This is a CvC War, Not An Insurgency
It is not that the COIN manual is wrong, it is that here is no Insurgency to counter. We were attacked from Afghanistan and they refused to cooperate and our people were killed and our property was destroyed by means of a Guerrilla Warfare Air Strike.
Time to give them a Hells Angels Air Campaign, the only civilians we are going to protect are Americans. As CvC would say:
"What do we mean by the defeat of the enemy? Simply the destruction of his forces, whether by death, injury, or any other means -- either completely or enough to make him stop fighting. . . . The complete or partial destruction of the enemy must be regarded as the sole object of all engagements. . . . Direct annihilation of the enemy's forces must always be the dominant consideration."
After that we should use Jewish Kung Fu (put them in a headlock and shake all their money out of them until they have paid us back).
Fuchs and JMA, the Political Struggle
Not all soldiers are suited for the political struggle, especially in forces such as the US and UK (e.g., Brig. "Trotsky" Davies in WWII, link and link - to Envar Hoxha in explanation for Davies' refusal to discuss politics: "Because I am a soldier and not a politician"; and Allenby, for that matter, in WWI) who take some pride in being non-poltical.
I also think that some believe that, by simplistic application of the national policy (to which, the military struggle is one continuation by other means; the political struggle is another continuation by still other means), the political struggle is satisfactorily waged.
I'd suggest that the situation is more complicated; and that these soundbites, while partially correct, are misleading:
Quote:
from Fuchs
The decisive challenge was and is the political fight against the covert politics of the enemy. Sending young lieutenants on patrol and to meetings with villagers is not going to cut it. We would need real diplomats or selected senior officers with impressive personality. The diplomatic teams would need to be multinational, with representatives of Pashtu, Tajiks, Uzbeks and whatever minorities lives in the area of operation.
Quote:
from JMA
Those soldiers who would prefer to be handing out Mars bars and helping to build schools and clinics should resign and join either some civil action unit or the Peace Corps. It seems that there are a lot of "sheep" in "wolfs" clothing out there turning the military into a weak and (in the case of Helmand in Afghanistan) an ineffective force. Use soldiers to do the 20% which requires military action and civvies to do the remainder.
The basics (and the advanced lessons) of the Political Struggle were laid out by both sides in Vietnam, whether one tagged it "Armed Propaganda" (Giap's original unit from 1944) or Pacification (as in ARVN BG Tran's definitive book, from his perspective ;) ).
The bottom line is that the Political Struggle is still a violent world of neutralization (kill, capture or convert) - and is not domestic politics, the Peace Corps, or merely spending billions on reconstruction projects. Since the effort must extend to the grassroots (villages and hamlets), it requires lower level Os and NCOs (whether they are military or paramilitary); and they must be able to at least protect themselves. I'd have them doing quite a bit more than that; but all those are the details which have been laid out better by many who wrote about it at the time.
Regards
Mike
Thoughts on COIN implementation in Afghanistan
Is it possible that we have been talking a good COIN game, but not really doing enough COIN to be effective? I ask you, how can we keep approx. 1/2 of our potential combat power (~40 K soldiers) in just two FOBs (Kandahar and Bagram ) in Afghanistan and realistically say we are giving population centric COIN (a hugely manpower intensive effort) a fair shot?
Current implemention is impossible in Astan,
if you are talking about something akin to the Vietnam Pacification Program (which, in one form or another, spanned the Second Indochina War 1959-1975). The USG lacks much of the horsepower it had then in MACV, CIA, USAID and USIA; and, say all the bad you want of the GSV, the GoA has it beat all to hell and back in negatives. So, first, the horses are missing.
Second, the remaining timetable is too short. We are not talking Vietnam 1964 (where the questions of what paths to take and how far to walk them were still on the table); but Vietnam 1968-1969 (the transition from Johnson to Nixon), where the question is how best to depart. That will become more apparent once the 2010 US election results come in and the Powers That Be and Them What Wants to Be face off for 2012.
