After the Bin Laden op, what is the impact? Not on terrorism. Merged thread

[Ray]

As the events unfolded, it was Afghanistan which was in the sight of the US where Osama was being hunted (2001).

The Iraq invasion came in 2003.

Therefore, there should have been substantial force for Afghanistan, if that force was available later for the Iraq invasion.

What is most important the swinging to Iraq leaving the principle aim to take on the AQ in Afghanistan violated the Principles of War - Selection and Maintenance of Aim and Concentration of Force. It result was obvious.

If in Afghanistan one created a constitution that made it clear to the exiled Taliban that they were legally banned from any chance at economic or political opportunity in their own country, then one does not understand Afghanistan. That is surprising since US connection with Afghanistan went way back during the activities to throw USSR out. History, itself, shows that Afghans are lords of what they survey and have no equation to any central body, except in a cosmetic way, their King.

Given the strategic importance of Afghanistan, if the US quits, which it can, Russia and China will lever their way in and that would not do US much good from a strategic point of view, as also, make the whole effort in Afghanistan a total waste of resources in men, matériel, money et al.

Do read this link.

http://cinemarasik.com/2009/10/10/af...o-america.aspx

Apart from an analysis of the present situation, it also traces the importance of Afghanistan historically.

Excerpt:

Chance Favors The Prepared Mind

The Chinese Leaders are masters of the Prepared Mind concept. China would not have risked going to war with India in 1950s to annex Tibet. But India's prime minister Nehru, is an act of historical stupidity, unilaterally pulled the Indian Army out of Tibet. The Chinese were prepared and they walked in.

The Chinese are also determined and ambitious. Tibet is gone virtually forever. There is no way China will give it up. Tibet is strategically crucial to China. It provides direct land access to Xinjiang for Eastern China. It gives China control of the top of the world and a direct access to Kashmir.

America, frankly, lucked out in Afghanistan. The 2001 attacks allowed America the moral ground to remove the Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Now, America is in control of this vital strategic asset, this gateway between Central Asia, China, Iran, Pakistan and India. It boggles our mind that reasonably patriotic Americans can even consider leaving Afghanistan for the next 10-15 years.

Today, Afghanistan is the land nexus of the World, the World of nearly 3.5 billion people with growing incomes and rising aspirations. America lucked into this nexus position. The question is whether the American mind is prepared to seize this chance the way China did with Tibet.

Unlike Iraq in 2006, this World wants America to stay in Afghanistan. This is of course the real World - India, Iran, Russia, China, Turkey, the Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan & Turkmenistan.

The only regime that does not want America to stay in Afghanistan is the Pakistani Army and the ISI, the Army's Intelligence service. Notice we do not say Pakistan, the country. Because, the Pakistani people will leave peacefully if American pacifies Afghanistan. But as they say in Pakistan, the Pakistani Army owns the country and not the other way around.

If America runs away from Afghanistan, it will never be allowed in again. The game for Afghanistan will begin again, this time with China, Pakistan, India & Iran. We would favor the China-Pakistan axis to win this prize. What is the prize? Central Asia, access to the Persian Gulf and Trade with 3.5 billion people.

[Ray]

I've read about insurgents use of motorcycles before. How much of a mobility advantage does that give them and what can we do to counter it? (I know this question is off topic but since you guys are both here I figured I'd ask.)

Everyone in Afghanistan would have a weapon. It is macho. Therefore, if they were on MCs, they would pass off as any other villager!

Only way is to stop them and question them. But that would mean many average chap will be harassed and it would not be good for the PR that is so essential for a COIN campaign.

[JMA]

Everyone in Afghanistan would have a weapon. It is macho. Therefore, if they were on MCs, they would pass off as any other villager!

Only way is to stop them and question them. But that would mean many average chap will be harassed and it would not be good for the PR that is so essential for a COIN campaign.

These guys are (should be) drone fodder (drones are cheaper to operate than gunships). Just take this problem by the scruff of the neck and say to the people in that district that it is open season on guys on MCs. They will get used to it. It will solve the problem in no time. After that you can negotiate the terms and conditions of further MC use in that district.

[carl]

JMA:

I am not sure that would work so well. You would deprive people of an important means of transport for occasional gain. I would guess there wouldn't be enough aircraft available to really make it stick. If you blanketed a small area for just a few days while covering some kind of operation though, maybe that would work. You might still run the risk of knocking off some guy who was desperate to get his sick wife to a doc and wasn't thinking so straight.

When I mentioned the motorcycles I was thinking more along the lines of getting into remote places that our big vehicles can't go either for regular patrolling or in careful pursuit. Should we use motorcycles, or 4-wheelers or dune buggy type things to try to match their mobility? That was what I was thinking.

