Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[davidbfpo]

In the 'How to build a state in a non state environment' thread, Slap challenged Bill Moore:

Bill Moore, if you were General in charge of fixin A'stan and could do anything you wanted.... what would do?

Bill responded and I want to isolate one point:

5. Push to establish an emergency zone of control in parts of Pakistan where the Taliban and other insurgents and terrorists seek shelter. Strategic comms are we're in Afghanistan to win, if you can't address these issues we will. I can hear the uproar now, but my narrative is these folks are killing coalition troops and Afghan civilians with immunity (with the exception of an occassional UAV strike). We're incompetent if we continue to allow that to happen, our patience doesn't extend into infinity. By the way our coalition in effort in Pakistan would be subordinate to me in a perfect world. Right now they're getting away with being PAKMIL lap dogs, while we do plane side ceremonies nightly.

SWC have discussed the concept and practicalities of sanctuary before IIRC. A cross-border incursion and / or a series of ground raids are seen as very different to drone strikes (later covered in:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=7385 ). Plus several threads on "working" with the Pakistanis.

Doing "something" about the sanctuaries has become an issue again and Anatol Lieven has written in the NYT:

if American generals genuinely want to increase such raids, then it needs to be stated emphatically that this is not just a lunatic idea, but one that demonstrates how far senior American (and British) commanders have become obsessed with the war in Afghanistan at the expense of the struggle against terrorism as a whole.

Short summary:http://watandost.blogspot.com/2010/1...-pakistan.html and the original article:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/op...dlieven30.html

I did wonder if SWC would benefit from a thread with Slap's question posed differently: If you were the politician giving orders on fixin A'stan, what limits / conditions would you set?

I'm still pondering my own answer - from an armchair.

[jcustis]

Doing something about the sanctuaries is very important, and I would be all over it if I had a hand in formulating the policy. To some degree, despite the logistical issues inherent, it just takes the guts to try and the planning acumen of several staffs to do the job. With all due respect to the process, that can be a Herculean effort, considering who controls the various ISR, maneuver, and aviation support assets in the theater.

My battalion conducted a 160km raid to the AfPak border area known as Bahram Cha and spent 24 hours or so disrupting a significant Taliban C2 and logistics hub. At the end of the day, the most significant result was the destruction of enough ammonium nitrate that could have made 2,000 IEDs

That raid wasn't actually a cross-border incursion, mind you, but given the sensitivity concerning Pakistan's potential reaction, you might have thought it was. The area sits virtually astride the border, and the effects of our fires had to be evaluated to avoid straying into Pakistan.

Sanctuaries create logistical breathing space for the enemy, in such a way that no matter how hard you try to focus on the population, it allows the enemy to husband resources, re-arm/re-fit, and employ that they've got all the watches but we have all the time sort of fighting technique to outlast you. Take that course of action away, and you may be able to force him to fight closer to your terms.

[Fuchs]

I'd like to refer to
Musings about a military theory framework

You can squeeze the opponent ever more and deny him ever more options, but the marginal cost of your effort explodes and the marginal rate of return approaches zero.

A six-year old can develop an eliminationalist strategy, and this should help us to question its wisdom.


I'd like to advise to go a bit 'Chomsky' and ask wtf the conflict is about.
Slapout's question for Moore was probably already wrong. A General should not decide what to do about AFG. It's simply not his job.

[Entropy]

There are a lot of things we could do about the sanctuaries. Unfortunately, most of them require violating Pakistani sovereignty. So the question becomes, are the sanctuaries enough of a problem that we're willing to give Pakistan the middle finger, engage in actions that would be a clear casus belli, and deal with the resulting consequences? For ten years the answer has been no. I think the answer should continue to be no.

[Fuchs]

There are a lot of things we could do about the sanctuaries. Unfortunately, most of them require violating Pakistani sovereignty.

Isn't this comical?

Violating some other countries' sovereignty was exactly what was done when AQ took sanctuary in AFG back in '01 - for the EXACT SAME REASON.


