...and is important that we take heed as we try to move forward. If the carrot does not produce the results desired, the answer is not always more carrots.Quote:
"They have tasted its delights before and they want them again."
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...and is important that we take heed as we try to move forward. If the carrot does not produce the results desired, the answer is not always more carrots.Quote:
"They have tasted its delights before and they want them again."
New America Foundation report on Helmand province. Some really interesting stuff on local power dynamics in here. Not an optimistic report at all.
Another one on Zabul and Uruzgan.
Hat tip to FRI for this initial report:Link:http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=3734Quote:
Marjah is still being called “the most dangerous place in Afghanistan” by embedded media which is, in my professional opinion, not true. I’ve just returned from a three day trip into Marjah after being lucky enough to catch a ride with the CO of Regimental Combat Team 1, Col Dave Furness who was taking a road trip to visit his battalions in the field. There is too much information from that trip to post in one sitting so the first dispatch from the trip will cover Marjah.
Some of the photos are different, psyops = nails. Look yourself.
The comments and the author's replies are worth a read too.
ISW, 5 Jan 11: Counterinsurgency in Helmand: Progress and Remaining Challenges
Quote:
...It has been nearly eighteen months since comprehensive counterinsurgency operations began in southern and central Helmand in July 2009. The progress that has been achieved throughout these areas is notable. The insurgency has suffered important losses in Helmand. USUS, coalition, and Afghan forces have established security in many parts of southern and central Helmand, which has enabled significant portions of the population to assist in supporting Afghan governance. Yet, a number of challenges remain—a reminder that the fight is not yet over.
The progress in southern and central Helmand demonstrates that counterinsurgency can work in Afghanistan if adapted properly for the conditions in each province. This report offers a detailed assessment of counterinsurgency efforts in Helmand province since the summer of 2009. The report analyzes the coalition’s progress along five primary lines of effort: security; Afghan National Security Forces development; counternarcotics; governance; and reconstruction and development....
Catching up after a gap and KOW recommends a HBO documentary, broadcast 23rd February, made by a British journalist, Ben Anderson:The article has a long critique of Tom Ricks too:http://kingsofwar.org.uk/2011/02/hbo...n-afghanistan/Quote:
I watched the HBO documentary, The Battle for Marjah, last night and would recommend anyone interested in Afghanistan to see it. It is a fairly depressing tale. A Marine company is dropped into what appears to be the middle of a field outside Marjah. They quickly attract the attention of local villagers and others, but are unsure of how to act as they can’t distinguish friendlies from insurgents. Exposed and vulnerable from all sides, the Marines are, somewhat predictably, ambushed. They take cover as best they can, fight back and find refuge in a place that might offer a little more protection than the barren field, namely an inhabited house. The original residents are told to go elsewhere and the house is used as a base to hit back at the attackers. Yet the sense of vulnerability is still acute, as the new base is totally surrounded and could easily be breached.
Within a few days of grueling battle, the Marines actually make it into Marjah’s centre where they, having painstakingly ‘cleared’ the area, proceed to ‘hold’ and to ‘build’. The holding and building only last so long though, because the clearing appears to have been less than definitive and the company keeps losing Marines in firefights and explosions – and with it much of the morale generated during the clearing phase. Forced to retreat, and unable to get either the local or central government ‘out of the box’, the progress initially made seems to be unravelling. Despite an apparent lull in violence, the local population is angry at the instability that the offensive has wrought and seem to have preferred Taliban rule, if only for its predictability. The local security forces are too weak to take over and replicate that sense of predictability, so a local militia is recruited. Problematically, this ‘Home Guard’ are not at home at all, but from another region of Afghanistan, and there are signs of distrust and tension, never mind incompetence. Suffice to say that the final step, the ‘transition’ phase cannot proceed as planned. The documentary ends on a very downbeat note, suggesting that all of the Marines’ hard work and sacrifice seems to have produced much less than initially hoped for. Certainly, this offensive did not ‘break the back of the Taliban’, nor was it ‘decisive’ or a ‘turning-point’ in the campaign as promised by heads of state and senior commanders.
The documentary resonates with much of the fairly pessimistic coverage of the Afghan war and is definitely worth watching in full.
Link to HBO (not available in the UK alas):http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the.../synopsis.html
Anyone able to comment on the programme? Plus pointers to if it has appeared elsewhere for non-US viewers! Thanks.
