There's no widely accepted philosophical model for valueing human life in material (or monetary) terms, so how would we be able to already know the net sum of a this complex equation?Quote:
Originally Posted by marct
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There's no widely accepted philosophical model for valueing human life in material (or monetary) terms, so how would we be able to already know the net sum of a this complex equation?Quote:
Originally Posted by marct
Actually, we didn't break Afghanistan, so the Iraq arguement does not play. We enabled the Northern Alliance, what the Northern Alliance then decides to do with the country is really between them and the Afghan people.
BL, this country was hard broke and in Civil War when we arrived; its far better off in that regard now. Also, once we leave, the majority motivation for resistance to the government goes with us; as it is largely a resistance movement more than a revolutionary one.
Thoughts?
Hi Fuchs,
Quite correct that there is no widely accepted philosophical model for this, but that wasn't what you asked. You statedQuote:
Originally Posted by Fuchs
And I replied that we had one - we do, it just isn't "widely accepted" since most people can't understand it. And, BTW, the "value of human life" is just one of the variables in the probability sheaf I was talking about. Oh, yes, and don't think of it in the sense of a f(x)=Y+2 type equation - it is one Hades of a lot more complex.Quote:
Philosophy and science will probably evolve to the point where the net benefit or loss can be known.
Just to address JM's point, absolutely correct ol' buddy - all you can do is something approximating a post facto probabilistic reconstruction of costs; better to work off your initial guesses :wry:.
Hi Bob,
Tricky. My gut guess is that a general withdrawal of NATO / US troops would lead to a complete destruction of the current government and its replacement by a more autocratic form of the old Taliban regime. Again, pure gut guessing would put the DP population at 2+ million followed by a renewal of the older civil war and ~i1 million+ casualties over the next 5 years. The propaganda effect would be on the same order or higher as the retreat from Vietnam (probably higher).Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
Secondary effects would include increasing attacks against US / Western presence in the Horn of Africa, Nigeria and several other places, with a growing civil unrest in Western Europe and an increasingly radicalized youth population there. Back home in the States, I would expect an increasing amount of isolationism as well as an increased assault on individual civil liberties.
Then again, some people do consider me to be a pessimist ;).
Bob,I agree thats how it started but then we did break it, I don't think the first elections would have ever happened if we hadn't tired to fix A'stan with democracy? Yes they were broke when we went in. So it should be fairly cheap to put it back to how it was when we first went in. Then let them figure out how they want to develop including how to pay for it. Or if they want the US to develop A'stan then what do we get out of it. None of the above fixes the AQ problem which was the original reason we went there in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
The Quetta Shura Taliban is not really a resistance movement in my estimation. Their motivation is to take control of Afghanistan and I don't believe that is going to disappear if/when the coalition leaves. HiG, Haqqani and some of the other groups are a different story.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
Doubled.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
No we didn't break it, it was broken before we got there -- and we contributed to that, if indirectly. That's irrelevant, regardless, the Northern alliance would not have toppled anything without a few boys from Langley with Duffle Bags full of Franklins, plus 5th Group, a slew of US Aircraft and Pakistani connivance simply because we thought we ought to do 'something.'
That was probably a poor decision on several counts but that is now immaterial; it was made and the actions followed have been made a part of history; they cannot be undone.
Two US Presidents from both parties since that toppling have for eight years said publicly we will 'fix' it. You may not see a moral obligation there but if you do not, that raises questions about your purported adherence to and desire for moral solutions. You may casually dismiss the Presidential statements if you wish but if you think the rest of the world will overlook yet another case of US arrogance and looking out for number one, you're not as smart as I think you are -- and if you think they will note and scream but will get over it or we're big enough to ignore them, then you are as arrogant as you accuse others of being.
I realize that all you city sophisticates don't think this way but as Slap will understand and my Uncle Bud used to say "You can kick a pack of mangy, hungry Chihuahuas a buncha times and they'll yip and run -- but sooner or later they're gonna turn on you and bite ya..."
