Also needed are more U.S. troops to perform counterinsurgency operations in the mean time, including killing the enemy and protecting the population from the same.  More troops to train the ANSF is a romantic idea, but the notion that we can quickly rely on them is pure myth.

UPDATE:

From the Daily Times of Pakistan.

… much of the recruitment that has brought the strength of the Afghan army to some 89,000 has come from Tajik areas, perhaps because Pashtuns have been intimidated into not joining, or perhaps because of the policies adopted by the largely Tajik-dominated bureaucracy of the Afghan defence ministry. The increase already approved to 134,000 will also come in current conditions from the Tajiks or other minority ethnic groups.

The further increase to 240,000 which has or will be proposed by Gen McChrystal will further compound the problem, of having a national army in which the largest ethnic group is underrepresented, and may give added reason for the Pashtuns to identify with the Taliban.

An internal Afghan problem, but affecting our efforts nonetheless.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

General McChrystal recently released counterinsurgency guidance for the ISAF.

COMISAF COIN GUIDANCE

From the very first executive summary statement, the mission(s) of protecting the people and destroying the enemy are set in juxtaposition with each other, as if contradictory or somehow mutually exclusive.  We have dealt with this before in Center of Gravity Versus Lines of Effort in COIN, so this issue will not be reiterated except to say that no one – no one, not the so-called COIN experts at CNAS, not military historians, no one – has demonstrated that for success in counterinsurgency we must focus away from killing the enemy.  Iraq was done the opposite way, with heavy kinetics and intelligence driven raids a huge part of the campaign from 2006 through 2008.

There is much with which to agree in the document, including what the Marines are doing in the Helmand Province to exemplify the guidance contained in this document – heavy interaction with the population.  Furthermore, it is obviously necessary to protect the population from killers and get the population involved in the fight against the insurgency.  But there are so many things with which to disagree it’s difficult to know where to begin.

Page 2: ” … an insurgency cannot be defeated by attrition; its supply of fighters, and even leadership, is effectively endless.”  Well, this simply isn’t true.  Turning to the most recent counterinsurgency campaign in our history, Operation Iraqi Freedom, I know something about how the Marines approached the campaign in the Anbar Province.  To claim that the U.S. Marines bifurcated and set in opposition the notions of protecting the population and killing the enemy is worse than just dense.  It’s dishonest.  Tens of thousands of insurgents were killed, Anbar was pacified before the balance of Iraq, and the supply of insurgents wasn’t endless.  I just don’t know how to be clearer.  This claim is simply false.

Next is this jaw unhinging claim on page 3: “We must think of offensive operations not simply as those that target militants, but ones that earn the trust and support of the people while denying influence and access to the insurgent.  Holding routine jirgas with community leaders that build trust and solve problems is an offensive operation.  So is using projects and work programs to bring communities together and meet their needs.  Missions primarily designed to disrupt militants are not.”

Now just to make sure that we are clear on this, jirgas are good.  Community projects are good.  But this statement goes so far down the path of the Western-trained PhD sociology student that it’s unclear why we aren’t reading that “flowers are beautiful, butterflies are too, and I love you!”  (Colonel Gian Gentile also warns against the notion of “weaponizing” cultural knowledge because it is an illusion).

Now.  Note the claim.  After outlining various things that could be considered offensive operations, it is stated that missions designed to disrupt militants is not offensive.  This is so gobsmackingly outlandish and juvenile that it really casts serious doubt as to whether we can grant any legitimacy whatsoever to this document.

After having to perform squad rushes against Taliban positions in Helmand recently, it’s doubtful that the Marines will have any use for this guidance.  This document seems to be the kind of thing that staff officers discuss with field grade officers who discretely roll their eyes, while the junior officers wouldn’t be caught telling their reports that their recent squad rush directly into Taliban fire wasn’t really an offensive operation.

The guidance has highly poignant and intelligent moments such as on page 4 when it recognizes that the insurgents will sometimes set themselves off from the population (such as with Now Zad where we have been begging for more Marines), and in such circumstances it is wise to engage in high intensity kinetics because of the opportunity presented to us.  But then the guidance devolves to the almost absurd, such as on page 5 where it is stated of the Afghan National Army that we should “Put them in the lead and support them, even before they think they are ready.  Coach them to excellence, and they will amaze you with how quickly they take charge.”