Update: this HBO programme appears to be a re-titled edition of a BBC-TV Panorama documentary, which focussed on Sangin, not Marjah (thanks to a JMA posting on the UK in Afg thread and a link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A6AJteEwdg
Here's a link to the documentary on the Channel 4 website so U.K residents can wathc it http://www.channel4.com/programmes/d...es/4od#3142827
There is an Afghan in those Free Range International photos who is the most brightly shining example of a man working to help that country. Despite the unmistakable dark skin, he wears a medium reg haircut and is pretty fit (there was speculation among some circles that he had served beside SF teams in the early years of OEF). At first I had a tad bit of difficulty pegging his nationality, and thought he might be from Latin America.
When I first met him, he was supporting Enhanced Mojave Viper exercises as a trainer, controller, and evaluator. I'm not sure whether he was a contractor from our CAOCL, or working some other support requirement, but I typically saw him in the box, headset on, making notes and observing the interactions between Marines and the role players. When the battalion leadership gathered for the final exercise review, he provided a synopsis of our performance across the cultural interaction skills.
He started out speaking in fluent Pashto, and then transitioned to fluent English, where he thanked us for performing well during the exercise, taking up the mission, etc., etc., etc. He also thanked us on the behalf of his people, and implored us to keep an open mind when we got on the ground.
Fast forward seven months to I think Sept 2010, and I ran across him at a Regional Security Shura in Garmsir, where he was serving as Col Furness's linguist. We had a nice chat during a break, and although I cannot recall the everything we talked about, I can definitely remember that his passion for trying to help his country move forward burned just as brightly.
TDB posted:Thanks. It is not the Panorama programme I thought it was, but the same reporter, Ben Anderson, working for Channel 4 this time.Quote:
Here's a link to the documentary on the Channel 4 website so U.K residents can watch it http://www.channel4.com/programmes/d...es/4od#3142827
From my "armchair" a good article by Tim of FRI, maybe very tactical, but has some snippets of note.
Earlier on:Quote:
The only thing the local people of southern Helmand are concerned about, when it comes to Marines, is that they are going to leave soon. They would much rather see them stay - This is is told to me everywhere I go, and I go just about everywhere in this Province.
Anyway the link:http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=4352#commentsQuote:
An ANP commander pointed out a village where his men have hit 3 IEDs in as many weeks and each time the villagers poured out with AK’s to start a firefight. So, a few nights later the Marines blow a controlled det on the road to simulate an IED hit and when the villains rushed out with their flame sticks they met what we lovingly call the ‘L shaped ambush’.
Thread title changed 2nd October 2011 to reflect next post.
A long BBC report after three weeks being with the USMC, which opens with:Captain Andrew Terrell deployed here with the Royal Marines 40 Commando in 2007 and:Quote:
After 10 years in Afghanistan, foreign troops can claim successes in the notorious province of Helmand - but a vicious guerrilla war still rages in the Upper Gereshk valley, which US marines are in the process of handing back to British forces.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14897977Quote:
not a lot has changed. The situation is no better. The people here are not fed up with the fighting, they've not reached the limit of what they're willing to accept from the Taliban. It's easier for them to move out of the area and hope it settles down, but they don't look much further than tomorrow.
From the tone I'd expect a film report to appear, but nothing is shown on the link.
When I read this passage I stopped and AFAIK this has not been in the public domain before:There are other comments on this operation, mainly background on the commanders influence approach:http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/mini...eral_1_2057051 and http://www.scotsman.com/news/kenny_f...arts_1_1362194Quote:
The result was a thankful population and, because “for the Taleban, losing people is not an issue but losing face is very important”, 400 Taleban defectors.
Tequila, thanks for the link. Found pages 9 and 13 of particular interest, but in the end I think this quote sums it up.
Quote:
It is best, in Helmand, to look at the situation in terms of normal human motivation, rather than as a clash of ideology, religion, or ethnicity.
However, this may not impact the overall situation in the country. The presence of foreign forces has skewed the debate; in Washington or London, much more attention is given to “strategic interests” and “global terrorism” than to local grievances and concerns.
I'll echo Bill's comment and thanks to Tequila. I'd missed the NAF report on Helmand and wonder if anything has changed since September 2010, in Helmand for the locals.