You cannot have it both ways.
pessimism. I'm a total optimist and I think you're probably being a bit conservative on the two issues I quoted...Quote:
Originally Posted by marct
Definitely higher -- due to that wired world communication effect of today that someone frequently cites... ;)
Ken, this is an absolutely essential point, and one that often gets lost in the debate. Starry-eyed romantic that I am, I would like to think that moral obligations do count for something, and that as a consequence its not appropriate to walk away and leave the Afghans to deal with the aftermath. It especially troubles me because my starry-eyed romanticism is combined with an odd admixture of cynical realism, and I'm fully aware that the "walking away" alternative likely involves more than this, an implicit contingency plan of sorts. If we depart and it looks like the Taliban are getting the upper hand, we'll start throwing resources at whoever will fight them, whatever local forces will keep them off balance and unable to consolidate, and add in the occasional covert op or airstrike against AQ type targets based on increasingly spotty intel. It will look much like the last Afghan civil war did, but with even more external interest and involvement, and likely an even bigger price for the Afghan population.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken White
I suppose my aversion to this is rooted in the fact that I've been a scholar of the Lebanese civil war, another case where regional powers all used local proxies to strike at their opponents and destabilize threats. It is very nasty stuff.
The alternative is the one that Rory Stewart makes: we can't really promote stable governance, and our presence doesn't, in the end, contribute to the goal we seek, and so we need to scale back on our engagement. He may well be right, but I don't think (as incredibly sharp as Rory is) that he's fully thought through what will happen to the country--and what we'll contribute to that chaos--if a lighter footprint results in the risk of Taliban victory and the perceived risk of a resurgent AQ.
It has been asserted on this thread that Afghanistan was broken before our intervention so we don’t need to fix it before we leave. Let me just say this about that. I had a friend whose car’s automatic transmission was screwed up, aka broken—it would get stuck in second because of a vacuum issue (we thought). A shade tree mechanic replaced the automatic transmission with a manual tranny. In the process, he screwed things up on the new one: that the shift lever would not always stay in the forks, thus making it impossible to shift up or down at times without using a big old screwdriver to reseat the shift lever. So, sometimes the car would get stuck in second. The car had the same problem—getting stuck in second--but it wasn’t really the same problem now, was it? The original problem existed but due to a different cause. My friend still had a car that was screwed up, and he still need help to get it out of 2d gear. Seems to me Afghanistan is similar to my friend’s car and the US/ISAF is the analog of the shade tree mechanic. Sure, we can leave, but we (or someone else) will have to keep coming back to do the job of that big old screw driver.
I think a couple of lessons can be learned.
First, folks keep talking about winning and victory in Afghanistan. Ken White and some others, have been at pains to point out that those terms are not really operative in the kind of affair in which we are embroiled in Afghanistan. I submit that our role is more like a doctor trying to help a sick patient get well. I don think we talk about doctors winning or being victorious when their patients recover, do we? We may note that the patients succeeded in fight off a cold or that they have won their battle against cancer. But we don’t normally say the doctor who treated them won. So let’s stop trying to define victory for us because it isn’t about us. It's about the people who populate Afghanistan. The lesson to learn is to let our patient define what the victory ought to be and ask us for help in achieving it.
Second lesson: Rex among others made the point that we seem to be in a no win situation. If we stay in Afghanistan, we, and whatever faction we support, are the locus for continued hostility. If we depart from Afghanistan, we will still be the locus of hostility because we didn’t fix what we broke (and we did break something in the process of trying to fix something else that was broken). So it goes. Once we start intervening in places where we weren’t invited, I suspect we will always be doomed to such a result. Lesson to learn—don’t intervene where one isn’t wanted/invited, especially if the intervention is unilateral. (Actually this a variation on the first lesson—doctors tend not to go out on uninvited house calls. They wait until a patient comes to see them before they diagnose and propose a cure.)
stands for Wise Man...:D
As I'm reading through this thread, I was struck by an article by Krugman on economic theory and practice. The theory assumes 1. perfect communication and 2. fair competition. In practice, the assumptions are often wrong. Throughout the last two decades, economists thought their theories had finally described and evolved to a point where capitalism was perfect and the marketplace could run itself without any regulation. Obviously, that did not happen. Capitalism is not dead (as some suggest) nor is it evil (as Michael Moore is attempting to promote). It is a human endeavor- one that will continue to ebb and flow with (self and outside) corrections.