It's no wonder that certain people value nukes highly nowadays - the U.S. offers a reason for their procurement every day, eight years in a row.

[slapout9]

Slapout's question for Moore was probably already wrong. A General should not decide what to do about AFG. It's simply not his job.

Slap, says you missed the point entirely. The question is entirely right. Bill Moore is not a General, we don't need any Generals, that is the problem IMO. Bill is a long time Green Beret...he doesn't think Conventionally he thinks Unconventionally which is the only way we have any chance at all IMO.

[Fuchs]

Slap, says you missed the point entirely. The question is entirely right. Bill Moore is not a General, we don't need any Generals, that is the problem IMO. Bill is a long time Green Beret...he doesn't think Conventionally he thinks Unconventionally which is the only way we have any chance at all IMO.

Actually your question was (my emphasis):

Bill Moore, if you were General in charge of fixin A'stan and could do anything you wanted.... what would do?

You wrote that - not my fault.

A Green beret is still no more qualified to answer the question than any other citizen. It's a political job. It's a job for statesmen and their advisers (and I don't mean career uniform wearers here).
It's a problem for a Kissinger, Machiavelli, Bismarck, Churchill, Eisenhower guy.
Your whole intro to your core question was leading into a wrong direction imho.

[William F. Owen]

You can squeeze the opponent ever more and deny him ever more options, but the marginal cost of your effort explodes and the marginal rate of return approaches zero.

A six-year old can develop an eliminationalist strategy, and this should help us to question its wisdom.

If you mean a strategy of attrition, then you have access to a very gifted six-year-old. Attrition works better than anything else. It's great, but you need a really good army and a a very good intelligence service to do it.

Additionally, your attrition has to be set forth in line with the policy, so you have to be very careful who you kill/capture and why.

[Steve the Planner]

Fuchs:

Not quite. I was absolutely committed to the belief that, by 2008, in Iraq we ran the risk of creating more trouble than we were solving.

There comes a point when extrication is essential, and we reached that point in Iraq, but it was very hard to accomplish the departure.

With unpleasant news from Iraq (especially the plight of Christians, and where the Turkmen may settle out when the smoke clears), but remain morally and intellectually committed to the belief that our continuation was not a plus.

Afghanistan is much more complex, and rapid and complete departure is not a self-evident option for a productive conclusion, let alone the fact that the US perceives a continuing interest in the game.

What intrigues me is the debate about SWAT or not. The fact that an Afghan Win under our current strategy is predicated on incursions which are not acceptable raises the fundamental question about our current strategy (or bag of tactics).

Within actual constraints (included limited incursion, and, thus, safe havens for opponents AND Budgets), what credible mission and enduring tasks can be accomplished?

There is an answer (however limited and inconclusive) that lies between the current unsustainable strategy and cut and run. Most likely, it turns on reconciliation and political horse trading with the folks we call enemies today. Most likely, too, the answer is probably never a "final answer." Thus, the deterence/retribution sweeps are always an option.

[Fuchs]

If you mean a strategy of attrition, then you have access to a very gifted six-year-old. Attrition works better than anything else. It's great, but you need a really good army and a a very good intelligence service to do it.

Additionally, your attrition has to be set forth in line with the policy, so you have to be very careful who you kill/capture and why.

Here comes the kill'em! faction.


Wilf, to eliminate an irritation or opponent is among the most expensive approaches if not the most expensive approach itself. You'll often end up losing more than you gain by such a course of action.

War can only be justified if it's the smaller evil than peace, for it's inherently destructive. A strategy needs to offer the prospect of being the course of least net damage to yourself (and your allies). An eliminationist approach regularly fails at this.

The problem is especially obvious if one aims for total elimination. The costs for defeating the last 10% are many times as great as the costs for defeating the first 10% of an enemy. This is especially true if said enemy can become ever more elusive.

The TB can turn into a Mafia or political party mode until the Westerners leave - there's no practical way to really eliminate them if they evade our efforts of eliminations like that.

The simple "let's eliminate them all" idea is primitive, worthy of a drunk or child and certainly not the way to go because it's way too expensive in an affair that offers very little gain.