[JMA]

JMA:

I am not sure that would work so well. You would deprive people of an important means of transport for occasional gain. I would guess there wouldn't be enough aircraft available to really make it stick. If you blanketed a small area for just a few days while covering some kind of operation though, maybe that would work. You might still run the risk of knocking off some guy who was desperate to get his sick wife to a doc and wasn't thinking so straight.

When I mentioned the motorcycles I was thinking more along the lines of getting into remote places that our big vehicles can't go either for regular patrolling or in careful pursuit. Should we use motorcycles, or 4-wheelers or dune buggy type things to try to match their mobility? That was what I was thinking.

Yes that was a quick solution which would need to be worked through tactically before implementation. That video depicted a Taliban group travelling together by motorcycle, a whole bunch of them... and not the odd individual motorcycle travelling around the area.

But are we not back to a similar argument of a year or so ago?

Then there were those arguing to allow the locals to grow poppies as their source of income. I said no poppies others here said the farmers must be allowed to grow poppies and be given an incentive to switch to a less profitable commercial crop.

Well that better plan would have been to tell the farmers that there will be no poppies grown next season... and then enforce it. The incentive would be for the locals to approach the local department of agriculture office to sign up for any incentive scheme going. Done from the outset poppies would be part of history now and I need to be convinced that the military problems in say Helmand could have been worse as a result.

I suggest that the US driven pop-centric approach is the cause for much of the lack of progress in Afghanistan. If you are going to push this pop-centric stuff where are the civil action personnel?

The insane situation was written about when the Brits "best" troops - the Paras - arrived 6 months ago and were tasked to clear an area controlled by the Taliban (so far so good) then they are tasked to hold the ground. Where were the civil action (or equivalent) personnel to follow on and take over? This would release the combat troops to pursue the Taliban or clear new areas etc etc. Its all about horses for courses... and don't use your best troops to secure the area for local government officials and field workers (which I would have thought would have been obvious).

The Afghanistan situation is closer to what the South African forces faced in South West Africa/Namibia. There was a government system (Apartheid) which could never be sold to the population just as in Afghanistan a criminally corrupt Karzai regime could never win the hearts and minds of the Afghan nation.

Dust off your copy of McCuen, find out what the South Africans did and at least dominate the shooting war while the politicians work out an agreement.

[Ray]

After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan

Peter Bergen

Link

a comment on this:

05/04/2011 - 2:39am EDT | Konstantin

Somebody’s been reading good ole Small Wars Journal.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/journal/iss/v7n3.pdf

The pertinent article by LTC Mann begins on page 4. Check out that Officerese. It is thick, but a careful reader will discern that the paper is an updated description of the Village Stability Operations & affiliated narrative exploitation TTPs to which Peter Bergen refers in this TNR article. Other than references to the Taliban and a cursory mention of the history of Afghan governance principles, the paper appears to be a regurgitated, less formatted min ... view full comment

[jmm99]

either 2013 or 2017. My crystal ball ain't accurate enough for either year - sorry

Rasmussen has been doing a series of pollings which now has boiled down to, Americans Are Reluctant to Defend Any of These Allies (Wednesday, April 27, 2011). Here is a summary graphic of the results:

Defend or Not.jpg

I can't come up with any consistent rationale which might explain these results.

The real crossover point (40-40-20) is Denmark; but Japan (43-44-13) gets the first heaveho in the chart.

Anyone ?

Astan = 30-54-16 - not a surprise to me.

Regards

Mike

[carl]

I think the poll is largely meaningless. If you polled Americans in 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, 2000 or any year you'd care to choose the results would be the same. The question has no context so most people will default to "none of my business" unless they've heard of the place or been there. How else can you explain such little regard for New Zealand.

When there is context things are different.

[jmm99]

from Carl
If you polled Americans in 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, 2000 or any year you'd care to choose the results would be the same

Prove it by polls from 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, 2000 or any year you'd care to choose. Obvious hyperbole.

from Carl
The question has no context so most people will default to "none of my business" unless they've heard of the place or been there.

The question does have context as polls go:

National Survey of 1,000 Adults
Conducted April 22-23, 2011, 2011
By Rasmussen Reports

1* Sometimes, when a country is attacked, the United States provides military assistance to help defend that country. Now, I’m going to read you a short list of countries. For each, please tell me if the United States should offer military assistance to defend that country if it is attacked?

Belgium

Brazil

Bulgaria

Chile

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Peru

Portugal

Thailand

NOTE: Margin of Sampling Error, +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence

Some of the apparent inconsistency in the results may well be due to people not knowing spit about geography. I do buy that as a factor. Moreover, based on many prior polls (Rasmussen and others), what one could call the "foreign policy elite" (CFR, etc.) are much more interventionistic than the flew-over masses.