In the same way, COIN is a study of war that is heavily influenced by social scientist b/c it involves people. Social science produces theories, not laws. I would suggest that we take a closer look at some of our assumptions in our own theories on COIN, and learn a little bit from the mistakes of the economists. I really don't want to read articles/books ten years from now about how CNAS or SWJ or whoever got it wrong. I think we can still get it right. BW, Slap, Marc, and Ken are on the way towards that path.
Thoughts? More directly, what assumptions in our present constructs should be challenged?
v/r
Mike
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?
Paul Krugman
NY Times
Quote:
It’s hard to believe now, but not long ago economists were congratulating themselves over the success of their field. Those successes — or so they believed — were both theoretical and practical, leading to a golden era for the profession. On the theoretical side, they thought that they had resolved their internal disputes. Thus, in a 2008 paper titled “The State of Macro” (that is, macroeconomics, the study of big-picture issues like recessions), Olivier Blanchard of M.I.T., now the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, declared that “the state of macro is good.” The battles of yesteryear, he said, were over, and there had been a “broad convergence of vision.” And in the real world, economists believed they had things under control: the “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved,” declared Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago in his 2003 presidential address to the American Economic Association. In 2004, Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton professor who is now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, celebrated the Great Moderation in economic performance over the previous two decades, which he attributed in part to improved economic policy making.
Last year, everything came apart.
As I say, insurgencies happen when governments fail, and COIN often fails because governments (politicians) aren't particularly good are admitting their mistakes and focusing their efforts on fixing those mistakes rather than "fixing" those who dare to complain about them.Quote:
Originally Posted by wm
Similarly the same conditions that cause smart people to wrongly (and I would even say "ridiculously") assess that we are confronted with a "global insurgency" should be saying that if we are the "global counterinsurgent" what failure of ours has contributed to this unrest, and what can we change about ourselves to mitigate this effect?
I'm all for moral obligations; but make sure they are the right ones.
1. We have a moral obligation to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
2. The United States has a moral obligation to pursue its national interests in a manner that does not unnecessarily trample upon the interests or constitutions of others.
The world is changing, and we are not, what once was ok within the parameter of the 2 guidelines laid out above, now in many ways is not. It happens. Plot a new location, shoot a new azimuth, and move out.
No moral obligation incurred in Afghanistan outweighs the moral obligations to our nation at home. To knowingly put the latter at risk in pursuit of the former is misplaced honor; to unwittingly do so is misplaced pride at best.
No number of tactical victories in Afg or Pak by US forces will stabilize either country; nor will they alleviate the strategic risk to the homeland that brought us here in the first place.
Hear, HearQuote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
I'd like someone to help me out here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
I'm not clear what moral obligation the USA has incurred in Afghanistan. I'd like to see some argumentation that identifies what moral duty we've saddled ourselves with by being stupid with the decision to "get even" for 9/11, followed up with the decisions to be missionaries for American democracy and forcibly baptize the Afghan people with a "democraticly elected" government. What the country's leadership did was to exacerbate an already existing poor international relations situation. I submit that America finds itself in this predicament because of what Bob describes in the quoted excerpt above as "misplaced pride" and what I prefer to consider as extreme hubris by those who ostensibly lead this nation. What ever happened America's espousal of the principle of self-determination as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Monroe Doctrine?
I'd also like Bob or someone else to cash out for me what grave strategic risk to the homeland necessitated US involvement in Afghanistan. It isn't clear to me that the Taliban or some AQ training camps in Afghanistan from which apparently were spawned the 9/11 activities and the prior attempt to blow up the WTC towers constitute grave threats to the US's territorial integrity or its ability to exercise political sovereignty within that territory. But, I don't think Pancho Villa's incursions crossed that threshold either. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for risk :rolleyes:.
Those principles are always in deep conflict with our Puritan ethics, Manifest Destiny, and utopian hopes of expanding "The Great Society."Quote:
Originally Posted by wm
v/r
Mike
That's true but I fail to see the relevance to the issue you raise below.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob's World
Also true and far more relevant than the remark above. Definite applicability to the future but not totally pertinent to the Afghanistan. That problem existed before you arrived at your current location and should be fixed on its own merits and not necessarily tied to future efforts.Quote:
Similarly the same conditions that cause smart people to wrongly (and I would even say "ridiculously") assess that we are confronted with a "global insurgency" should be saying that if we are the "global counterinsurgent" what failure of ours has contributed to this unrest, and what can we change about ourselves to mitigate this effect?