This sounds more like a football coach pep talk than a General advising his troops.  It will likely have little traction with U.S. forces who have watched the ANA engage in drug abuse, smoke hashish before patrols, collude with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops, themselves claim that they cannot hold Helmand without Marines and fear being killed if they even go out into the streets, be relatively ineffective against Taliban fighters, sleep on their watch, and claim to be on vacation in the Helmand Province.

The incoherence of the document and perhaps mildly or moderately insulting and preachy manner will limit its usefulness in the field and even in the classroom.  Fortunately, while this document is being sent to leaders in Afghanistan, General McChrystal is quietly preparing to give the administration options, all of which include more troops (although not as many as we had recommended).

The general is leaning toward three major options — the “high risk strategy” is to add only 15,000 troops to the 68,000 that will be on the ground by the end of this year — as in, the highest risk of failure. The “medium risk strategy” is to add 25,000 troops, and the “low risk strategy” is 45,000, according to a senior defense adviser helping craft the plan.

Also fortunately, the enlisted Marines in Helmand won’t be reading this document.  They don’t have time, as they will be doing what the author of this document has not discussed.  They will be engaging in full orbed, comprehensive counterinsurgency in their area of operation, from jirgas to squad rushes.  Let’s hope that the balance of the forces will be doing the same thing in spite of the guidance.

Vampire 06 blogging at Afghanistan Shrugged has an important account of a recent engagement that provides a good barometer for the way business is being conducted in Afghanistan.

The sweat under my IBA and in my ACUs is starting to freeze, I can feel it against my skin.  I’m wishing right now that I’d put on some long underwear before we’d come out here, it’s too late for that now.  Currently, we’re holding about 200 meters short of the target khalat, it’s aprox 2330. The moon has finally risen giving us better illumination than when we started this about 4 hours ago.

In this shallow wadi are a platoon of US infantry, a company of ANA infantry.  We’re watching the khalat from a defilade position waiting for the ANP, Afghan National Police., who are making their way across about 400 meters of plowed fields.  As soon as they get here we’re going to jump off on the last stage of this operation.

In a small cluster are the US platoon sgt, Kandak Commander, one of my captains and me.  As we talk in hushed whispers about how we’re going to move up this khalat and search it, we each look like something out of a scifi movie.  All of the US personnel have night vision monocoles on giving one eye the green hue of night vision and the other peering into the Afghan darkness.  My ANA counterpart has no night vision, thus we have to describe things to him through the terp and then try to show him by having him look through our night vision device (NVD).

The ANP come stumbling across the field and reach our position.  We brief them on what we’re going to do, make sure they understand and get ready to move.

“Everyone ready”? I ask

“Roger” replies the platoon sgt

“Seis” say the afghans, meaning yes.

“Alright lets move”, and we begin to push forward on line toward the target building

Four hours earlier this mission started because the TOC observed four suspected ACM about 700 meters north of our FOB through a thermal site.  The ACM were located behind a wall near some woodpiles just outside the bizzare area.  We’ve taken serveral rockets from this location in the last three days.  We gathered in the TOC and discussed our course of action.  We think we’re about to get the guys that have shooting at us.

Our joint decision is that the ETTs will move to the bizzare mounted in vehicles and then dismount, clearing through these woodpiles; catching or killing these guys.  The US forces will move to a support by fire position to our east and cover our dismounted movement.  The end of the wall the ACM are hinding behind is the ANA limit of advance, beyond the end of that wall is an open field extending for several hundred meters.  So, if the ANA and ETTs don’t get the bad guys, they’ll be forced to move out into the open field for the US forces to get them.

The ANA have no night vision capabilty, so a key piece of this plan is that the US will fire illumination rounds via 60 milimeter mortars once we dismount allowing the ANA to see as we move through the woodpiles.  All of the ETTs have night vision.

Sounds great, we’re going whack these guys that have been trying to kill us for three days.  Yeah Team!!

We roll out and as we move an F-15 comes on station, with rover capability.  Our plans demise has now arrived.  Rover is a feed that allows TOCs on the ground to see what’s the plane is observing via digital link.  One of the TOCs getting this feed is the battalion headquarters for the US forces. This TOC is located about 100 miles from us.

