Can the Anbar model work in Afghanistan?

[Entropy]

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Franchisees

So how about that proposal/idea that’s occasionally floated for those American-supported Tribal Lashkars in Afghanistan? [Lashkar = local tribal “defense” militia] Can the American-dominated counterinsurgency effort and the insurgents whose grievances are mostly non-ideological come to an Al Anbar-style agreement (usually cited as an idea for Eastern Afghanistan)? Unfortunately, it would require an intense level of micro-managing and an excellent knowledge of local politics that just doesn’t exist. It would also require some co-optable local authority figures whose influence extends past their own little valleys. Furthermore, the exact percentage of those insurgents who would fall into the economic-and-local-power-politics-grievances category is not known with any certainty. There are other factors too that make Eastern Afghanistan not as conducive to this strategy as al Anbar in Iraq was. For many in Eastern Afghanistan an American paycheck would be as good as a death certificate. For those locals who aren’t too xenophopic, the security dilemmas (esp. for many in the East) are just too great for most to consider joining any sort of American supported “Awakening.”

The strategy required to defeat the Taliban is not going to be found in some “silver bullet,” but rather in a comprehensive overhaul of how this campaign is run. That’s not a very original assertion. But this won’t stop the continuing appearance of often independently sourced quick fix proposals that have been given fuel by the ostensible (short-term) success of the al Anbar strategy.

[Ron Humphrey]

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Franchisees

About taking this direction would be that it would have to be done in very large part by the ANA/Afghan Govt, if not there is a very good chance it might workfor us but Not sure the Govt would ever be able to offer the same level of services in order to assume it later. Remember biiiiig dif in GDP and freedom of movement.

[GBNT73]

To give the USMC credit for the Anbar Awakening and the social change that went with it is laughable. The changes associated with the Awakening were an amalgamation of many, many factors, including the bungling of activities with which the USMC and US Army tried to influence things. They influenced things, alright, but not in the ways they think they did.

I have tried to read some of the after-action reporting but I just couldn't stomach it. It reflects the same blind arrogance as the AARs from the 15th and 26th MEUs from OEF in 2001. The most the US military can take credit for is 1) motivating Sunni leadership to take matters into their own hands by being inconsistent: oscillating between being overly heavy-handed and then completely lacking credibility as a military force, and 2) attempting to make al-Qaeda in Iraq's social exchange costs so high that they couldn't recruit any more members or placate resource providers on the fringes of their networks. We did the former much more effectively than the latter, even though much more deliberate, precise effort was used to implement strategies toward the latter.

So, if that is the "Anbar Model" then, no, the model will not work in Afghanistan. One of the major historical factors that is absent in Afghanistan that is fundamental to understanding tribes in Iraq is the re-tribalization of Iraq by Saddam (his implementation of Social Balance Theory -- the enemy of my enemy is my friend...). He never actually controlled Anbar, he just balanced the important actors against each other to tip it in his favor. Afghani tribes have always been suspect to each other. The further you go away in terms of degrees of separation, the more the distrust plays a role in the relationship. Even in war, there has never been a balance other than having a common enemy. Arguably, there is so much division in the Afghani tribal quilt that uniting them (in any direction) is too expensive an undertaking in time and resources. The term open-market applies here as there are very few external restrictions on tribal behavior. So, to successfully engage in an open-market, we have to behave like it. But, nope, we behave like we own the market. While I hate this quotation, we are indeed “the biggest tribe.” Once an educated person understands the essential aspects of that realization, many other factors and theoretical constructs can become apparent.

Another, more fundamental, problem is that the US military lacks fundamental understanding of insurgencies and social movements. Consequently, it also does not comprehend counterinsurgency, either. The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience. All of the conventional military experience in COIN died with the retirement of Vietnam officer vets (assuming those vets had learned the right lessons, a la Krepinevich in his The Army in Vietnam). The new FM barely even scrapes the surface of the historical COIN publications (read the Military References section) and does not even reference any of the Unconventional Warfare (UW) doctrine, past or present. While many officers and military instructors will pay lip service to the expertise of Special Operations Forces – more specifically Army Special Forces – in conducting and combating insurgencies and other illicit power structures (IPSs), the mainstream officer corps cannot get past their legacy animosities to embrace that fact. Thus, the new “doctrine” is Iraq-centric and lacks theoretical depth. See below.