If it's a moral obligation, how can it be right or wrong; it either exists or does not. If it does exist, then it can certainly be placed in a heirarchy of needs ala Maslow and thus may well be low enough in priority to be disavowed -- but you have not made such a case nor have you addressed the cost of such disavowal.Quote:
I'm all for moral obligations; but make sure they are the right ones.
The first item is correct; I think the issue revolves around both the methodology of doing that and the current status versus a desired future state. The second item is desirable but one we have not always followed in the past. While I agree that is an excellent future goal I believe you think shifting directions is more simple and less time consuming than it is likely to be. Regardless, you have not made any case that Afghanistan as a moral obligation fits at a place on a scale of priorities that we can or should discount or disavow that moral requirement in preference to other things though you have hinted to that effect.Quote:
1. We have a moral obligation to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
2. The United States has a moral obligation to pursue its national interests in a manner that does not unnecessarily trample upon the interests or constitutions of others.
I disagree on all counts:Quote:
No moral obligation incurred in Afghanistan outweighs the moral obligations to our nation at home. To knowingly put the latter at risk in pursuit of the former is misplaced honor; to unwittingly do so is misplaced pride at best.
While your first point is correct as stated, it implies that we are in fact unable to address obligations to both Afghanistan and to selves. I do not think that is correct; I believe that such judgments are an individual construct and while that statement may be true in your view, it is not true in mine -- you and I are not important; the real issue is the balance in the minds of most Americans and more specifically the balance in the minds of our elected Executive and Legislative wizards. We can certainly state opinions and we are doing that but you have really not said what specific obligations are more important nor have you offered any suggestions for what should be done to preclude or diminish any adverse impacts of or from leaving Afghanistan...
There is no movement without risk; we all knowingly place ourselves and our loved ones at risk on a daily basis. Nations do the same thing. Life is risk and the balancing of that risk. You have also not made a case for the risk of Afghanistan versus the risk(s) elsewhere, specifically what is gained in the way of gross risk reduction by leaving.
Unwittingly means without knowledge or intent. I believe we had knowledge of the risk and we had intent to take that risk in going to Afghanistan; it seems therefor that your use of unwittingly really means you would not have taken that risk. I might not have either; we weren't in charge and others elected to do so. Again, we're there, we said we'd stay a bit. Staying that bit is not a case of misplaced pride -- it is a case of being aware of the impact of ones actions on the opponents one faces. Opponents of the US are vastly more in number and complexity than a few Islamist terrorists; those guys are in fact, the easy, readily identified problems. The far more subtle large body of nations that do not wish us well appreciates each of our stumbles and would be gleeful were we to depart Afghanistan precipitously.
In your view, perhaps, in mine certainly, saying we would stay in Afghanistan was unwise. However, say it we did and we will recant on that only at some cost -- a cost that you do not address in you discussions other than dismissively. Your certitude is noted but others disagree with that dismissive approach. Thus it is not 'pride' but common sense that says we can't leave just yet; you can do the cost-benefit business but do not forget the intangibles.That's true. very true -- and is a great case for the fact that we should not now be there. It does not change the fact that we are there Nor does it change the fact that a too precipitous withdrawal will likely have impacts more adverse than doing what we -- rightly or wrongly -- said we would do. We did not have to say that; we probably should not have -- but we did. Nations get judged by their credibility. Ours is in disarray on several counts -- and you want to shred it even more and believe this to be helpful?Quote:
No number of tactical victories in Afg or Pak by US forces will stabilize either country; nor will they alleviate the strategic risk to the homeland that brought us here in the first place.
Finish what you started then select a new route -- following azimuths, on most of the earth, by the way, is to smart. Use the terrain to your advantage, don't fight it. ;)
The courses of action are summed by Ken, who presents a middle ground COA, in post #131:
Thus, the basic choices are:Quote:
We are not going to 'fix' Afghanistan; not least because the social constraint process there is quite different and those pertaining to good government we have developed over centuries (heh!) imply time they do not have. However, we did say we would 'fix' it. That was regrettable political hype or abysmal stupidity -- probably a bit of both. We cannot foster the establishment of a decent government there for three reasons; the Afghans don't want one; we don't have the time or money to do that; and the Afghans don't want one...