The ANA reach the dismount point and we all get out, prepping to move through the wood piles.  These piles could hide anythig, giant stacks with limbs and logs sticking out everywhere, trying to see a person in this is going to difficult at best.  Once we’re all ready I call for the illumination rounds.

DENIED!  Because the battalion commander 100 miles away thinks it’s to dangerous.  His concern is that the canister that the illum round is in will land on a khalat in the area, this canister weighs about 8 pounds.  Disregard the fact that without this illum the ANA can’t see anything.  8 pounds hitting a house or us not being able to see?  I’m coming down on the side of us being able to see the enemy.

I call for the illum round again.  DENIED!  What the…?  This guy is 100 miles away and making decisions that should be made by us on the ground, we’re the ones closing with the enemy.  I guess empowering subordinates and letting ground commanders make the call isn’t taught anymore.

We now have a serious problem.  The ANA can’t see but the ETTs can, guess we’ll now have to move in front of the ANA clearing through the piles of wood.  So that’s what we do.  The ETTs get in front and start moving forward.  There are about 50 of us in this position and only four of us can see anything.

Later review of a videotape from the thermal site will show that as we move through; we come within about 100 meters of the enemy before they pick up and run into the open field.  With the illum we would have had these guys dead to rights and either captured or killed them.   We can’t see that far without illumination, but we didn’t hit a house with an 8 pound canister.  Justice is served!  I feel better about myself already.  100 miles must give some other perspective I’m missing.  I can barely see 50 feet.

We reach the limit of our advance.  The F-15 is back on station and says he’s seen the ACM run to a house which he’s illuminating with an IR laser.  I can see the laser coming out of the sky, but I can’t see any backscatter off the traget meaning it’s pretty damn far away from where I’m holding.  These bad guys must be on roids because they ran about 5 kilometers in roughly 10 minutes.  Afghanistan has a bright olympic future with these guys.

After holding here for another 10 minutes we decide to remount the vehicles and move to the target house the aircraft  spotted.  We still have no illumination and the ANA are stumbling around in the dark trying to get back to their vehicles.  Their pissed, I’m pissed but not as pissed as I’ll be when I see the video and how close we were originally.  I still haven’t told the ANA how close we were.

Finally after much cussing in Dari and English we get back to the vehicles and move out to the target.  As we drive, I think to myself, there is no way they ran this far, no way.

Now we’re moving toward the target house.  My clothes are freezing to me and the ANA can see a little bit more due to the moonlight.  We get a radio call to hold short again.

The 100 mile commander has called on the radio trying to telling us how the ANA/ANP are supposed to search the house and what they can and cannot do.  Who the hell is this guy?  He’s telling the armed forces and police of a sovereign nation what they can do in their own country.  He’s not even here on the ground and this is now an Afghan operation.  He must have missed the part about Afghanistan being it’s own country.

We give him the infamous, “Yeah Roger” and start moving again.  I’m amazed and galled by this guys audacity.  He’s a battalion commander, so what, I’m standing in a field in the cold and dark with an Afghan Battalion Commander.  He’s running the show and oh by the way we don’t even think this is the right house.  But 100 mile is telling us it is.  Good God!

We knock on the door and after some time an Afghan farmer answers the door, he’s been asleep.  The ANA/ANP search despite the direction of 100 mile and we don’t find jack.  No duh, it’s three miles away from where this all started.  Luckily at this point we don’t know how close we were to getting these dudes.

The ANA, ANP, US and ETTs trudge back across the field to our vehicles.  Defeated not by the ACM but our own commanders.

Tim Lynch of Free Range International makes the following observation.

You cannot successfully deploy little detachments of infantry in a large geographical space and expect them to fight and behave within the frame work of their commanders intent unless they know their commander trusts them to do the job.  The commander can tell them he trusts them all he wants but actions speak louder than words.  If he insists on micro managing units when they are in contact the message he is sending is “I do not trust you and do not think you will make the right calls in combat.”  The first step towards being able to fight a proper counterinsurgency is to deploy units in the field whom you trust and do not micromanage.  There is no other way and I do not care how many Colonels in Bagram tell you differently using all sorts of anecdotal stories to illustrate why they are compelled to control fights from on high. In the counterinsurgency fight  junior leaders have got to be left alone to do what junior leaders are supposed to do – fight when they have to and figure out how help the local population when they are not fighting.

