COIN failed in Afghanistan by Eikenberry
Karl Eikenberry has an article in Foreign Affairs 'The Limits of Counterinsurgency Doctrine in Afghanistan: The Other Side of the COIN ', which is on limited open access:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...in-afghanistan
Hat tip to a tweet from Peter Neumann @ ICSR, Kings College; his tweet:
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Eikenberrys angry, axe-grinding denunciation of COIN will no doubt become mandatory reading for trainee officers soon
As a former ISAF commander (2005-07) and later Ambassador in Kabul (2009-2011) he cites Galula, US military doctrine and practice, the US$ cost and a man called Karzai:
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Karzai disagreed intellectually, politically, and viscerally with the key pillars of the COIN campaign.
Near the start:
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The COIN-surge plan for Afghanistan rested on three crucial assumptions: that the COIN goal of protecting the population was clear and attainable and would prove decisive, that higher levels of foreign assistance and support would substantially increase the Afghan government’s capacity and legitimacy, and that a COIN approach by the United States would be consistent with the political-military approach preferred by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately, all three assumptions were spectacularly incorrect, which, in turn, made the counterinsurgency campaign increasingly incoherent and difficult to prosecute. In short, COIN failed in Afghanistan.
Elsewhere there are some very direct comments, on 'Protect the Population' for example:
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The typical 21-year-old marine is hard-pressed to win the heart and mind of his mother-in-law; can he really be expected to do the same with an ethnocentric Pashtun tribal elder?
Finally he concludes:
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In sum, the essential task is deciding how to do less with less. It has been said that in Afghanistan, as in Southeast Asia 40 years earlier, the United States, with the best of intentions, unwittingly tried to achieve revolutionary aims through semicolonial means. This is perhaps an overly harsh judgment. And yet the unquestioning use of counterinsurgency doctrine, unless bounded politically, will always take the country in just such a direction. Before the next proposed COIN toss, therefore, Americans should insist on a rigorous and transparent debate about its ends and its means.
Tuppence for your COIN Thoughts
Tuppence for your COIN Thoughts
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Second-party Counterinsurgency
Attached is the link to my recently awarded PhD Thesis .
Best regards,
Mark
http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/dat...11717/SOURCE01
COIN Book Launch and Panel Discussion
COIN Book Launch and Panel Discussion
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Front Row Seat: Watching COIN Fail in Afghanistan
Front Row Seat: Watching COIN Fail in Afghanistan
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Next COIN Manual Tries to Take Commanders Beyond Iraq, Afghanistan
Next COIN Manual Tries to Take Commanders Beyond Iraq, Afghanistan
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U.S. Military Learns COIN Lesson
U.S. Military Learns COIN Lesson
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Joint COIN Pub Ignores Reality
Joint COIN Pub Ignores Reality
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