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

[Infanteer]

The answer to this question reminds me of an anecdote from my tour.

The ANA Platoon Commander I shared my AO and base with was a young Pashtun man named U. A Sergeant, he took command when the officer was killed in an insurgent ambush. U spoke Pashtun, Dari and fairly good English and was the son of a mid-to-high level bureaucrat in the Defence Ministry in Kabul. He may not have been a full elite, but the fact that he was smart, fluent and literate in the key languages and knew and worked within the Pashtun socio-political system meant locals respected and listed to him.

U quickly impressed me with his abilities. Despite being conditioned to believe the ANA were like children that you had tagging along to legitimize your mission, the partnership between him and I was 50/50. We planned all our patrols together, I got the resources he needed for him and his men and he quickly developed a rapport with the locals to get us the intelligence needed to understand the environment we were operating in (and the enemy who was trying to kill us). We made much progress in a month. I called him the “godfather” because of the way he worked his cellphone and I called myself his consigliere.

Unfortunately, U dissapeared for reasons I will not go into here. As a replacement, I received Sgt H. Sgt H was a Hazara. Also a veteran of many years of combat in the ANA, he despised the locals and said that all Kanadaharis were insurgents. He refused to make contact with the locals and would go on patrols only when prompted by myself. Although I got him into a busy and aggressive patrolling rhythm, he wouldn't provide any input at all – he only went along because his company commander (who was really good) ordered him to support the Canadians. At one point, Sgt H sent his subordinates to deal with a neighbouring farmer who he was having issues with; the soldiers started to beat the man with their rifles until one of my sentries intervened by firing a flare into the air. This is simply not something that would have happened with Sgt U.

The good news was that at the end of my tour, U ended up back with us and I saw him one last time before I left the country. When I left him, he was leading his platoon on patrols in a dusty corner of Panjwayi district as he had for the previous few years. A true veteran, my "tour" was his "life".

This experience convinced me that the line between success and failure is more U's and less H's. When I read Mark Moyar's A Question of Command I felt drawn to his incomplete, but (I believe), correct theory on COIN. We are still leading operations because we don't have enough Sgt U's.

[Bill Moore]

Infanteer, that is a great story and I am glad you shared it. I agree life will be easier if there are more Sgt U's and less Sgt H's, but I still argue that isn't the reason we are in the lead. I can't think of any country that I conducted FID where there weren't the equivalent of SGT U's and H's in their ranks. There are also SGT U's and SGT H's in our ranks. If the Sgt H's fail, and they will if we're not in the lead to protect them they'll disappear over time due to their failure or death. Sgt U's will perpetuate if the Afghan Gov is serious, if they're not then we're in a guagmire and staying longer (only talking COIN, not CT) will not solve the underlying issues. Right now we are the underlying the issue that is preventing self corrective actions. We need to step back and let the SGT U's and SGT H's determine the course of Afghanistan. Just because SGT H is corrupt and more doesn't mean we should lead the fight.

[carl]

Infanteer & Bill M.:

As Bill said there are SGT Hs in our ranks. If instead of Infanteer having been there, a Canadian equivalent of SGT H had been there then it would not have made any difference if the Afghan SGT U was good. His proficiency would not have come to fore because the Canadian equivalent of SGT H would have vitiated it.

Not only the Afghan gov has to be serious about developing SGT U's, our side has to be also. I have no idea what the social dynamics of the respective groups in the Frontline report were, but if the 101st contingent was led by a SGT H, the Afghans would have been repressed even if they had been led by SGT U.

And so an obvious point is elaborated upon by me the civilian.