----------------------------------------------

In the end, let's not forget this:
The Taliban are merely the guys who insisted on granting AQ the privilege of hospitality before AQ officially accepted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. The TB are no threat to us in themselves, and their relation to threats against us (=jihadist offspring) becomes only worse if we fight against them. They did not attack us - we attacked them. (Btw, by the same rationale Cuba would be justified to attack the U.S., so we're not even remotely as clear-cut good guys in this conflict as about half of the Westerners seem to believe.)

A really, really smart leader (instead of GWB) would not have forgotten this in 2002 and would have settled the conflict in negotiations with the Taliban in exile back in 2002, under condition that they disassociate themselves from AQ in theory and practice.

Instead, GWB and clique were drunk with operational victory, wallowed in the myth that a job was unfinished in '91, forgot how much they hated Clinton's nation building in Yugoslavia and continued the AFG adventure with few resources and a maximalist goal.
The German government was stupid enough to follow this really, really stupid and primitive path and to adopt essentially the same maximalist mission statement.


To be honest and frank, an attrition to zero approach looks terribly out of place to me in this context.

And sanctuaries? Well, AQ can simply relocate. AQ in Pakistan is the unimportant loud-mouth franchise central. The real AQ threat are the cells which are dispersed in 60 countries, almost all of them having cooperative police and intelligence services. To go into SWAT for AQ is therefore not even remotely worth the costs of the endeavour.
TB in SWAT - not really relevant, for they are only a threat to us as long as we insist to stay in their region.

[Dayuhan]

If you mean a strategy of attrition, then you have access to a very gifted six-year-old. Attrition works better than anything else. It's great, but you need a really good army and a a very good intelligence service to do it.

Additionally, your attrition has to be set forth in line with the policy, so you have to be very careful who you kill/capture and why.

Attrition doesn't have to be achieved by killing and capturing. In my neighborhood we've had a Communist insurgency running since the 60s. At its peak, in the later years of the Marcos dictatorship, they had roughly 25,000 armed fighters. Now they are down to under 5000. That attrition was brought about not by military action, but by the removal of the dictator and a gradual renewal of confidence in the political process: the rebels weren't killed, they just stopped rebelling. The rebellion remains active primarily in areas where governance is still dominated by feudal dynasties. The key to the final stage in the attrition process will be the application of coercive force: not against the rebels, but against the dynasties.

Of course you won't ever convert the ideological core, but their followers are fighting for reasons, and those reasons often have little to do with ideology. Remove the reasons, and you get attrition without killing anyone. Leave the reasons in place, and you don't just have to kill insurgents, you have to kill them faster than they are replaced, and you have to find them among a populace that's likely to be on their side.

If your policy is producing substantial armed resistance among a populace, it's worth considering the possibility that your policy sucks.

Outlaw status is resolved by simply bringing them inside the law. Grant a pardon (with clear conditions, such as the eviction of AQ with the turning over of certain key AQ members bringing very clear benefits as well). Once inside the law, the Taliban are constrained by the law, at least as much as anyone is constrained by the law (right, Mr. Karzai?? Wink Wink) in this culture.

Very simple, if the Taliban choose to participate. If they don't recognize your law, if they don't see you as being in a position to grant pardons or make demands, this won't get anywhere. There's more to making a deal than offering it and assuming the other side will go along with whatever you offer. Why should they?

The symbolism of those twin towers, standing there at the gateway of the greatest city, of the greatest nation, represented the greed, power, and hubris of the American people in the second half of the 20th Century. They represented so much of the "why" behind the tremendous controlling presence established by the U.S. around the globe, a presence that remains the greatest in the Middle East as it has not evolved or rolled back there nearly to the degree it has in Europe, Asia or even Latin America.

What exactly do we control in the Middle East?

[carl]

Ryan Crocker does not mince any words when discussing the current situation in Afghanistan in this story.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...-reckoned.html

Lastly and most interesting to me Amb Crocker said it is possible that another 9-11 could be launched from a Taliban II controlled Afghanistan and he said this about promises.

