Why are we still leading missions, instead of supporting Afghans conduct them?

[Bill Moore]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kill-capture/j

Frontline did a special on Kill-Capture missions addressing the pro's and con's, many of which we debated endlessly on SWJ. The arguments for most sides are valid, but what jumped out at me from the coverage was the discussion between the locals (the 101st hit the wrong target due to inaccurate intelligence) and Afghan security forces accompanying the 101st. Even though they realized it was the wrong target they went ahead and searched the tribal leader's house in a pretty rough fashion, and since they found some small arms ammo (imagine that in Afghanistan) they used that as justification to detain him (he was released a few hours later). These mistakes happen all the time, because as Bing West points out we don't understand their language or customs beyond a superficial level. The ASF were put out with the Americans and their arrogance and clumsiness in handling this situation, and the locals wanted to know why the ASF let the Americans do this.

That is the million dollar question concerning Afghanistan. Why are we still leading missions, instead of supporting Afghans conduct them? They can do it their way, and their way will probably be better than ours. We are seen as occupiers and all the CMO and development in the world won't change that as long as we're conducting combat operations. I think it is long past time we take a step back and reassess. We don't need to be fighting their insurgency, we need to enable them to it their way. We may not like the results because the metrics won't be immediately observable, but over time we'll a change for the better if it is met to be.

[davidbfpo]

Bill,

Cannot view the PBS documentary here, but the key question is not the programme, but your question:

Why are we still leading missions, instead of supporting Afghans conduct them?

So I've adjusted the thread's title from 'Kill Capture Missions and Frontline' to your question.

My initial thought is the ASF overall neither have the capability or will, as the threads on the ANA & ANP have referred to before. Secondly, would the ASF really want mission command if ISAF directions and strategy were being followed? (I'm not convinced the current strategy, let alone objectives are set in concert with the Afghan state).

Now back to my armchair faraway.

[carl]

David:

Too bad you can't get that Frontline episode. It was very good and covered several critical things.

One of the things it covered was what was described as American intel's tendency to disregard the real world in deference what comes in from an antenna, whether that antenna catches a drone video feed or a cell phone intercept. The program suggests this can result in a view of the world at considerable odds with reality which can result in some very bad things. Maybe it is part of the same phenomenon Bing West observed and what Mr. Turcan meant when he said there should be more soldiers looking at people's eyes with their eyes rather than looking at computer screens.

[Bob's World]

Bill,

An excellent question; and one we probably won't like the answer to.

I don't remember a lot of details from my time as a Cadet in ROTC, but do remember with crystal clarity a conversation with our SF MSG at our detatchment. He had been an E-5 on an ODA in Vietnam and was telling us about a patrol he was on with a Vietnamese unit, and said something about putting them out front to lead the way to where they expected to make contact with the enemy. I asked why he didn't lead? (after all, we were there to learn about leadership) He looked me in the eye, with a look (and message)I will never forget, and said, "last time I checked, it was their war."

This is one of my primary reasons for harping on what may seem like an unimportant nuance to many that what one does during an intervention to support the COIN efforts of some partner is not COIN, but is FID. If I think I'm doing the same mission as the Host Nation, it is a pretty easy transition to forgeting whose war it is and getting into inappropriate roles that may be more effective in the short term, but that are incredibly damaging to achieving the longer term effects of a legitimate, competent security force supporting a government dedicated to the service of its entire populace.

Instead, we end up enabling poor governance, which makes the conditions of insurgency worse, and then in turn demands we poor in more and more resouces and units to deal with the growing insurgency.

in FID, less is more. If you make it big, it will get big. COIN tactics derived from colonial efforts didn't much worry about this. Stripping off that colonial perspective and allowing the host nation to sink or swim is hard.

Besides, sometimes the insurgent is right and the government is wrong; when we force a victory by the wrong side we may serve our interests in the near term, but the long term costs of such forced solutions selected, shaped, and executed by outsiders are coming at a growing cost in the current info tech environment.

[carl]

Besides, sometimes the insurgent is right and the government is wrong; when we force a victory by the wrong side we may serve our interests in the near term, but the long term costs of such forced solutions selected, shaped, and executed by outsiders are coming at a growing cost in the current info tech environment.

Is this one of those times where the insurgent is right and the government wrong?

[Bob's World]

Is this one of those times where the insurgent is right and the government wrong?

Carl,

We can agree that neither of us want to live in a Taliban-governed Afghanistan; but if I were a Pashtun I sure as hell would not want to live in a Northern Alliance-governed Afghanistan either.

