Entropy can of course speak for himself but I'd like to pose a few thoughts...
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Originally Posted by
Presley Cannady
How do you do cleave the two, though?
They aren't the same thing so no cleavage is required. Our big error was in conflating the two initially. AQ is one problem, Afghanistan is another.That conflation still exists in the eyes of many and it excessively complicates things. Those are two separate problems and contrary to all the hotshot strategists, Pakistan is another. When all is said and done, the two separate nations who do share similar and related large, troublesome majorities are in fact recognized nations with polities and borders. Like it or not -- and the Pushtuns do not -- those two nations are not going away and neither is going to give up territory to the Pushtuns if for no other reason than to keep them divided and therefor easier to control.
Thus one solution is required for AQ who are simply in Pakistan (possibly) and Afghanistan (to a lesser extent) as a result of diplomatic failures by many including the US. As you point out, they have no infrastructure to protect -- nor any population. The key factor is that they can leave their current location and settle in elsewhere. They are essentially a law enforcement problem and military efforts will have only a marginal effect on them.
Afghanistan is a military problem at this point but only because we foolishly made it one -- now we have to solve that.
Pakistan is not a military problem and we should work very hard to avoid making it one. It is a diplomatic problem, purely and simply. Handled correctly, it can make life uncomfortable for AQ -- but that handling entails ensuring that Afghanistan does not become a destabilizing threat to Pakistan.
We have not done well with any of the three -- but most of that failure stems from making Afghanistan a military problem in the false hope we could make it a friendly democracy. What happens when the folks in DC do not do their homework...
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If defeating AQ and their diehard support requires you deal with hundreds of spatter pools individually, what can you possibly do except throw enough force to soak up the mess?
Realize that you aren't going to defeat AQ? That would be a good start. You can marginalize them, reduce their damage ability to a bearable level and it would help if everyone would realize they are not a military problem and they are not going to be defeated -- indeed, by upping their threat appearance and wrongly using military effort we merely enhanced their appeal temporarily.
Neither is Pakistan a military problem. Afghanistan is only one because we made it so...
Demographic line strategy
This is written from a "We are there, dammit" viewpoint; has little or nothing to do with an independent strategy vs AQ (Astan & AQ are better considered as separate problems); and is suggested more to allow time to coldly consider whether an acceptable (note "acceptable") political effort can be mounted in a more limited geographical region.
This pertains to Entropy's nugget (post #22):
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I don't think that's necessarily the case, at least the writing off Afghanistan part. One could shift, for example, from a strategy designed to defeat the Taliban to a strategy designed to prevent the Taliban from winning. We'd be ceding most of the Pashtun areas, but we could certainly prevent Taliban control over the non-Pashtun areas, which is a significant part of the country. In other words, it's not all or nothing.
but is more particularly based on his maps to be found here.
A demographic line approach was suggested for Vietnam (Krepinevich, The Army & Vietnam, pp.266-268). I floated a form of this using Highway 1 as a rough demographic line in another context - this post and this post (maps), forcing through a Peace Enforcement strategy (e.g., Joint Pub 3-07.3, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Peace Operations, Chap III, as updated by more recent operations); and, in effect, offering the Taliban a limited truce if they stay south of the Tripfire Line.
This Peace Enforcement strategy would be of little comfort to those who want either a minmum force increase, none or an immediate force drawdown. The 40K to 80K increase would be, if nothing else, a good PSYOPs move (by not indicating a current intent to withdraw - as we did with Vietnamization); that increase would be incremental and take a long-time (and could be halted at any time).
This strategy does not in any way change my opinion that the prospects for an acceptable future political effort are lousy (a classy legal term ;)); but, if an acceptable political effort cannot be mounted in the "Northern Alliance" region (above the Hwy 1 line), it cannot be mounted.