Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
The example given about the PRU is an excellent example of an appropriate security force for COIN in "that" situation, but let's not forget S. Vietnam was defeated by an invasion from conventional forces, and obviously the PRU would have been relatively worthless against that type of threat. The point is we need to do a much better job of clarifying what the real versus perceived threats are and then "assist" the host nation in developing the "appropriate" capabilities, which in my view after doing this for a long time is rarely a strong army.
Absolutely. The Republic of South Vietnam's problem was that it faced two threats - an internal insurgency and the threat of invasion from North Vietnam. The PRU along with some other, largely civilian, agencies were by far the most effective organizations for neutralizing (which they largely did) the former threat.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Army put the ARVN on the back-burner and wasted a lot of political capital duking it out in the hinterlands of South Vietnam so that when the latter threat actually appeared (for a 3rd time) in 1975 there was nothing left in the "support Saigon" bank account and the ARVN, who had wasted away "pacifying" villages, were in no shape to stand up against the 22 divisions of the NVA. So, as you said, it was a problem with correctly identifying and categorizing threats.

Bob has, in my opinion, done a good job of this in his post. I don't see what conceivable threat to Afghanistan requires a very large, western-funded and trained conventional Army. That is a defence against an invasion force, and the only people dumb enough to invade and occupy the country seems to be us Westerners.