What Is Our Strategic Endstate in Afghanistan?

[Ski]

Bill

Our endstate is almost irrelveant. The Afghans must be able to formulate what their endstate is going to be, and if that is exatly the same as ours or heavily overlaps with ours, then that's all for the good.

If it doesn't, then what?

Excerpt from, "All Counterinsurgency Is Local" in the OCT issue of The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200810/afghan



Ski, I agree that we naively attempt to make other countries mirror our political, social, economic and security systems, assuming that if we simply overlayed an American Style template of any country, their problems would magically go away. As you pointed out, this creates an entirely new set of problems.

The authors above point out a more feasible approach to pacify the country to establish conditions where we're reasonably ensured that the Taliban will not be welcome. However, the strategy we apply depends upon our strategic end state (if there is one). Again if the desired end state is a stable, democratic government that practices free market capitalism, the approach offered above may not get us there.

[Ron Humphrey]

Perhaps if we look at this from a more comparative albeit somewhat theoretical point of view (in that no one really "knows for sure). With the way things are right now what type of situation does the average Afghan(and this is in the most generic form) find themselves in.

Food, shelter, water, jobs, schools, faith, fiction, literacy, leadership, hope, lack of hope; we know all these things tend to add up to actions by those with or without power in order to maintain, or change things. Rather than try to develop an outright statement of where we want to be in ten years with this how about we look at where we were ten years ago, where we are now and draw the line so we can at least tell what direction we are really headed.

We are well aware of the arenas in which we excel against opponents, so its a given that we capitalize on those areas. We should be aware of the areas we're not so good in so how about trying something different. And everything else( and I mean EVERYTHING else) is up to the folks who live and will live there.

[Bill Moore]

Ski and Ron, I agree that the locals will ultimately determine their own so called end state (of course even the phrase end state is misleading, as there is never an end state), but that isn't the question, the question is what end state will "we" accept before we call "our" mission complete?

Perhaps contrary to the prevailing view, I think there is much we can do (and have done) to shape the direction the locals will go in. Yes we're a foreign body in Afghanistan, but so is the Taliban. The Taliban way of life is not the norm, yet they are now having success based on their strategy, not because they're local. We need to study their strategy and counter it. I know it sounds simplistic, but it doesn't appear we're doing that. Our strategy, or the perception if it, went astray somewhere relatively recently.

The Taliban have upped their game considerably in recent months based on what I have been reading open source, so it is probably a safe bet to assume that they are now getting some degree of State sponsorship (directly or indirectly), and the list of possible sponsors are quite numerous. For our competitors it is desirable to have a U.S. and NATO tied up in Afghanistan, so they can maneuver elsewhere with less threat of U.S. intervention.

I'm not there, so I can't feel or see the frustrations you're dealing with, but I think we can do better than we're doing now. I like Ron's idea, it would be worthwhile to show a graph of Afghanistan's social, political, economic, security, conditions from say 1975 to the present (and then somehow portray this to the Afghan people in a meaningful way for them). I suspect there were would be some rapid sharp increases starting in 2002/03 time frame; however localized they may be. As the article suggests, it may now be time to push into the hinterland and spread the wealth. You can't effectively oppose the Taliban by dropping bombs on villages they're occupying.

[Eden]

The Taliban way of life is not the norm, yet they are now having success based on their strategy, not because they're local. We need to study their strategy and counter it. I know it sounds simplistic, but it doesn't appear we're doing that. Our strategy, or the perception if it, went astray somewhere relatively recently.

One of the problems in Afghanistan is that we are not fighting a single insurgency; we are struggling against several insurgencies and numerous criminal organizations and the remnants of old regional kleptocracies struggling to regain their influence. In other words, not one war but many inthe same geographical space.

This may explain why we have trouble divining an 'enemy strategy'. I can remember thinking, time and again, when confronted with some enemy action, "What the hell are they trying to accomplish?" By the end of my last tour, I had come to the conclusion that there is no Taliban master plan in Afghanistan, only ceaseless and disorganized activity. How do you counter a formless enemy? How do you formulate a strategy for multiple wars aganst disparate foes?

My time in Afghanistan sent me back to The Art of War - I'm beginning to get Master Sun.

[reed11b]

My fear of focusing on an "end state" In the 'Stan is that this might take the place of "operational planning". I point ot 05-06 in Iraq as an example. The military is there to defeat the Taliban and destroy it's ability to exist and to train the current Afghan forces. State department & NATO needs to get active as far a creating a stable goverment if that is the goal. They are sepperate missions and this should be kept in mind even if they both effect each other. Just my .02cents.
Reed

[Ken White]

One of the problems in Afghanistan is that we are not fighting a single insurgency; we are struggling against several insurgencies and numerous criminal organizations and the remnants of old regional kleptocracies struggling to regain their influence. In other words, not one war but many inthe same geographical space.