2) FM 3-24/MCWP3-33.5 is a counter-guerrilla manual, not a counterinsurgency manual. As such, it ignores fully one-third of the structure of an insurgency: the Underground. The Underground is the portion of an insurgency which provides direction, political influence and forms the intermediate- and macro-scale networks connecting to other actors in the social movement industry (endogenous and exogenous to the state enduring the insurgency) and to resources otherwise not available to the Guerrillas or the Auxiliary. Do not read this as there is/was one Underground uniting the guerrilla groups in Iraq. At the macro level, the Kurds have two which are not so “underground” as they used to be and at least one that is still underground and actively supports the PKK; the Shia have at least three which we know something about; and the Sunnis have at least one or two in Anbar (the structural form of the “Anbar Awakening”) and apparently at least two more – one in Diyala and one in Mosul. Those are the result of some anecdotal chunking of groups, but any more detail requires a lot more space.
Chapter 2 talks about state-centric organizations and NGOs, but completely ignores the non-state actors guaranteed to be present and useful in situations such as this: counter-movements. This is the nemesis of the insurgent movement. In Iraq terms, this could be portrayed as Moqtada’s Mehdi Army versus Sistani’s network of clerics versus Hakim’s SCIRI underground. And all these were balanced against the Sunni tribal and al-Qaeda in Iraq movements. In turn, again, the Kurds had their own movements balanced against the others, as well as against each other internally. These kinds of actors will oftentimes be of more use than any of the actors listed on page 2-4. Again, I refer to an outcome of the Anbar Awakening: the Sons of Iraq. This the very archetype of a countermovement and we are using it as much as we can to aid our fight against AQI and other Sunni resistance groups. We didn't create this, but we could have much earlier, if we knew what we were doing.

The “Framework for Counterinsurgency” explained in the US Army’s COIN Campaign Plan also reflects this systemic flaw. It follows, however, since it was written to reflect 3-24. It is more than just a reflection of the COIN manual -- this flaw is being institutionalized in the future COIN publications: the COIN Handbook, the Interagency COIN initiative, FM 3-24.2 (whatever that will be) and the NATO COIN and the future revisions of 3-24.

3) What social movement theories does the new 3-24 employ? What theoretical basis supports the Logical Lines of Operation in Figure 5-1? How are the LOOs influenced by each other? The military does not have the requisite knowledge to answer these questions. We must look to academia for those answers.

The fields of study of social movements/collective action, contentious politics, and wartime resistance offer huge advances in the last 30 years of research. The gift of academia to the profession of war is that they have the time to research, dialog and come to a gradual – developing – understanding of the dynamics of relationships, social structures, psychological framing, and the effects of broad socio-economic processes upon populations. We in the military are too busy to spend adequate time and energy to build the brain-trust necessary to reach into sufficient and necessary resources. That is what academics do.

4) The problem of problem solving is barely mentioned. The issue of problem design is glossed over in Chapter 4 of 3-24, but rather than introducing a generic framework, it further pushes the Iraq-centric agenda of LTG Petraeus’s working group. The issue of problem design ought not to be a prescribed set of factors as each insurgent situation is different. It also does not discuss sources of information. Chapter 2 uses a word I have longed to hear in military discourse: collaboration. But it stops short of elaborating methods of implementing a collaborative work style. I know of no other military publication that picks up on that theme.

Problem design comes from a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of uncontained, unstructured problems. Rittel and Webber’s “Wicked Problems” methodology is a great start for this, and the military has even published a manual which discusses it to great advantage (at least, for those who can open their minds and throw off the shackles of arrogance): TRADOC Pam 525-5-500 Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design. Understanding the nature of the unstructured problem – the structural and relational complexity of “people’s wars” – will be the very first step in understanding what the problems are and what the spectrum of solutions, and their implementation strategies, ought to be for each stakeholder according to each stakeholder. If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.

[Cavguy]

The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience. All of the conventional military experience in COIN died with the retirement of Vietnam officer vets (assuming those vets had learned the right lessons, a la Krepinevich in his The Army in Vietnam). ...

While many officers and military instructors will pay lip service to the expertise of Special Operations Forces – more specifically Army Special Forces – in conducting and combating insurgencies and other illicit power structures (IPSs), the mainstream officer corps cannot get past their legacy animosities to embrace that fact.

GBNT73,

Interesting rant. On SWC we generally find it polite to post an intro here, so we have an idea of your background, experience, and what basis your opinions are formed from before calling me and many others on this board an amateur idiot.

As to the above qyote - horsesh*t. You lost me at the "SF has it all figured out and those idiot GPF'ers hate SF too much to listen to them".

