Two sides of the same "COIN", I think
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Originally Posted by
omarali50
I think the insurgency and governance are separate issues, related in some ways, but separate.
The insurgency is the problem ISAF can possibly help to solve. Governance will improve with time once its clear that come hell or high water, the insurgency is not gonna win, so everyone has to get off the fence and make deals.... For the insurgency to win, you need a base, a central organization, sustained source of funds (you need much less for an insurgency to splutter along, but that is not the issue), all three securely in place, you have an aura of inevitability. All three are currently headquartered in Pakistan; if they move to Afghanistan while ISAF is still there, their job is much harder. So long as they are secure in Pakistan, its a mathematical certainty that they will win (at least in the Pakhtun hearltand) because there is just no way a foreign force is going to stay forever, so everyone has to hedge their bets accordingly. If they are forced out of Pakistan, then their chances are dramatically reduced, especially if the current Afghan regime continues to get outside support on a massive scale at the same time.
Once the insurgency has lost its sheen of inevitability, its much easier to convince people to rearrange governance a little better. Since western "experts" are almost guaranteed to make a bad situation worse, their best bet is to do LESS in detail and let Afghans sort things out, make deals, do whatever it takes. But the foreign devils still have to pay for it because no one else has the money...
Make sense? no? yes?
We call it "Insurgency and counterinsurgency" because we look at it from the perspective of the government.
Looked at from the perspective of the insurgent you could just as easily call it "Governance and countergovernance."
But that isn't very sexy, and the boys at Leavenworth would start to question why they were writing a military manual for such an operation, and why the State Department or Justice wasn't the lead. Wouldn't want that to happen. There is violence involved, so Defense must be the lead, right?
Well, at least one reasonable mind differs with the majority opinion on that point.
I think the biggest mistake we make is that we try too hard to separate the two; to focus on defeating the insurgent for daring to counter the governance; instead of assessing more pragmatically the true nature and causation for the iinsurgency that you are dealing with. To make the main effort addressing the shortfalls of governance, and the supporting effort aimed at dealing with the insurgent in a manner that never forgets that insurgents are also citizens and are related and connected to law abiding citizens throughout the land. Calling them "insurgents" makes it easy to forget that essential fact.
Losing more than Afghanistan
An offside viewpoint:http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensec...an-afghanistan
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Overoptimistic calculations by western powers estimate that we are losing the war in Afghanistan. Far from it, we are losing the whole of Asia and, what is even worse, the credibility of the Alliance and the values it defends.
(Later)
Most of Asia is sitting on the stands of the Afghan stadium watching this absurd game and sounding their vuvuzelas. NATO and the US are defeating themselves at a very low cost for competing powers.
Fuchs and I are in the same order of magnitude.
and this:
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from Fuchs
We deployed more additional troops since 2005 than the Hydra strategy would have required (assuming the same KIA/WIA as without the strategy).
was my point.
I did not say "kill ratio". I cited 100:1 as our (US) deployment to our (US) KIAs (ratio = US troops deployed/total US troops KIA). If it works out closer to 60:1, so be it. As time passes, that ratio will get smaller as our deployment reaches its upper level ceiling.
That ratio = US troops deployed/total US troops KIA was in that same ballpark for Vietnam - which was the only point I wished to make.
Regards
Mike