I don't know. I just know what will happen if we only support one side enough to create an unsustainable "decent interval" and then leave.Originally Posted by Dayuhan
Better to try what might not work but creates a chance at an enduring stability than to try what we know is unlikely to create an enduring stability but that might create a narrow window of "success" that we can withdraw through.
Robert C. Jones
Intellectus Supra Scientia
(Understanding is more important than Knowledge)
"The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)
In my humble opinion, their way may have its own unique effect, but it is not better, when framed against our impatience, the context of national policy timelines, and our overall work ethic.They can do it their way, and their way will probably be better than ours.
To second a little bit on what I think Ken is saying, along the careerism vein, getting the ANSF out there in the lead requires substantial investments in utilizing the right leadership to get the job done. Sacrificing a rock star(s) to leave a command to do the job forces a commander to run the risk of his own command not performing as well during the deployment.
You could attribute that to a commander simply wanting to complete the mission and do it well, but we are not even effectively accomplishing any mission over there right now, IMO. We are simply holding the various threads together until the next team can come in and take hold...and they then do the same until their rotation comes to a close. The metrics for success shift, morph, and change between unit rotations not so much from a calculated process of analyzing the problem set and establishing good measures of effectiveness and performance, but too often from pet peeves, parochialism, and our own cultural hang-ups. The larger problem anyway is that we have not established MOE/MOP for ANSF that make any sense, in the context of the policies of GIRoA or the MOD. Put another way, even if we are screwed up for not structuring our fight properly, it doesn't matter because the attention should not be on us, as has been brought up here.
Mission success, put another way, is just so arbitrary that it's hard to lay a bulk of blame on careerism. I think the larger culprit is our collective impatience. I don't think it's wrong to be impatient, and although the MOEs/MOPs tend to be shewed and not reflect any sensible way forward, we as Americans expect to see results...something...anything. The ANSF move at a decidedly different pace that even drove me up the wall at times
This sort of impatient rears its ugly head when you sit back and take a look at the cycle of new programs and initiatives that are paraded out by the RCs. It can be dizzying at times to try to keep up with it, and lays bare the fact that unless there is a cohesive plan at the highest levels, small unit commanders who own the battlespace and do the row hoeing waste a ton of time trying to grasp what the next greatest idea is to come down the chute (and one that often doesn't reflect their tactical reality).
Internal to the ANSF, nepotism, graft, and corruption are rampant, at least according to the context that I viewed it. Some may say, well, that is THEIR way, and I agree that it is important to be able to step back and look at it all with bit of patience, cultural understanding, etc., but when you have a private in a platoon of Afghan Border Police who (by virtue of his family connections) effectively runs the platoon over the sergeant who is already there (because the officer is not there, BTW) and directs the post-standing rotation to where his tribe mates rarely leave the COP while other soldiers spend all the time down at the TCP, there's a problem. It's their way, but that way grinds and tears at any fabric of military efficiency that is to be had. Add in a dose of angst over lack of pay, or the graft that comes along with it when the commander takes his cut of the food stipend, and we get the understandable desertion rates and ghost solider problems that we face. Someone still has to get outside the wire tomorrow and patrol, and our boys are there anyway, so they saddle up and get 'er done.
We haven't been at this for all that long, in terms of ANSF development. Granted, we have been mentoring and employing militias for a long time, wearing shemaghs and long beards, and have worked our SOF elements into the mix with a variety efforts, but we have not been at the business of establishing cohesive armed formations, capable of employing C2, that can be integrated into the large coalition effort, as long as we had by the time the OIF surge took hold. The ISF had a military tradition and framework that was light years ahead of Afghanistan, so I only put the Iraqis out there because I think it is too easy to measure our success there and get easily frustrated when it doesn't work in OEF.
To FID or not to FID?