As a GPF'er, some SF teams have been great at COIN and others not so much. Mileage varies as much in SF as in GPF units. Secondly, if SF has the experience, why weren't they sharing it with the GPF? JFK school was offered to help write FM 3-24, and as I understand turned it down because they didn't want to help the GPF get in their rice bowl. In fact, I've been told as much over beers by some current JFK School doctrine types.

And finally, I'll throw my experience against any SF'er of my approximate age any day. We may have had a rough start, but there's a number of us who have learned quick around here, and done quite well, and not always by accident.

We welcome your discussion, but keep the generalized attacks to a minimum.

[Bill Moore]

Cavguy, I think you took GBNT73's comments too personally. I have a fair idea of what your background is, and you're definitely one of the heros in this fight, but the way I read GBNT73's post is as follows:

The COIN manual didn't utilize some concepts that SF captured in their doctrine in the 50's and 60's like the underground. For whatever reason that conceptual idea of insurgent struture was rejected by the developers of FM 3-24, and in my opinion seriously handicapped the FM.

It isn't that SF gets it and conventional forces don't. In all cases it depends on the man and the unit. We all have seen the good and bad in each, so there no need for a measuring contest, we would all probably be a little embarassed as the results were called out. However, there was a prevailing culture in the conventional army prior to OIF 3 that was reluctant to adapt to the reality of the situation we were involved in. I will call it COIN, but prefer CSIS"s phrase "Armed Nation Building".

The new FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, Dec 2006 is completely inadequate as COIN doctrine for the following reasons: 1) it was written by the conventional military for the conventional military which means it was written without experience.

I am not in complete agreement with this post. For one thing, the assumption that if it is written by conventional forces it must be inadequate is lame, yet I do agree the manual is inadequate. I also heard that the authors were not happy with it, but they wanted to get something out on the street ASAP due to high demand, then rely on input from the field to improve it. Sounds logical to me. I also heard the manual was submitted to SF and numerous academia experts for comment before being published, but SF's input, especially their input on the underground was rejected.

The gift of academia to the profession of war is that they have the time to research, dialog and come to a gradual – developing – understanding of the dynamics of relationships, social structures, psychological framing, and the effects of broad socio-economic processes upon populations.

I would ask GBNT73 who gets to determine which of the many conflicting academia reports we're going to follow? So many experts and so little agreement. I agree with this in general, and I think it is being done to a large extent already, but I don't think academia has the silver bullet either. They also tend to be more accurate with their historical assessments, than in their ability to predict the future.

TRADOC Pam 525-5-500 Commander’s Appreciation and Campaign Design. Understanding the nature of the unstructured problem – the structural and relational complexity of “people’s wars” – will be the very first step in understanding what the problems are and what the spectrum of solutions, and their implementation strategies, ought to be for each stakeholder according to each stakeholder. If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.

I agree with this in general, as the military tends to default to a route step MDMP and in pursuit of mean nothing end states, yet we neglect the hard intellectual work of campaign design that informs and enables operational level planners.

I think GBNT73 has made some excellent points, and even admire his bluntness, even though he is wrong in a couple of areas. He may disagree with me, I think most of the great thinking on COIN and unconventional warfare by SF leadership was done in the 1950's and 1960's, I have seen little new since then of value, but there should be volumes of evolved doctrine on COIN and UW. I think part of this paralysis in UW/COIN doctrine evolution was due to SF being pushed by Big Army to support conventional warfighting in the 1980s to maintain relevance with the way the Big Army saw the world (to maintain our meager funding line from Big Army before SOCOM came on line), thus the focus on Direct Action and Special Reconnaise instead of capitalizing on our unique unconventional warfare skills. Those of us who lived through that period remain a little bitter with senior decision makers who appeared to be short sighted, but that grude is appropriately directed at the upper echelons of the bureaucratic order, and not the existing one, so it is water under the bridge. It doesn't shape my opinion of conventional forces on point, many are doing great work for our nation.

[Cavguy]

Cavguy, I think you took GBNT73's comments too personally. I have a fair idea of what your background is, and you're definitely one of the heros in this fight, but the way I read GBNT73's post is as follows:

Bill,

Execuse the late night response - the attitude just pissed me off. I have more than my share of personal mistakes and bad calls, and have even written about one that got one of my guys killed. If he had stated it the way you stated it below - I wouldn't have had any issues. But there were enough generalized

The COIN manual didn't utilize some concepts that SF captured in their doctrine in the 50's and 60's like the underground. For whatever reason that conceptual idea of insurgent struture was rejected by the developers of FM 3-24, and in my opinion seriously handicapped the FM.