Analysis & Commentary

I hope that Vampire 06 keeps on blogging, and I know that Tim Lynch will.  Along with Michael Yon, they are must-reads for the person who wishes to understand what’s going on in Afghanistan.  While not ostensibly oriented towards ROE, the report by Vampire 06 and Tim’s comments fairly well summarizes the problems that I have had with the rules of engagement – both standing and local – ever since I have been covering and commenting on this issue.

First, every actuarial or practitioner of probabilistic risk analysis knows what risk is.  Quite simply, it is the product of probability and consequences:

Risk = P X C

When evaluated this way, each evolution or sequence may then be evaluated against another to assess relative risk between options, or designs, or situations, or circumstances.  There is of course a risk associated with wanton destruction in a counterinsurgency campaign, that being that the rate of creation of insurgents is greater than the rate of destruction of insurgents.  Yet upon General McChrystal’s implementation of his recent tactical directive which essentially changed the ROE for Afghanistan, some old warriors claimed that the net result of such a change would probably be more, not fewer, civilian casualties.

The tension is in tactical versus strategic concerns, and it’s foolish to believe that this is an easy balancing act, or that only one choice involves risk.  McChrystal’s new tactical directive which prohibits firing upon buildings or other locations (especially with the use of air power) if it is possible that noncombatants could be harmed is at least prima facie in the strategic interests of the campaign.  Yet this same directive has caused Marines in Helmand to refuse to engage certain buildings with direct fires, the end result being that Taliban fighters later escaped.  These same Taliban fighters will likely cause various distress to the local population, and may be involved in the development or emplacement of roadside bombs which will blow the legs off of Marines.  Assessment of risk only in terms of immediate danger to the population ignores the very real risk from the affect of prolonged operations with Taliban fighters who know that they can hop into any available domicile for protection against U.S. fires.

Second, the proceduralization of rules and tactical directives tends to press decision-making upwards in the organization.  It invariably involves lawyers who have deployed with their assigned units, or at least staff level officers who have been trained by the lawyers.  It’s an attempt to convert war into a clinical, riskless enterprise, with success depending more on risk-free deployments for staff level officers than on-the-ground results.

One thing that separates Western Armies (and in particular the U.S.) from the balance of the world is not only the strong officer corps, but more specifically the strong non-commissioned officer corps.  Decision making should be pushed downward in the organization rather than upward.  The people best suited to balance the tactical versus the strategic concerns are those who are in the field doing the hard work of counterinsurgency.  The preferred model is training, education, assistance and especially trust, rather than regulations, rules, lawyers and staff officer decisions 100 miles away.

Vampire 06 is fully capable of performing the risk calculations without help from superiors.  He, like all field grade officers, does this intuitively and on the fly.  The goal is balanced risk, but we must reject the notion that we can eliminate all consequences in war.  There is no such thing as riskless war.

Prior:

Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban

More on ROE in Afghanistan: Refusing the Chase

Concluding Thoughts on Afghanistan ROE Modifications

Afghanistan Rules of Engagement Redux

Update on ROE Changes for Afghanistan

Changes to Rules of Engagement for Afghanistan

Recon by Fire

Rules of Engagement Category

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Readers know our position regarding the changes to the rules of engagement for Afghanistan.  While there is much to be said for the protection of the population in the development and deployment of the new revisions to the ROE, we have observed that there are operations that wouldn’t have been conducted under the recent revisions, including the highly successful operations by the 24th MEU in Helmand in 2008 (and including certain tactics in the Anbar Province of Iraq).  Their highly kinetic assault on Garmsir would not have occurred due to the fact that it could not be proven that non-combatants were not still resident in the town.

The Strategy Page gives us their view of the situation in which the Marines are engaged in the Helmand Province.