Citing Bill now and if we had concentrated on:and the principle of reducing harm to the locals, would we have achieved our objectives in Helmand and Afghanistan?Quote:
local grievances and concerns
I know we have attempted to look back at Iraq in the past, then looked around at other conflicts, both active and potential. If we adapted the principles of local issues first and reducing harm to the local populace would that satisfy our strategic objectives?
Or returning to the Imperial practice in the ungoverned spaces of punitive action and leaving promptly having delivered a message.
A short NYT article on the declining USMC presence and their replacement by:Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/wo...pagewanted=allQuote:
the Afghan National Army has grown, to almost four brigades with more than 16,000 soldiers...
As a DoS veteran of Afghanistan remarked this week:Quote:
Helmand Province only has 3% of the population, why the UK & USA made such a large commitment there is not easy to understand.
As a matter of pure conjecture, I'd guess it was because the Marine Corps wanted into Afghan, and the Army said something along the lines of "Great--we already own all this battlespace, and we're not giving it up, and we don't really want you around us, so where can we send you? Hey, the British could use some help in Helmand!" Or something to that effect.
There was another post on the blog a few months ago that explained our leadership wanted the Marines to secure the population in Kandahar, but the Marines chose not to follow this order/advice(?) and struck out on their own into Helmand. One can speculate all day on why they did this. Did their leadership want a mission that had a higher probability of success, so they could support the never squeaking Marine propaganda wheel (look at our success)? Did they believe they could better secure Kandahar by securing the routes into Kandahar? Who knows, but it seems incredible if true they decided to follow their own strategy. We keep talking about the value of whole of government, coalition operations, but we need to get our joint operations straight first.
Seems every nation, every service, SOF, and each government agency is to a large degree pursuing their own strategy. While this won't generate synergy, it may quite by accident overwhelm the Taliban by confusing the hell of them.
I can't vouch for your first point, nor argue with your second. However, having been to both Iraq and Afghanistan with USMC units, and having seen very few soldiers in either theater, I'd submit that if your first point is true, the reason for it is probably related to why Anbar was mostly Marine territory in Iraq as well.
In one of the books I read about Helmand, I think "Little America", it said the reason the Marines went into Helmand was because their leadership wanted place where the large number of Marines going would all be under Marine control. Helmand was the the only place available that was empty enough of other US forces whereby they could do that. Which is what former_0302 said.
And it further illustrates Bill's point that unified command is something we can't do at all. I thought unified command was the bedrock of small war fighting and if you didn't have unified command you were wasting your time? That is one thing all those much maligned small wars theorists said. But we never did it. For that matter unified command is vital in big war fighting too. I hope we remember how to do it before we get beat in the next big war.
I too have read explanations for the USMC deployment to Helmand, politely but firmly pushing the UK & partners aside.
Yes, unity of command - even within the US military - appears to be lacking. What our enemies made of this and the ANSF is a moot point.
What I do not understand is why first the UK, then the USA decided Helmand Province was more important than Kandahar Province. Helmand has only 3% of the Afghan population. Yes the Canadians had a small battle group there and much later, I suspect in the surge, a Stryker Brigade went there.
A little late David, but Helmand produced something on the order of 25% of illicit drugs coming out of AFG.
Jon,
Poppy growing was not cited as a reason for the 2006 decision to send UK troops to Helmand, which was intensely political. The UK IIRC was in fact given the 'lead' responsibility for drugs in the whole country when tasks were shared out years before. I may have added posts on this on the UK in Afghanistan thread.
On another thread there are posts on open source reporting of poppy production, which went up in Helmand - although I cannot recall when this increase happened.
Understandably the UK in Helmand did not seriously pursue poppy production, which would have added to the insurgency and as events in 2006 proved it was quite easy to mobilise against an intruder - even if with a GIRoA label.
Not every UK element agreed with this "hands off" stance and some destroyed the poppy product (name lost).
Maybe the final operational post on this episode in USMC history. I cite a WaPo article on the logistics of exiting. Here is one thing left behind (as did the UK):Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d5_story.html?Quote:
The Marines decided to leave 420,000 bottles of water, which if lined up end to end would stretch for more than 50 miles.
I do wonder if anything was moved overland to Karachi (which is subject of a thread on OEF logistics).