Agree. I think the major fault of FM 3-24 is that lack - the lack of a real chapter on insurgencies and how insurgencies work, organize, and mobilize.

It isn't that SF gets it and conventional forces don't.

Agree, but that wasn't what GBNT was saying rather ineloquently.

I am not in complete agreement with this post. For one thing, the assumption that if it is written by conventional forces it must be inadequate is lame, yet I do agree the manual is inadequate. I also heard that the authors were not happy with it, but they wanted to get something out on the street ASAP due to high demand, then rely on input from the field to improve it. Sounds logical to me. I also heard the manual was submitted to SF and numerous academia experts for comment before being published, but SF's input, especially their input on the underground was rejected.

Exactly. That is why we will be convening a FM 3-24 re-write conference this year - to address the shortcomings of what was a rapidly produced, "good enough" manual. FM 3-24 is the worst COIN doctrine except for all the other COIN doctrine we had.

I think GBNT73 has made some excellent points, and even admire his bluntness, even though he is wrong in a couple of areas. He may disagree with me, I think most of the great thinking on COIN and unconventional warfare by SF leadership was done in the 1950's and 1960's, I have seen little new since then of value, but there should be volumes of evolved doctrine on COIN and UW. I think part of this paralysis in UW/COIN doctrine evolution was due to SF being pushed by Big Army to support conventional warfighting in the 1980s to maintain relevance with the way the Big Army saw the world (to maintain our meager funding line from Big Army before SOCOM came on line), thus the focus on Direct Action and Special Reconnaissance instead of capitalizing on our unique unconventional warfare skills. Those of us who lived through that period remain a little bitter with senior decision makers who appeared to be short sighted, but that grude is appropriately directed at the upper echelons of the bureaucratic order, and not the existing one, so it is water under the bridge. It doesn't shape my opinion of conventional forces on point, many are doing great work for our nation.

My boss is a former SF/doctrine writer guy and told me the same thing - that most SF COIN thinking hasn't evolved since the 60's. I've also heard a lot of old hand SF types talk along the line you mention above - that after 9/11 SF was told to stay away from GPF COIN efforts. It kind of feeds into the question of why they stood up an ad hoc advisor training center at Ft. Riley instead of say - JFK @ Ft. Bragg - manned by GPF and advised by SF - since it is, like, you know, their expertise. I have been told they wanted no part of it. So it galls me whenever SF types complain about GPF performance of advisor/COIN when they willingly shoved off helping GPF develop one of their core competencies.

I don't mean to take this down a SOF/GPF integration rant. Lots, and I mean lots, of fault on both sides. But I do get defensive every time I get sneered at by someone SF for being a GPF'er and thus (implied) an amateur at this stuff. Yes, I took a generalized attack personally, and if it had been from you or someone else who had generated standing on this board I would have taken it differently than from someone with a postcount=1.

[Mark O'Neill]

GBNT73,

Interesting rant. On SWC we generally find it polite to post an intro here, so we have an idea of your background, experience, and what basis your opinions are formed from before calling me and many others on this board an amateur idiot.

As to the above qyote - horsesh*t. You lost me at the "SF has it all figured out and those idiot GPF'ers hate SF too much to listen to them".

As a GPF'er, some SF teams have been great at COIN and others not so much. Mileage varies as much in SF as in GPF units. Secondly, if SF has the experience, why weren't they sharing it with the GPF? JFK school was offered to help write FM 3-24, and as I understand turned it down because they didn't want to help the GPF get in their rice bowl. In fact, I've been told as much over beers by some current JFK School doctrine types.

And finally, I'll throw my experience against any SF'er of my approximate age any day. We may have had a rough start, but there's a number of us who have learned quick around here, and done quite well, and not always by accident.

We welcome your discussion, but keep the generalized attacks to a minimum.

It is not interesting. It is just a rant.

[Ken White]

...So, if that is the "Anbar Model" then, no, the model will not work in Afghanistan...

I agree, if for slightly different reasons. I'd also suggest you could've made your point without slamming people who probably did the best they could with what they had -- but that's just me.

While I hate this quotation, we are indeed “the biggest tribe.” Once an educated person understands the essential aspects of that realization, many other factors and theoretical constructs can become apparent.

Even an uneducated person can understand that -- and avoid getting bogged down in esoteric theoretical constructs.

...As such, it ignores fully one-third of the structure of an insurgency: the Underground.

It was called the infrastructure back in my Beanie wearing days but whatever the term du jour is. The Manual and you also forgot Criminal enterprises -- which every insurgency since the 60s has involved in major ways; a problem that will likely worsen in the future.