The U.S. Marine advance into Helmand province is being slowed down by the new Rules Of Engagement (ROE), which forbid the use of bombs or missiles in any situation where there might be civilians. The Taliban will typically spend the night, or longer, in a village or walled compound, and that’s where U.S. troops will typically trap them. But bombs and missiles cannot be used on these places, so U.S. troops have to besiege the place, or just move on, leaving the Taliban alone. Some marines get creative, like having the jet fighters or bombs make a high speed pass over the Taliban held buildings. The fearsome noise will sometimes unnerve the Taliban and cause a surrender, but not as much as it used to. Another favorite tactic is having the fighter (usually an F-16 or F-18) come in low and use its 20mm cannon. But these air craft only carry a few seconds worth of ammunition. Moreover, having these jets fly that low makes them liable to crashing (this has happened, at least once) or being brought down by enemy fire (has not happened yet). But the cannon fire sometimes induces the Taliban to give up, or try to flee.

The other option, when you have the Taliban cornered, and using human shields, is to go in and fight them room-to-room. That gets more Americans killed, as well as putting the Afghan civilians in danger. This room-to-room tactic has not been used much, as commanders don’t want to take the heat for losing troops in that kind of fighting. If there is a lot more of this house to house fighting, and civilians get killed, the ROE may be changed again to forbid any kind of combat if civilians are present. This reduces the anger of locals from civilian deaths involving U.S. forces, but makes it much more difficult to hunt down and destroy the Taliban gunmen. The Taliban are still vulnerable, as they have to move in order to operate, and the Afghan Army or police can often negotiate a surrender, or go in and root them out by force. But the best troops available for chasing down the Taliban gunmen are the U.S. and NATO ones.

Room clearing tactics are costly to the Marines (viz. Fallujah), and aversion to this approach is understandable.  But the best troops are of course the U.S. and NATO, since the police are mainly corrupt and the Afghan National Army is mainly drug-addicted and inept.  The police and the ANA cannot be relied upon to chase the hard core Taliban.  Regarding the Taliban that are allowed to escape because of this change to the ROE, locals have some words to the wise.

“People are withholding judgment,” said the political analyst in Lashkar Gah. “They cannot say whether this operation is good or bad. They are afraid that the (U.S.) forces will stay here for some days and then leave, so we will be alone with the Taliban again.” Many are also waiting to see what the Americans can bring in the way of real development.

“It is still just the beginning,” said Mullah Shin Gul from Nad Ali district. “The Americans need to begin reconstruction, by agreement with the people. They should establish centers here in the districts, and they should follow every single Taliban and kill him. In a short while it will be too late. The people will lose trust.”

The doctrine of population centric counterinsurgency believes, in part, that focus on the population will marginalize the insurgents, causing them to wilt away and eventually rejoin the population and side with the government.  True enough for low level insurgents, men who have willingly taken up arms for political and religious motivations don’t usually willingly lay them down.

Because of the new ROE there has been a reluctance to engage locations in which known Taliban are located, allowing them to escape and fight another day.  Such tactics may gain the support of the locals for the time being, but they ensure the continuation of the fight.  Like the locals said, we must follow and kill every single Taliban.  Taking prisoners is not productive.

Prior:

Obama Administration Searching for an Exit Strategy

Marine Take the Fight to the Enemy in Now Zad

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Coming War in the Caucasus

Update:

Over at Fabius Maximus, a site I know little if anything about, a commenter and the author presume to know something about the intentions of this article.  Let’s listen in for a few minutes.

I totally disagree with this guy’s belief that the US has no choice but to exterminate the Taliban, or even that this is a good goal: “Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban“, Herschel Smith, The Captain’s Journal, 26 July 2009.

At the same time, his analysis of how the Taliban is funded (here) seems probably correct to me …

Fabius Maximus replies: They sound just like governments everywhere. Heroin is the primary product of Helmand Province. Mother Nature made it so, and only vast sums of money wil change that. Recent US history shows that we would rather spend 10x that amount on fighting to control the area rather than a smaller sum to change its economy.

The real question is why folks read trash like “The Captain’s Journal”. There are many real experts writing about the situation in central asia, but America’s bloodlust is stirred by nutjobs yelling “Follow and Kill Every Single Taliban.” It’s a symptom of a nation increasingly ruled by its own paranoia and hubris.

Alas, so much confusion, so little time to work through the problems.  The comment was left by someone calling themselves atheist, and Fabius Maximum takes off of the remark to invite himself to criticize someone he doesn’t know and has never read.