Regards
Mike
PS: Tom Mancino - I notice from your other post (here) that you're reading Mark Moyar's new book, "A Question of Command", which I've ordered following Strickland's recommendation. I'm trying to catch up with you. :D
Why do villagers not turn on the Taliban? (Part 2)
A second view on JMA's question:
Quote:
A question: if it is true that by killing a civilian you turn the family, the village, the whole tribe against you then why does that not apply equally to the Taliban?
Cross refer an earlier answer on Post 29.
Now from another observer:
Quote:
In some cases that will happen but Talibs are much more careful not to hit civilians (+they don't use airpower artillery etc) - but there a number of reasons why Talibs may have fewer problems wiith this than US forces:
1. Being more sensitive to local custom the Talibs speedily pay the appropriate amount of blood money for civilian deaths (the Yanks do to - but too clumsily).
2. The Talibs have local war lords giving them protection - if a tribal leader and to a lesser extent local mullah says Talibs are right to fight then people will see deaths of "US spies" for example as justified.
3. When the US kill an innocent person revenge will be taken on any foreign soldier - with Talibs it is more difficult as local people are sensitive to different factions etc so who should they hit back at? They would not want to kill an Uzbek if a Chechen was responsible for fear -even Afghans get scared sometimes.
Well, one can question ....
whether a "COIN" strategy ever existed in Astan; and whatever the "Plan", the political side of the ledger was feeble at best ("lipstick on a pig" and the the rest of the cliches).
That didn't bother me cuz my rationale for being in Astan in the first place (and I never saw a reason to change the rationale) was to mount direct action operations against the AQ leadership cadres in Astan and Pstan (more a matter of "rental" operations), based on principles of retribution, reprobation and specific deterrence.
Other folks at much higher pay grades than mine, had different ideas.
Anyway, agreed: alia jacta est - and we are now in the period of Afghanization and exit strategy(ies).
Regards
Mike
JMA, I believe you are positing .....
with this:
Quote:
from JMA
What I said was essentially that soldiers deal with the 20% in a violent military fashion. The other 80% gets to be done by the politicians, government departments, civil action groups and NGOs. Don't expect a combat soldier to become multi-skilled to the point where today he is involved in close quarter battle and killing or being killed and the next he is handing out Mars bars and helping to fix an irrigation system to help the local poppy crop flourish.
an overly-simplified (bright line transition) from a denied (or at least contested) military environment to a permissive (non-contested) political environment where the "politicians, government departments, civil action groups and NGOs" can operate in their normal fashion.
Truth is that the Political Struggle often must accompany the Military Struggle; and as the Military Struggle abates, the Political Struggle intensifies - unless, of course, the Military Struggle manages to sweep the board clean of everyone who supported the "insurgents" with military or political effort.
I'd suspect we are not really at odds (since we both seem to like Jack McCuen); but your use of "handing out Mars bars and helping to fix an irrigation system to help the local poppy crop flourish" tends to rankle a bit. That may soundbite your views on current affairs; but it is not my view of how the political effort must be conducted (nor was it COL McCuen's).
Regards
Mike
There was and is no COIN plan. Not really
Quote:
Originally Posted by
JMA
So now that the COIN plan has failed all that's left to figure out is the exit strategy.
There is lip service to one but there is no dedication to actually implementing the effort as, frankly, there is no real need for it to protect US interests. There are those here who wish one to be implemented but they're losing the argument. Actually, they lost it before it started. :wry:
Many of your suggestions are valid. Provided there is political will to do what's required and see it through. That is lacking in both the UK and the US (for good reason IMO). Lacking that will, your good suggestions, much less the bad ones, are not going to be implemented simply because at high levels no need to do so is seen. Nor is there adequate troop strength in the proper types of units to do it right. Tom Mancino's accurate post above shows how serious we are not... :mad:
One could say that committing troops to the operation under such restraints is immoral -- I'd just say it's stupid. Perhaps I'm too conditioned to watching the US do dumb things but I accept it as the price we pay for the way we operate and the many benefits that flow from that. I spent a number of years in various vacation spots fighting bugs, cold, heat and unfriendly locals. Many of those fights were unnecessary, a number were really dumb -- but that was what I got paid to do so I did it and well enough to be still be here pushing 80. The kids in the UK and US Armies in Afghanistan today are in the same boat. They're fighting for pay and each other; there is no cause, per se. That makes a difference. :(
The US has not been at War since 1945. The US Army has not been at war since 1945. The Nation and the Army have sent forces into combat many places since then but there has been no commitment of the nation or Army to a war. None. In WW II, we totally committed and spent over 36% of our GDP each year on the war. We only recently retired all that debt. No war since then has bitten out more than 4% (Korea), Viet Nam was only about 2% and the rest have been about 1% or less. We're willing to fight but we're also willing to do it half heartedly. Dumb but there you are...