So we need to acknowledge that reality. Will and Krulak are both correct on the practicalities and all the reasons to say 'we tried' and just depart except for two that neither addressed: We have not really tried thus far. We said to the world that we would not again abandon Afghanistan.
For those reasons, I'm pretty firmly convinced that we should give it a bit longer and really try to do the 'fix' thing -- my perception is that is in process with State taking ownership of many things they should've had six years ago -- and we need to depart fairly soon, couple of years or so, with the fond blessings of a nominal Afghan government much as we are departing Iraq. That means a continuing but far lower key engagement. My perception is that also is in process (couple more Fuel Tank Trailers may speed that up a bit... ). It'll take a bit.
The COIN view of ten years or more engagement is unlikely (and highly undesirable IMO) and departing abruptly presents many difficulties. A moderate approach between those poles with acknowledgment that Afghan government will be an Afghan construct and thus unpalatable to many in the west.
1. Leave "abruptly" - leaving that way will not realistically be that abrupt - once the decision is made, winding down the mission will take a couple of years. That added time period applies to other solutions as well.
2. The "fix it" solution - couple or more years of "fixing it" + winding down - the middle ground.
3. COIN view of 10 years or more of engagement + winding down.
As to the middle ground, my "Peace Enforcement" suggestion fits into that framework (2 or more years of negotiations by the parties based on historical precedents). And Ken, in post #134, I specifically said "We don't negotiate..."; any deal and compromises would be "negotiated by Karzai govt, Pashtuns and Pakistan". Since there was no large cheering section for that suggestion, I'll posit it DOA.
So, moving to the "fix it" proposition or propositions, what do they look like - more details please on what do we fix and how do we fix it ?
For oh so many reasons, we should not confuse Afghanistan with Vietnam.
We went to Vietnam to stop the spread of communism and to support a democratic government in the South (or that is how I have it in my head)
We went to Afghanistan to punish AQ and to deny them Afghanistan as a sanctuary by facilitating the Northern Alliance's efforts to remove them from power.
Often what we pass off as "moral duty" is more often an issue of "face." Not saying that face is not important, just saying that it isn't moral duty.
If "It would be embarrassing" was a legitimate rationale for not doing something that you otherwise should do or an excuse for poor or illegal behave, the world would be a very different place. Judges hear every excuse under the sun, but I would never advise a client to apply the "it would have been embarrassing" defense.
Moral obligation for any nation is IMO shorthand for 'a voluntarily assumed or inadvertently obtained commitment.' I dislike applying the world 'moral' to any action of nations because nations don't have morals, people have them. However, many people use moral as a construct for what nations do or should do, thus it gets to be an habitual if really incorrect form of reference.Quote:
Originally Posted by wm
We in fact have no 'moral obligation' but we, the United states did voluntarily assume a commitment due to the words, right or wrong of two Presidents who have said the US would do 'something.'
Whether they should have said that or not is another issue.
What the potential difficulties are in ignoring or changing the commitment is also a separate issue; the fact is they said something and many people are desirous of finding out if those statements were meaningful or not.In reverse order, it got swept up in partisan politics and ideological disconnects. Thanks, Baby Boomers...Quote:
I'd like to see some argumentation that identifies what moral duty we've saddled ourselves with by being stupid with the decision to "get even" for 9/11, followed up with the decisions to be missionaries for American democracy and forcibly baptize the Afghan people with a "democraticly elected" government. What the country's leadership did was to exacerbate an already existing poor international relations situation. I submit that America finds itself in this predicament because of what Bob describes in the quoted excerpt above as "misplaced pride" and what I prefer to consider as extreme hubris by those who ostensibly lead this nation. What ever happened America's espousal of the principle of self-determination as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Monroe Doctrine?
I disagree that 'getting even' for 9/11 was stupid -- not done well, I agree -- but something needed to be done apart from the non-response or minimal response to a number of provocation emanating from the ME over a period of 22 years starting in November of 1979. all those failure were directly responsible for 9/11 so not only the then in power administration was guilty of hubris and misreading the ME /South Asia -- so were its four predecessors.