I'm currently working as an S2 mentor for an ANA Commando battalion. I see this problem starkly with the SpecOps unit currently assigned as their FID partners. Their OPSEC measures are so restrictive, that the Commando leadership has very little input on operations and planning - much less know where they're going when they get on the helo. Dislosure is limited to the ground tactical plan. They get to see imagery of the target village, but are never told where the village is located or the HVT names.
I understand their concerns due to the rash of FID partners turning on their trainers. They even had an incident of their own recently, but they must take that leap of faith and allow them to plan and run their own missions and be given the information and resources to do it.
The problem extends into equipment employment as well. For example, the Commandos have a slew of Etrex GPSs sitting in their arms room as part of their Tashkil (MTOE). As far as I've been able to assess, the Commandos have received no training on this equipment (as well as simple map and compass) and their US FID partners do not allow it for fear they will plot their coordinates on the objective and discover their location. This is not how to do FID, folks.
My team did it plenty in Iraq and we never had OPSEC issues. Our FID partners were thankful to us that they were finally given a measure of trust to be equal participants in operations.
I found it interesting the day after the news broke about us killing bin Laden, several of the Commandos stated "the next you invade Pakistan, we want to go with you!" They were serious. They KNOW who the real enemy is here.
v/r
DF
I too was unable to watch the documentary, might have to find an illicit way of downloading it. I did however read an article linked on the SWJ main site, as someone has posted above, the rejection of local/human intel is quite alarming. Not to mention that human geography seems to be almost ignored, not exactly big news as everything I seem to be reading is pointing to the U.S trying to apply a fairly rigid COIN strategy throughout the country with little consideration for the situation on the ground. Evens in Nuristan (Pech valley) and Kunar (Korengal) have shown this, I wonder if people have been aware that the populations in these area (or anywhere across this part of the border with Pakistan) have rejected any form of central government for centuries if they'd even have bothered. Not that i'm saying that trying to conduct state building in these areas in a fulorn hope, i'm saying that going about the way the U.S/ISAF have hasn't worked and only result in a withdrawal (from the areas noted above, or at least as far as I'm aware).
Mixed news
This SWJ article helps to explain and at the end there is some positive nes on the ANA:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/jou...p/776-doan.pdf
Elsewhere, probably in several threads, we have debated the length of a tour (6-15 months), the lessons learnt in the Imperial era in NWFP (political agents, locally recruited units with long service British officers etc) and the cultural divide.
I still maintain, yes from my "armchair", that only when Afghans serve alongside all allied soldiers / marines will progress be made - at an individual and unit level. 'Advise & Assist' may work and I know claims were made that in recent operations in Helmand Province the ANA took the lead. I simply don't think either side at the lowest levels, assuming it is a simple 'black & white' situation, have accepted joint working 24/7. Murders of ISAF clearly do not help and cast doubt on "jointness".
davidbfpo
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...man_insurgency
I think this article nicely sums up the complexity of the situation when it comes to ANSF.
David, sadly it is a case of... "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
The Brits have enough experience from across their empire to draw on so they really don't have any excuses.
Certainly in this neck of the colonies the model of the Kings African Rifles was good and worked... with I suppose the best example being the refined model of the Rhodesian African Rifles which was superb in so many ways.
I suggest that Ray with his sub-continent experience will have important and valuable input into how given the Indian experience of forming colonial units from scratch what the most efficient way to have created/formed/built the ANA would have been.
To me the start point that everyone gets paid and seems to go to the highest bidder is a game changer. Even the insurgents (Taliban) get paid. Interesting.
Then we see out of Somalia troops trained and armed by the EU (including most bizarrely a Finnish contingent) defect to Al-Qaida and/or Al-Shabaab on becoming operational. One wonders how they were selected?
Clearly not enough experience is there nor enough thought given to forming/establishing/building indigenous forces in Afghanistan. The prognosis is poor.
We did discuss this matter somewhere here before. And I say again that both the Brits and the yanks got there act together in terms of tour lengths and training the Afghans right from 2006 it would be a different story now. Too late she cried.