This question of globalists and hermeneutics within Islam is a complicated issue, one I have addressed before with Professor Steve Metz of the U.S. Army War College.  The set of those who are irreconcilable enemies is certainly a subset of Islam, and even a subset of those currently engaged in fighting U.S. forces in Afghanistan.  Recall that The Captain’s Journal strongly supported the notion of concerned citizens in Anbar, later to become Sons of Iraq.

Many of the Sons of Iraq were former insurgents, but fighting for money, boredom, political views or whatever.  Certainly a subset of the so-called Taliban fighters are fighting for the same things.  The question is not one of killing irreconcilable enemies.  War, including counterinsurgency, means doing violence.  Irreconcilable enemies must be killed, and in Afghanistan this set of fighters is comprised of globalists and those who would harbor them.

The only real question is how big is this subset of fighters?  Joshua Foust and I have politely disagreed before, with me viewing this group as moderately larger than him, and yet in the recent months it would appear that Foust’s view is that the size of this group is edging upwards, while my view is that the size might be edging downwards.  Perhaps we will eventually meet in the middle.  But all thinking men know that the insurgency is bifurcated.

Now to the specific post and its title.  I have found that it’s very hard to keep readers for more than a few minutes.  Even when linked at a large venue such as Instapundit, statistics show that most readers want to read an article within less than about three minutes.  Many of mine are longer, and the more difficult issue is that my posts comprise a narrative.  My readers are usually very sophisticated, and it appears that the readers over at Fabius Maximus haven’t paid attention very well.

Recall the issues surrounding modifications to the ROE for Afghanistan.  Without getting into the weeds on this issue again, recall that in subsequent posts I had pointed out that according to objective evidence, the highly successful Marine Corps operations in the Helmand Province (specifically, in Garmsir) in 2008 by the 24th MEU would not have been conducted under the revised ROE.  When you can point to successful operations that wouldn’t be conducted under ROE, there is a problem.

This points to unintended consequences.  Subsequent to this we pointed out that the revised ROE had allowed Taliban fighters to escape Marine Corps operations with the Marines unable to give chase because of lack of logistics.  Finally, in the article above we pointed out that the local residents had stated that the Marines would have to hold the area and chase and kill every last Taliban for the area to be safe.  This is the most amusing point of the comments left at Fabius Maximus.  They ascribe a comment made by a local in Afghanistan to me since I chose it as the title to an article.  Get the picture?  They didn’t even read the article.  I suppose that the commenter and Mr. Maximus know more about Afghanistan and the Taliban than the locals do.

There is a chain of thoughts necessary to follow my prose, from ROE to giving chase and required logistics and unintended consequences to tactical directives and local views on what it will take to make the area safe.  My prose is simply not intended for idiots.  Readers .. must .. work .. hard .. and .. try .. to .. stay .. up.

As for Fabius Maximus’ disparaging of The Captain’s Journal, we might remark at what bad form it is and what gross, hillbilly etiquette it takes to trash someone you don’t know, have never communicated with, and whose prose you have never read.  It sounds very much like he is the nutjob.  His readers can do better.

Report

Raising expectations for scaling back military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes U.S. involvement can “transition to a different phase” after this summer’s Afghan elections.

The president said he is looking for an exit strategy where the Afghan security forces, courts and government take more responsibility for the country’s security. That would enable U.S. and other international military forces to play a smaller role.

Obama made his remarks after an Oval Office meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. Talks between the two leaders included discussion of the Netherlands’ help with the U.S.-led effort to defeat Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dutch combat troops have been a mainstay among the allied forces fighting in the volatile southern reaches of Afghanistan.

After taking office in January, Obama reviewed U.S. progress in Afghanistan and announced in March a new approach that included sending an additional 17,000 combat troops, including Marines who have just kicked off an offensive in Taliban strongholds in the south of the country …

In remarks in Moscow last week, Obama said it was too early to judge the success of his new approach in Afghanistan because “we have just begun” to implement it. Obama also installed a new U.S. ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, in May and a new U.S. military commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in June.

On Tuesday, however, the president emphasized an exit strategy.

“All of us want to see an effective exit strategy where increasingly the Afghan army, Afghan police, Afghan courts, Afghan government are taking more responsibility for their own security,” he said.