We have, by our very presence and nature of our engagement, enabled Karzai and the Northern Alliance guys to be much more self-serving than if we had let them sort it out for themselves. There is no way they could have produced the current constitution with it's codified exclusion of anyone seen as contrary by Karzai is a deathknell for there ever being any kind of stability, as half of the populace not represented by the Northern Alliance has absolutely no alternative but to conduct illegal challenges to the current regime or live in powerless poverty.

Karzai has made his bed though, and once we jump out of it to run home I suspect he will find it hard to get a good night's sleep in it. My concern is not for Karzai and his cronies though, it is for those much lower who we have convinced to put their faith in us. The big guys will take the money and run, but the little guys will suffer hard.

Unless.

The big unless is unless we stop backing one side to the exclusion of the other and instead take a more neutral role to oversee a negotiated settlement that leads to shared governance under a new constitution. What happens after that? Who knows, but at least we will have give those who trusted us at the local level a fighting chance to avoid a vengeful backlash.

Sadly, collaborators rarely fare well from any history of any conflict I have ever read.

[Ken White]

The answer to the 'why' is all too often simply a combination of ego and careerism.

It needs to be forcefully halted and that has to come from the top. Good luck with that...

Like Bob's guy said -- "...it's their war."

[Steve the Planner]

Ken:

I believe what you referenced as "careerism" is actually a structural and organizational problem inherent in major deployments.

One soldiers are on the line, and measurables are attached, on many levels, to the responsibilities to perform, accomplish, effect something, then the whole concept of "their war" goes out the window.

That core question of "strategic patience" runs contra to short tours and management by objectives.

Personally, I think it requires a huge amount of leadership skills (from the top) to avoid the inevitable---Bob has troops one the ground who are at risk, the risk continues until "X" is accomplished, Bob becomes "responsible" for "X."

[davidbfpo]

Originally posted on the ANA thread and then found this - so initial comment edited away.

Following the NYT article on Gen. Odierno's guidance in the comments I found this by 'Ker':

As a former embedded trainer with an Afghan Army infantry battalion, I find it troubling that military leaders still use the terms "adviser" and "trainer" when referring to the soldiers who will be embedded with Afghan units. When our Afghan Army unit was sent to a hotspot in Kandahar or Helmand provinces, we the "trainers/advisers" did all of the fighting. It was not a comforting feeling knowing that the only people who had our back were Afghan Army soldiers. It was also not a good feeling knowing that we had to worry not only about the Taliban, but also whether any of the Afghan soldiers would attack us.

The role of the "trainer/adviser" is much more difficult and dangerous than the terms "trainer" and "adviser" connote.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/wo..._r=2&ref=world

[Bill Moore]

I suspect/hope that once we right size in Afghanistan the advisors will be forced to act as advisors instead of leading operations. If it is trulygoing to be Afghan run, that means Afghans will determine what missions they execute, when they execute them, and how they execute them instead of being a surrogate force for ISAF. It will require a mental shift for many of our aggressive advisors who I suspect are inherently Type A personalities. They'll have to pretend to be Type B personalities (its role playing) to be effective, and that isn't easy, but it can be done. You have to learn to transition between roles rapidly, and I think all our guys and gals are capable of doing so, they just need to be told that is the expectation (and it needs to be the expectation). If the intent is to continue to push our strategy, our ends, our means, and our ways then I think we'll continue to have challenges.

[Steve the Planner]

David:

Really good and topical.

The central idea framed by the quoted article is profoundly important.

The organizational structure and culture of trainer/advisors and training advising missions is so so easily overwhelmed by the big organization from which we originate, whether on the military or civilian side.

Small Wars, in order to stay effective Small Wars, must be built on the leveraging and partnerships, plus targeted specialty activities.

Once we become the actor, a new script is needed.

[davidbfpo]

I also wonder if external, foreign political pressure to reduce force levels will mean advisor teams will be affected. Notably will contractors (PMC) arrive; assuming that Kabul / GIRoA agrees? Secondly will non-US teams be deployed? Anecdote suggests some nations have kept well away from this role.

To back-up the original quotation a recent UK TV series, by Ross Kemp, devoted one hour long programme to an ANA Kandak in Helmand, with a UK advisory team. Some of the issues illustrated were local, others more profound and suggested to me there is a long road ahead.

[Steve the Planner]

Same with the Iraqi police training missions.

Why not hire or deploy 300 Nepalese or Brazilian police trainers if the complexity and security needed to deploy US ones became so unbearably expensive/complex after our departure?

In a conflict/post-conflict environment, "training" and advisory missions create whole constellations of new issues and complexities of impediments to successful implementation.