BTW: what context would you add to the poll question to make it "meaningful" ?

Regards

Mike

[carl]

Exegeration (sic) for effect. The point remains the same. Americans are historically isolationist. I don't have to prove anything, it ain't a courtroom. Merely my opinion which has a historical basis I think.

The question may have context as far as polls go but that is more an indictment of polls than an endorsement of the question. The question has no historical or political context, immediate or long term, without that, it is meaningless.

Perhaps one reason the foreign policy elites are more interventionist is they may follow these things more closely thereby giving them some context to work with right off the bat. (I can't believe you've manuvered (sic) me into a position where I would defend those guys. My life is over.)

Some useful context might be a scenario seeking to simulate multi-year sequence of events that led to our defending South Korea or South Vietnam or intervening in Cuba in 1898 or Kuwait or any number of times a people who have tended to be isolationist, aren't. If you would construct a scenario sort of like that and then let people think about it some rather than saying here is a 50 word hypothetical, you have 10 seconds to answer, then the results might be meaningful. But then your results would be skewed by the details of the question. The whole concept is meaningless.

[Ken White]

I think the poll is largely meaningless. If you polled Americans in 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, 2000 or any year you'd care to choose the results would be the same. The question has no context so most people will default to "none of my business" unless they've heard of the place or been there. How else can you explain such little regard for New Zealand.

Aside from the fact that some of those nations didn't exist in most of the earlier years cited, results would likely differ for Great Britain in 1800, Canada in 1850, Germany in 1900 (much less in 1917 or 1944, two years one might name... ). As for New Zealand, it's simply a function of location. For the bulk of nations, the responses are about about the anglosphere and western solidarity plus historic ties. As is true of any poll, it's a snapshot, answered by some people while others like me just hang up the phone when the Pollsters call...

When there is context things are different.

Not much.

[Steve Blair]

Aside from the fact that some of those nations didn't exist in most of the earlier years cited, results would likely differ for Great Britain in 1800, Canada in 1850, Germany in 1900 (much less in 1917 or 1944, two years one might name... ). As for New Zealand, it's simply a function of location. For the bulk of nations, the responses are about about the anglosphere and western solidarity plus historic ties. As is true of any poll, it's a snapshot, answered by some people while others like me just hang up the phone when the Pollsters call...

And don't forget that this great sample was composed of 1000 people. So the opinion passed off as coming from "the flew-over masses" is in fact only 1000 of those flown over, and there's no real definition of just where that small sample actually lives (or when they were called...I suspect that 1000 folks who were watching Jerry Springer in the morning might have a different perspective than 1000 folks who happened to be watching CNN/Fox talking heads in the evening).

Sorry...but I'm not a big fan of polls. The pollsters (who have a vested interest in appearing as Oracle-like as possible) are too reluctant to reveal things like refusal rates, sample locations, and so on. Cute for sound-bites, but fairly meaningless otherwise.

[Dayuhan]

I can't come up with any consistent rationale which might explain these results.

The real crossover point (40-40-20) is Denmark; but Japan (43-44-13) gets the first heaveho in the chart.

Anyone ?

Astan = 30-54-16 - not a surprise to me.

What struck me about that is that 20% said eithe "no" or "unsure" to defending Canada, and over 20% said "yes" or "unsure" to the rather absurd notion of defending North Korea.

From this I assume that there's a portion of Americans that disapprove of any defense of a foreign country, a portion that automatically approves, and a portion that is fundamentally undecided.

In between I have no explanations, but 'd be interested to see a survey of general positive-negative impressions of the same list of countries and put them side by side. I suspect you'd see that it correlates less with any perceived strategic desirability than with a general like/dislike scale. It need not be added that many of the respondents would likely have only very rudimentary knowledge about many of the countries on the list. If we excluded results from individuals who couldn't find the country in question on a map or name the country most likely to invade the country to be defended, we might get fairly different results.

[JMA]

After Osama: Why I Still Think America Should Be in Afghanistan

Peter Bergen

Link

a comment on this:

05/04/2011 - 2:39am EDT | Konstantin

Somebody’s been reading good ole Small Wars Journal.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/journal/iss/v7n3.pdf

The pertinent article by LTC Mann begins on page 4. Check out that Officerese. It is thick, but a careful reader will discern that the paper is an updated description of the Village Stability Operations & affiliated narrative exploitation TTPs to which Peter Bergen refers in this TNR article. Other than references to the Taliban and a cursory mention of the history of Afghan governance principles, the paper appears to be a regurgitated, less formatted min ... view full comment

Ray, the following article struck a cord with me. I liked it.

I would appreciate your comment from the sub-continent (no matter how short):

After Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s narrow window for redemption - By Mansoor Ijaz