If the Afghan presidential election scheduled for Aug. 20 comes off successfully, and if the U.S. and its coalition partners continue training Afghan security forces and take a more effective approach to economic development, “then my hope is that we will be able to begin transitioning into a different phase in Afghanistan,” Obama said.

Analysis & Commentary

This is a remarkable report for one particular point we learn about this administration’s view of Operation Enduring Freedom.  But before we get to that point, let’s pause to reflect on the context.

Operation Iraqi Freedom proved to be much more difficult that we originally thought it would be for a whole host of reasons.  There have been many lessons (re)learned about counterinsurgency and nation-building, including the need for national and institutional patience.  It takes a long time and is costly in both wealth and blood.  There is a never-ending need for highly functional lines of logistics, and the chances of an acceptable outcome is (at least in the early and even middle stages) proportional to the force projection, one factor of which is the troop levels.  We have relearned that it is very difficult to rely on Arabic armies in large part because of corruption, incompetence and the lack of a Non-Commissioned Officer corps that is equivalent to the NCO corps in the U.S. armed forces.  It has been documented that this has directly affected the degree of success of the efforts to build an Iraqi Army.

For reasons of difficulty and cost, many believe that the U.S. should not engage in counterinsurgency and nation-building.  As the argument goes, when an existential threat is judged to exist, forcible entry is conducted, the regime is toppled, and U.S. forces leave to let the population sort out the balance of its history.  If this threat returns or another is perceived, then do it all over again.  While the cost of this approach is likely to be greater in the long run (in our estimation), there are a great many who hold this view, even among field grade and staff level officers (based our own on communications).

But when a counterinsurgency campaign is begun, not only does the doctrine say that it will be protracted, but this doctrine is exemplified by our experience in Iraq.  While continually adjusting strategy and tactics to press forward to a conclusion is appropriate, it doesn’t work to assume that it will be easy or shortlived.

But there are differences in campaigns for which the doctrine must be maleable.  As we have discussed before, General Petraeus has said that of the campaigns in the long war, Afghanistan would be the longest.

I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld’s request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed “the long war.” Having just been to Afghanistan a month or so ago, I think that that remains a valid assessment. Moreover, the trends have clearly been in the wrong direction.

This is true for numerous reasons, including the difficulty in logistics, lack of a strong central government, corruption, an increasingly problematic security situation, etc.  If Hamid Karzai wins the election, the very head of the government in which the U.S. administration is placing its hope is the man who recently pardoned five heroin smugglers, at least one of them a relative of a man who heads Karzai’s campaign for re-election.

The administration’s plan falls heavily into the lap of the Afghan National Army.  This is the same Army that is believed to have colluded with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops at the Battle of Bari Alai, and which, according to U.S. Marine embedded trainers, would lose as much as 85% of its troops if drug testing was implemented.  Fully independent ANA Battalions are targeted, but this is many years down the road, in the year 2014 at the earliest.  Even this may be wishful thinking.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Obama had advocated complete withdrawal, although we would have disagreed with this decision.  It wouldn’t have been surprising if he had advocated long term commitment, since this is the nature of counterinsurgency.  When we pressed for the resignation of National Security Advisor Jim Jones, we noted that he had stated that the new strategy had the “potential to turn this thing around in reasonably short order.”

Nothing happens in counterinsurgency in short order, we observed, and thus his counsel to the President is poor.  The Generals are indignant, and have retained the right in their mind to request the troops they believe to be necessary for the campaign.  But this view has not been heard in Washington, and not only does Obama’s counselors and advisers believe that the campaign can be turned in short order, but we now learn that Obama believes this – contrary to doctrine, contrary to the views of General Petraeus, contrary to the Generals, and contrary to the lessons of Iraq.  Everyone wants an exit from war.  No one likes to see the human cost of battle.  The question is not one of exit – it is of when and how?

While issues of life and death play themselves out in Afghanistan and sons of America continue to lose limbs and lives, the administration blythely continues to believe in myths and fairly tales concerning war and peace, and fashion plans for Afghanistan that have no chance to succeed.  The plans must change, but until they do, the question is what the cost will be in national treasure and blood?

Prior Featured:

Calling on National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Resign

Marines Take the Fight to the Enemy in Now Zad

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Coming War in the Caucasus