Offering to stay in Afghanistan and 'fix' it was probably dumb. I do not know why the change occurred; to stay instead of the initial topple the Taliban and leave. I only know it was said and I believe that most of the world construes that as an obligation.
I'm glad you mentioned "exacerbate an already existing poor international relations situation." Having watched that aspect closely since i947, it was not that great then, right after we "saved the free world." (and let everyone who'd been fighting longer and harder than we had know it...) and it has been on a downhill slope since then with occasional usually brief upticks. It was down in the late 60s, it was down in the 2000s -- I guess the rest of the world doesn't like Texans. I wonder what walking away from yet another commitment would do...
It is my contention that we have walked away from numerous prior obligations -- most voluntarily assumed by one US Administration and recanted by another, in both cases due to domestic, not international politics and that all such case have resulted in a downward slide is US credibility and general approval throughout the world. Thus such incidents should be avoided where possible. I agree with Marc T that a precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan is likely to have more adverse impacts than did the withdrawal from Viet Nam -- which in my observation has been the low point in the downward trending saw blade graph of US approval world wide since 1947; 1974-6 were definite low points. Not sure we need to go even lower in the estimation of others...I don't think they were seen as a 'strategic' threat (and that word 'strategic' may be what's muddying things... :wry:). I think they were seen as a low grade tactical threat that was unacceptable in terms of domestic politics and US public approval. I believe that was probably a good assessment. YMMV...Quote:
I'd also like Bob or someone else to cash out for me what grave strategic risk to the homeland necessitated US involvement in Afghanistan. It isn't clear to me that the Taliban or some AQ training camps in Afghanistan from which apparently were spawned the 9/11 activities and the prior attempt to blow up the WTC towers constitute grave threats to the US's territorial integrity or its ability to exercise political sovereignty within that territory. But, I don't think Pancho Villa's incursions crossed that threshold either. Maybe I just have a higher tolerance for risk :rolleyes:.
The issue then became how to preclude recurrence. It was probably quickly realized that there was absolutely no way to protect a nation this large, this diverse and with such large, porous borders. Thus the options became preemption, disruption and / or dismantlement. It appears that all three of those tactics were pursued and the dismantlement bit being the most effective was pursued firmly but is low key, about finances and people in many countries and thus, while the most important aspect, is the lowest in visibility. The disruption pieces was more complex, entailed high visibility actions and was in part intended to obscure and divert attention from the dismantlement effort; that part at least seems to have been quite successful.
Ideally, for the disruption, a series of strategic raids could have been mounted -- the need for such capability became apparent in in November of 1979 and some sporadic work had been undertaken to acquire the capability but it had never been fully achieved because the upper echelons of DoD were risk averse and did not want a capability some Politician might decide to use. Thus, options were artificially restrained and the tools available had to be used. Unfortunately, they weren't cleaned and ready, so a poor initial job was done, entailing more tools and more time...
The preemption portion required far better intelligence and an effort to reconstitute that capability was undertaken with an eye to preemption down the road. The physical aspects of preemption are in portions of the R&D and other obscure portions of the Budget.
You can fault the politicians for all that if you wish but I suggest that the actual planning AND operating was done by people in various colored suits, couple of varieties green, couple of blue...
There's enough egg here for everyone.
Which doesn't change the fact that the eggs were broken even if they should not have been and, dumb chef or not, still are better cooked than running around smelling bad. Cook these, over lightly, quickly -- and don't break any more. I think we can all agree on that.
I seem to recall that P. Villa's incursion developed a bit of over and flawed reaction. Do you suppose it's something in the water in Washington? :D
The assumption hat an army can stay the same and doesn't need to re-invent itself if it enters a completely new arena, for example.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeF
Modern corporations strive to adjust their strategy every 3-5 years.
They create divisions, dissolve divisions, sell divisions, unite divisions, split divisions, re-task divisions - all in a never-ending quest for a temporarily optimum shape.
There are good and bad sides in this, but it's got a lesson for the military.
How many artillery battalions were mis-used as MP or infantry?
How many MP battalions have been raised since 2002?
How many incompetent colonels and generals were relieved after years of war?
How many soldiers were trained and equipped with motorcycles or ATVs in order to match Taleban mobility off-road?