Both nations field large hidebound and bureaucratic forces -- not just Armies -- that are slow to adapt and resist change. You're correct in that assessment but you can beat the drum for change all you wish and you'll just be wasting your time and pixels. Lacking a major crisis to break that trend, there will be little or no change in that condition. That's okay IMO, the resilience to cope is there if it becomes necessary. :cool:
All that is to say, again, you have some valid points but they are not ever going to be implemented for a variety of political and cultural reasons and in the absence of an existential war -- that latter makes a huge difference. Really huge...
So yes, the exit strategy is next up on the agenda -- has been since late 2003. The delay? In the western nations, domestic politics. Things in Af-Pak? Sort of a secondary concern but with really some minor concern -- and most of the emphasis -- on the latter nation, not so much on Afghanistan...
Speaking of "ignoring history..."
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
And now JMA turns into one of the "New-COIN" boys??
An armed rebellion is a 90% a military problem! = Armed force needs to be countered by armed force. If you don't defeat the men with guns, you loose! - not 20%, but 100%.
ONLY when the armed threat has abated, does the POLITICAL process kick in. - "legitimate government with policies that address the concerns and or grievances of all the population." All those things are for the men in suits - and all of it is political. The military can only set the conditions. No conditions, no suits.
Anyone here an Afghan politician? Silence?
Military force can put in place any policy it wishes. It's politically blind. How military force is applied should reflect the policy being set forth. Legitimacy is nothing to do with success. It's a liberal construct that ignores history. Cutting the hands of kids and stoning women IS LEGITIMATE for about 200 million people on the planet.
"We" the west just wish to force the Afghan people to accept out "our brand" of legitimacy.
This 80% political 20% military rubbish is "99%" of the problem. Military force sets military conditions. It sets forth the policy, by denying the opponent the means to set forth his, as in the opponent ceases to use military force. If the politicians cannot work it out, that is NOTHING to do with the efficacy of armed force.
Is this then a "conservative construct" that does the same? I'm looking for examples of where military operations to defeat an insurgent movement actually defeated the insurgency as well.
Malaysia? One has to ask, did the military operations of the Brits set conditions for political success; or rather was it the military operations of the communist insurgents who set the conditions for independence and withdrawal of the illegitimate British Colonial government? Even though one group of combatants was defeated, insurgency is about the government and not the bands that rise up to challenge it. One band was defeated under one leader and one line of ideology. That is not the greater insurgency though. Insurgency is the perceptions of the populace as a whole, many who never even consider taking up arms directly, toward their system of governance. The actual resistance will manifest in many forms. To crush any one such manifestation and declare victory is naive at best and delusional.
The post WWII insurgencies in SEA were not about expanding communism, but rather about expelling colonialism.
Similarly, the Post Cold War insurgencies are not about expanding democracy in East Europe, or expanding Islamism in Africa and the Middle east; but rather about expelling overt and unwanted Soviet and Western influences respectively.
We need to evolve to a more sophisticated understanding of insurgencies. I can't get on board with what guys like Doc Nagl is selling, you can't buy off a populace in insurgency; but neither can I get on board with the position represented here, as you can't beat the desire for liberty out of a people either. Neither one makes any sense. Both are approaches rooted in ignoring changing what really needs changing, and then busting your butt to get the populace to stop complaining about it.
What history shows is that the populace may pause, but they will not stop.