Crocker also warned of a possible bloodbath if the U.S. pulls out before ANSF is ready to take over. "Who gets it in the neck? It's all those people we made all those promises to, starting with the women" of Afghanistan who have struggled for civil rights and education in the male-dominated society, Crocker said.

This was a very interesting story.

[carl]

Here is a link to the video of Amb Crocker's remarks to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09...ghanistan/drea

I haven't watched it yet. I only read the story quoted in the post above.

[carl]

That is what Amb Crocker said in the presentation I linked to. He said the links between the two are still strong and if a 9-11 were to occur here again, it would most likely originate from a Taliban controlled Afghanistan.

You all MUST listen to this presentation. He does not mince words. It is the best thing I've heard on this in a long long time.

[Dayuhan]

I also have to wonder about the basis for the opinion that another major terrorist attack would likely be planned in the Af'/Pak region, rather than in, say, Yemen or Somalia or Egypt or Western Europe. It may indeed be so, but it would be interesting to know the reasoning or evidence behind that opinion.

I do think that an American withdrawal from Afghanistan would increase the likelihood of major terrorist action, mainly because AQ desperately needs to have the US out there attacking and ideally occupying Muslim nations. If we deprive them of that they will try to provoke us again. I don't see that as a reason to stay in Afghanistan, just as a reason to expect what's coming, try to prevent it and prepare responses that do not involve feeding AQ with the means they require to thrive.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Carl

That is what Amb Crocker said in the presentation I linked to. He said the links between the two are still strong and if a 9-11 were to occur here again, it would most likely originate from a Taliban controlled Afghanistan.

You all MUST listen to this presentation. He does not mince words. It is the best thing I've heard on this in a long long time.

I think the comment about another 9/11 coming out of a Taliban controlled Afghanistan is the only comment he made that I didn't concur with. Maybe or maybe not, but they don't need this type of safehaven to facilitate that type of attack. I suspect the Americans for the most part are prepared to stay the course by providing funding to sustain the Afghan security forces after we withdraw most of our combat power. It is cheap insurance.

Excellent presentation.

[JMA]

I think the comment about another 9/11 coming out of a Taliban controlled Afghanistan is the only comment he made that I didn't concur with. Maybe or maybe not, but they don't need this type of safehaven to facilitate that type of attack. I suspect the Americans for the most part are prepared to stay the course by providing funding to sustain the Afghan security forces after we withdraw most of our combat power. It is cheap insurance.

I thought the most important historical tidbit he pointed out was that the USSR installed government and security forces didn't fail until the Afghan government couldn't/wouldn't pay their soldiers, which was the beginning of the end. I suspect that was due to the USSR pulling the rug out from under their feet. A mistake we don't want to make.

Excellent presentation.

Bill, with respect. Think Vietnam.

Is it only Americans who think that this will be anything other than a rerun of that debacle?

[carl]

People often say that attacks on the scale of 9-11 can be done from somewhere else, Yemen, Somalia, Western Europe etc. I have never bought that. Amb Crocker explained why it can't be done from Yemen. Western Europe is crawling with proficient police forces and intel services who are paying attention and whose individual officers and agents dream of being able to nab an AQ guy. If AQ wanted to use the area that used to be Somalia, they would have to get the Somaliland gov to go for it, which it probably won't, or the Puntland gov to go for it which probably won't and if they went to Mog the Ugandans would kill them and if they went south the Kenyans would kill them (both with copious help from us) and that would leave them with only thorny scrubland presided over by who knows who with access to nowhere.

They are in the best and probably only place for them in the world now, Pakistan mostly, because the Pak Army/ISI doesn't mind them too much. If Taliban took back Afghanistan there would be an even better place for them. This isn't before 9-11 anymore. Everybody is paying attention. They haven't gone anywhere else because they can't. The advantage of having a place where the authorities not only won't come after you but actually support you can't be done without.