The same thing was / is true in Iraq (and elsewhere) -- those cussed Easterners just will not fight nice tidy western wars. A part of our problem outside European war is our lack of understanding of the psyche of our opponents; that coupled with our impatience to get the job done and just fix things so we can move on to the next challenge has not stood us in good stead in a number of places over the last 60 or so years.

...By the end of my last tour, I had come to the conclusion that there is no Taliban master plan in Afghanistan, only ceaseless and disorganized activity. How do you counter a formless enemy? How do you formulate a strategy for multiple wars aganst disparate foes?

There are only two options; you outfight him at his own game -- which we can do but will not due to the casualties of all types thus incurred -- or you can do what we're doing and play whack a mole. It's inefficient but it does work; it just requires patience and stamina.

[Ron Humphrey]

Ski and Ron, I agree that the locals will ultimately determine their own so called end state (of course even the phrase end state is misleading, as there is never an end state), but that isn't the question, the question is what end state will "we" accept before we call "our" mission complete? .

If we consider Iraq as an example of deciding what we will accept it seems a lot lot calling audibles at the line. The circumstances will consistently change in the back and forth between ourselves and the enemy. In the end you call em as you see em.

The key it would seem would be to accept that we won't really know whats quote acceptable until we've established whats doable and then we have to see a crack in the opponents armor at which point we turn upfield and give it all we've got. An unfortunate fact but I have yet to see the crystal ball which shows us the play before the other teams lines up.

Perhaps contrary to the prevailing view, I think there is much we can do (and have done) to shape the direction the locals will go in. Yes we're a foreign body in Afghanistan, but so is the Taliban. The Taliban way of life is not the norm, yet they are now having success based on their strategy, not because they're local. We need to study their strategy and counter it. I know it sounds simplistic, but it doesn't appear we're doing that. Our strategy, or the perception if it, went astray somewhere relatively recently. .

I might propose that although the Tali way is not the norm it is however a condition with which the populous find themselves quite unfortunately very famililiar. In that sense perhaps the old adage (better the enemy known, then the friend you don't know.) applies. That comfort zone that so inundates cultures which exist for long periods under dictatorial type governments is something we really have to keep in mind. Think ( Stockholm Syndrome) on a massive scale.

Not sure about this just thinking about it?

The Taliban have upped their game considerably in recent months based on what I have been reading open source, so it is probably a safe bet to assume that they are now getting some degree of State sponsorship (directly or indirectly), and the list of possible sponsors are quite numerous. For our competitors it is desirable to have a U.S. and NATO tied up in Afghanistan, so they can maneuver elsewhere with less threat of U.S. intervention.

Unfortunately just about everything I've seen open source also seems to reflect this

I'm not there, so I can't feel or see the frustrations you're dealing with, but I think we can do better than we're doing now. I like Ron's idea, it would be worthwhile to show a graph of Afghanistan's social, political, economic, security, conditions from say 1975 to the present (and then somehow portray this to the Afghan people in a meaningful way for them). I suspect there were would be some rapid sharp increases starting in 2002/03 time frame; however localized they may be. As the article suggests, it may now be time to push into the hinterland and spread the wealth. You can't effectively oppose the Taliban by dropping bombs on villages they're occupying.

Just so theres no confusion niether am I, I have seen quite a few that are there express that frustration and others. I know we're trying hard to see what doing better would entail and thus the suggestions I made. I think your probably right about the hinterland somewhat but I still don't know that it's going to be anything like Iraq. IT would seem that this country has been controlled by governments that pretty much commuted to areas to reinforce or gain control and otherwise used mostly fear of informants to maintain their grips.

So whats to say we might not find ourselves in a situation where Larger regional FOB's might actually be in order for those areas further out?

Once again just trying to keep everything in mind and not necessarily count out a more effective blend of COIN/CON with constant adaptation to situation.

[Ken White]

...The key it would seem would be to accept that we won't really know whats quote acceptable until we've established whats doable and then we have to see a crack in the opponents armor at which point we turn upfield and give it all we've got. An unfortunate fact but I have yet to see the crystal ball which shows us the play before the other teams lines up.

To which I'd add that our own position will change over time due to domestic and international events and thus further muddy the water.

It's tempting to to lay out a 'strategy' (more correctly an operational plan to achieve a desired end state) and head for a 'successful' conclusion but the issues and the world are more complex than that and, in the case of Afghanistan, there are entirely too many players in the scrum. We are forced to adapt and cobble -- and I'm pretty comfortable with that, we do that sort of thing better than anyone else in the world while OTOH our ability to adhere to finite plans is not particularly good...