What social movement theories does the new 3-24 employ? What theoretical basis supports the Logical Lines of Operation in Figure 5-1? How are the LOOs influenced by each other? The military does not have the requisite knowledge to answer these questions. We must look to academia for those answers.

That will be interesting, I'm sure.

...The issue of problem design ought not to be a prescribed set of factors as each insurgent situation is different.

We can totally agree on that.

(at least, for those who can open their minds and throw off the shackles of arrogance)...

Truly excellent advice.

If we adopted this, we would drastically alter our first planning assumption (read that as first planning error): the assumption that the military force deployed to “solve” the problem has the requisite education to be able to diagnose the situation to gain true understanding of the problem and the requisite knowledge of the dynamics of the factors identified to be able to design a holistic, coherent family of implantation strategies utilizing the strengths of as many stakeholders as possible in concert to achieve the ever-changing attainable end state.

I think that's a long way of saying our egos are too big. I can agree with that also.

[GBNT73]

Cavguy -- the above post is not personal, nor is it an attack. Mr. O’Neill, nor is it a “rant.” Rants do not cite theoretical constructs or other sources of information. The above post is a minor culmination of years of observation and interaction combined with a four-year opportunity (whilst teaching and then returning to student-hood at grad school) to take a step back and collect and analyze what we are doing as a military. I do not speak these words lightly. Besides, ranting is pointless and inappropriate for this forum.

The military – and those who study it – are supposed to be able to call a spade for what it is. When it is a subject that touches upon a source of pride, people are sensitive. We are also supposed to be thick-skinned. My assumption is that we all fit that bill. Like I said, this is not personal – it is all business. Besides faith, the business of war is the most important and urgent discourse we as men can have, in my opinion.

FYI, I wrote up an entry about myself in the “about myself” thread.

As to a few of the points made in response to my larger entry above:
1. Yes, the Special Warfare Center feedback about FM 3-24 was indeed rejected wholesale. I was part of that aborted process when I was at SWCS. In it was a lot about the Underground, among other things. The same goes for USSOCOM’s Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept, but that is a different thread.
2. Yes, the Special Forces UW and COIN collective knowledge and skills did atrophy – greatly – for the reasons that Bill Moore stated. Our organizational memory, however, is preserved by our culture and the sheer number of gray beards we keep around Camp MacKall. That is part of our saving grace; another part is the fact that SF sends a larger percentage of our officers to get their advanced civil schooling at liberal institutions like Naval Postgraduate School, Stanford and GW.
3. Nope, I made no reference to the intelligence of anyone or any organization. You took it personally and you should not have. As to where I get the “animosity” factor – first, I was warned of it when I tried to reach out to the GPF in a peacetime situation. I got called a “cowboy” by the first O-6 I met before I even got to mention my purpose for being there. I was called “reckless” in Afghanistan when I tried to explain what my ODA was doing in native civilian clothing. I briefed two GPF GOs in Iraq about our “allies” making deals with al-Sadr and was told that it wasn’t true and “how dare I accuse the MNF of such behavior.” We were vindicated when MNFI Cdr kicked an allied commander out of country for “actions not in line with the current strategy for Iraq.” The irony of that statement was that there was no strategy for Iraq. A MNFI C2 also saw no reason to establish a J2X when the CJSOTF tried to help establish one. Two months later, the new C2 established a J2X. The O-6 who introduced my ILE class made no fewer than eleven SF-disparaging comments in his formal remarks at the opening ceremony. Why would he do that? The professional animosity is palpable.

The way this is supposed to work is that the people who know, study and teach something should be part of the constructive process for knowledge creation and dissemination. I wouldn’t go to SF to write doctrine for HBCT operations, and nor should the Army have excluded the only organization within the Army who still consistently teaches COIN (read SF) to write a COIN manual. I know because I taught it for a year, after teaching UW for two years. What about that doesn’t make sense? We even teach a generic, theoretical insurgent framework upon which to base our intervention strategies.

I’ll address the social movement stuff next post.

[Ron Humphrey]

As to a few of the points made in response to my larger entry above:
1. Yes, the Special Warfare Center feedback about FM 3-24 was indeed rejected wholesale. I was part of that aborted process when I was at SWCS. In it was a lot about the Underground, among other things. The same goes for USSOCOM’s Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept, but that is a different thread.

Would be very interested in that particular thread. Have had several conversations with both SOF and GPF folks about the disconnects there and it would be good to get a better feel for the larger picture