I would go along with davidbfpo when he states -It is all a question of each race's psychology.I still maintain, yes from my "armchair", that only when Afghans serve alongside all allied soldiers / marines will progress be made - at an individual and unit level.
I can give an example of the Indian Army.
We have a mix of all types of Regiments with different classes (tribes/ races, if you like). Handling each is a totally new experience.
We all have the same doctrine and training and yet handling each is a totally different experience.
The Sikhs are noisy and gung ho (even without reason or rhyme!). They can never stop jabbering or shifting unnecessarily even when they are close to the enemy lines. Very fidgety chaps.
The Gorkha is silent and inscrutable. You will never know what they are up to. In fact the story goes that a Gorkha broke the line on a route march, went into a village, did his whatever with a woman, paid well, return to the line of march and none knew! They are also very obstinate. And if you give a Gorkha an order, you must check back he has understood.
My chaps, the Mahars, are laid back and can go without food for days without complaints. As officers, one had to go an extra mile.
And so on.
The Afghan, I presume, is not much of a fighter in structured battles. But will be dangerous as special forces. They have an independent streak and tend to be individualistic. (My uncle commanded Pathans and so this is what he told me). He also said they are great ones and brutal so long as they are winning. If they smell defeat, it is another story!
Therefore, I would be surprised if the Afghans would synchronise with the American concept of warfare application! I presume, it will take time.........a very long time!
Therefore, Afghans will have to operate with the Americans if they are to adapt to the American minor tactics format and also get a hang of the American psychology that makes a success of the American tactics.
The Vietnamese experiment of 'Advisers' with Afghan troops may not work.
And the biggest handicap is that the American, appear to us, as very impatient and want instant results.
Another oddity we find is that a US officer after giving instructions say 'It is an order'. In the subcontinent, if your superior officer says something, then it is automatically taken for granted it is an order. This can lead to loss of authority that is automatically built in in a superior officer since, out here, if you say 'it is an order', it appears that the superior officer is not confident and he has a doubt if the chap will obey it or not.
In our part of the world, that just does not happen.
Just my thought.
Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-03-2011 at 08:43 PM. Reason: Cited post in quotes
The British colonial method does have a lot to say for itself, if you look at any former British colony you see that the style policing and of organising a military have been retained. In Pakistan the military is probably the only institution that works, albeit in unnerving way. The problem in Afghanistan is that after decades of unrest and warfare they have reverted to old forms of social organisations. If you looked at Afghanistan before the soviet invasion, or before the communist coup, you saw a country that was becoming increasingly westernised. After war and in an absence of government people defer to old forms of governing. In Afghanistan this was centred around tribal structures, strongmen emerged and tribal rivalries were reinvigorated. After the invasion the country was in an even sorrier state and the Americans chose crazy Karzai to lead, because he happened to Pashtun, didn't like the Taliban, so the people would love him. Trouble was that there wasn't an Afghan nation, it was more split than the archetypal strawberry flavoured lollipop, the different ethnicities didn't trust each other and the different tribes didn't either, then the various sub tribe groups had beef as well to make things worse! What I’m trying to get at is that creating an Afghan NATIONAL Army is a tough thing to do, there has never really been an Afghan national, just borders created by a British cartographer. Tajiks operation in the south are met with contempt. Then the Pashtun in minority in the north side with the Taliban. The ethnic schism is a huge issue. That is why I call what is going in Afghanistan state building not national building because there will never be an Afghan nation. It will take at least another generation of educated Afghans to sort this mess out, with or without the Taliban because the problems in Afghanistan won't end then. We'll see an Afghan version of the Good Friday Agreement by 2014 with the "moderate" Taliban co-opted into te government which will make lovely headlines in all the red tops. though chances are there'll be a more interesting story about Cheryl bloody Cole. I digress. We are relying on the ANSF when they receive little training, limited pay and little motivation. I've read several articles saying that when it comes to the ANP families often have one son in the ANP and one in the Taliban, just to hedge their bets. Says it all.
So end the wall of text.
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