[Bill Moore]

Attacks that did not require a safe haven in Afghanistan
1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
1995 Oklahoma City Bombing
2002 Bali Bombins
2004 Madrid Train Bombings
2004 Beslan school hostage crisis
2005 London bombings
2006 Mumbai train bombings
Thousands of terrorist attacks in Iraq, now Syria.
Contrary to the Ambassador's claims, Al Qaeda in Yemen have been developing some cutting edge tactics and techniques for conducting terrorist attacks against airlines.

Future attacks will not require a safe haven since Al Qaeda is now largely decentralized and its core becoming less relevant. Terrorists historically have often found safe haven in major western cities by practicing good operational tradecraft and operations security measures. Safe haven for an insurgency and terrorists are two different animals. An intelligent mass murderer could develop a 9/11 like plot in his home and with funding facilitate the development of a cell to conduct the attack. Many will fail, just like the 9/11 should have in hindsight, but due to human error and dumb luck some will succeed. Training for the attacks could have taken place in U.S., much like the actual 9/11 hijackers did with flight school, martial arts training, etc. (flight simulators, recon airport secuirty, etc.). No doubt having Afghanistan was nice, but it isn't necessary to facilitate a major terrorist attack, and now operating from Afghanistan if more likely to result in compromise than success. We would be foolish to assume that any one piece of dirt is critical, and excessive focus on that piece of dirt will blind us to threats emerging from other parts of the world. We created a narrative that we can't escape from.
Future so called safe havens will definitely include parts of the many of the new Arab Spring countries, Yemen, Iraq, Mali, Indonesia, Philippines, Mexico, Somalia, etc. They will include the world of cyber which result in radicalized individuals in our own cities.

The Ambassador has a wealth of experience on point in a lot of rough areas, but like all he is subject to personal biases and clings to the narrative that he was part and parcel in creating.

[carl]

Bill:

Nope, Amb Crocker is right. AQ hasn't changed its ideology, nor has Taliban nor has Pak Army/ISI. If Taliban & Co were to reacquire Afghanistan, I see no reason at all why they would not resume doing what they had done before.

This is a semantic point but I'll bring it up. Amb Crocker referred to another 9-11. I referred to another 9-11. None of the attacks you mentioned were on the scale of 9-11 nor were any of them intended to be on the scale of 9-11. Now to your list.

I think you may be casting your net a little bit wide when you throw in Beslan, and Oklahoma City. Yes obviously attacks can be planned and carried out by other people in other places than Pak Army/ISIland and Afghanstan but the context of the discussion is AQ or AQ affiliated or sympathetic organizations. If you are going to include Beslan, OKC and Tokyo why not throw in the attack on Mecca or the Red Army Brigades in Italy or killing of the guy in Sarajevo that started WWI? And if you are going to include Iraq and Syria why not include Vietnam, Algeria, Cyprus and all the terror associated with the war in central Africa in the 90s and 2000s?

I did read that some of the London train bombers traveled to Pakistan for training. The failed Times Square bomber traveled to Pakistan for training and the guy from Denver who wanted to blow up the subway traveled to Pakistan for training. And the Mumbai attack was planned and run by the ISI from Pakistan. So I think that if you want to run a big op, especially a big complicated one, are AQ or affiliated, there is only one place in the world you can do that from and that is Pak Army/ISIland now, and Afghanistan if Taliban & Co get their bloody mitts on it again.

AQ in Yemen may be able to sneak an explosive cartridge on a cargo plane or make jockey shorts that might go bang but those are not ops on the scale of 9-11. In order to do something like that you need a country that likes you to live in. Cyber planning always sounds good but people still have to train somewhere, practice somewhere and make things somewhere. About the only place they can do that now, in the context of which we are speaking, is Pak Army/ISIland or perhaps Afghanistan again in the future.

We would be foolish to think that any one piece of dirt the only one that is needed to do bad things from. But we would be equally foolish to not to recognize that one particular piece of dirt is critical, and has been critical if you are looking at a particular type of big attack.

Ultimately though, the point isn't that is it possible that something big could be pulled off from somewhere else. Amb Crocker said that if Taliban gets Afghanistan back, AQ will be back with them. The last time that happened, it was not good.