Reconciliation and COIN in Afghanistan

[Steve the Planner]

Reports are that this semi-jirga is crumbling to dust before it even starts. It was just for us anyway.

If Abdullah and the other non-Pashtuns are not adeqautely and appropriatly represented, and the structure, focus and authority is more like a Karzai supporter brain storm session about "key questions" (TBA), then the whole thing is already beneath the level of justifying any credible outcomes. Just a side-show on the continuing path....

[Steve the Planner]

PS: It is against this backdrop (one meaningless show after another), that folks really need to get focused on the events in the Gulf of Mexico.

Commentators from both sides of the political spectrum have raised the issue about needing the troops, resources, and focus on this home-grown problem, the scope and dimension of which is only beginning to unfold.

The foreign wars are going to be more and more pivoted against this disaster.

[Dayuhan]

Commentators from both sides of the political spectrum have raised the issue about needing the troops, resources, and focus on this home-grown problem, the scope and dimension of which is only beginning to unfold.

Certainly the Gulf situation is a major problem, but I don't see how it competes with Afghanistan for resources or focus. The resources required and the individuals and institutions whose focus is needed are very different: the Gulf oil spill is not a military problem and the personnel and equipment in Afghanistan are not of a type that would be of much use in the Gulf.

[Steve the Planner]

Don't disagree about alignment, but the linkage is being made, and the pretext is inherent.

It is actually quite staggering to hear folks comment about "what the government" either should or is going to need to do when, it reality, the government is no more structured or tasked to provide serious regional relief/reconstruction/environmental clean up, than is the military to, say, build schools in Afghanistan...

Ricks wrote yesterday about the Pentagon beginning to come to terms with economic realities (ie, the end of the blank check), and the President spoke of a new (?) concept of national power grounded in the power of the nation's own stability/prosperity (pre-Gulf, and shifting the signal away from foreign entanglements).

But we keep coming back to problems, like Haiti, where the military is shown to be the only tool available.

Pre-war Iraq's army was, in fact, not that unusual in being the entity responsible for bridge reconstruction and other civil works, following a tradition back to the Legions.

As the clock ticks down in Afghanistan, I will find it interesting to watch how the emerging redefinition of the military's role to the US government evolves.

That it is evolving is inherent in the COIN approach (at least, as COIN is advertised)...segue to COIN for America.

[Ken White]

As the clock ticks down in Afghanistan, I will find it interesting to watch how the emerging redefinition of the military's role to the US government evolves.

That it is evolving is inherent in the COIN approach (at least, as COIN is advertised)...segue to COIN for America.

Even dumb cycles repeat...

From way back (LINK) through then (LINK) 'til this (LINK) -- which I suspect is gone from view but not forgotten and which likely will morph in surprising ways...

[Bob's World]

The military does three things pretty damn well:

1. Deterrence,

2. War fighting,

3. Military Support to Civil Authorities.


The problem currently for the US is that senior leadership over the past several administrations are being extremely slow in recognizing that U.S. Foreign Policy for Globalized Uni/multi-polar world of 2010 needs to look considerably different than U.S. Foreign Policy for a Bi-Polar, pre-globalized world of 1989.

So as the friction grows from a Foregin Policy that is more and more out of touch with reality, equally increasing pressure is placed upon the U.S. Military to "manage" that friction and the by products of the same.

The military, being full of can-do, mission oriented types, is all too willing to move out aggressively to make whatever changes or compromises are required to accomplish this ever changing mission that takes us farther and farther from our core mission sets laid out above. This is doubly true when civilian leadership characterizes the current dramas as a "war." That is like launching a mechanical rabbit out in front of a pack or greyhounds for the military. Sure they know it isn't a real rabbit, they just don't care. Any rabbit is worth the chase!

The latest announcement by Secretary Gates to embrace Population-Centric COIN / Capacity Building across DoD is the ultimate manifestation of this dynamic.

Stop.

It's just time to really stop, take a knee, drink some water, get your map out, re-plot that azimuth, talk to your squad leaders, and think about this for a second.

The problem is not that the world is changing; the problem is that the U.S. is not adapting well to that change. The time is not to continue to manipulate the military like a blind man on a rubic's cube; but to instead call for and execute a top-down, full specrum review and revision of U.S. approach to foreign policy. This should also include all international organizations of which the US is a major component of that were similarly designed to deal with the world emerging out of WWII.

My $.02

[Steve the Planner]

Ken: Great Citations.

Bob: As a GIS guy, originally trained on real maps, I applaud your reference to hard maps, a stable basis.

Right. Our foreign service is trapped in the 1960's and can't find its way out of the thicket. Until it catches up (probably a generational recycling), and fills with people not trained in old school poli sci, they will stay in the thicket. The days of foreign service as a reporting tool are in the tail light. It needs to be much more robust, savvy and diverse in its engagements and results.

My girls at home are big Hillary boosters, but she was not able to provide inspired leadership for substantive change---just keep ing the organization happy in doing what it always did. Whatever Richard Holbrooke learned from Viet Nam forward has proven to be of little benefit in the present. Won't even mention his "protege..." (got any oil leases you want to cut a back room deal on?)

Absent substantial change, we are sure to accomplish more of the same if we continue to do the same thing over and over.

I have always loved Toynbee.

[AdamG]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37865973...new_york_times

Officers and enlisted soldiers and Marines, typically speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs, speak of “being handcuffed,” of not being trusted by their bosses and of being asked to battle a canny and vicious insurgency “in a fair fight.”

Some rules meant to enshrine counterinsurgency principles into daily practices, they say, do not merely transfer risks away from civilians. They transfer risks away from the Taliban.

[Rex Brynen]

C.I.A. Chief Sees Taliban Power-Sharing as Unlikely
By SCOTT SHANE
New York Times
Published: June 27, 2010

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, expressed strong skepticism on Sunday about the prospects for an Afghanistan deal being pushed by Pakistan between the Afghan government and elements of the Taliban, saying militants do not yet have a reason to negotiate seriously.

“We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce Al Qaida, where they would really try to become part of that society,” said Mr. Panetta in an interview on ABC’s news program “This Week.”

Mr. Panetta’s comments came amid reports, not yet confirmed by American officials, that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has met personally with Sirajuddin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani network, a faction of the Afghan Taliban considered to be close to Al Qaeda.

Acknowledging that the American-led counterinsurgency effort is facing unexpected difficulty, Mr. Panetta said that the Taliban and its allies at this point have little motive to contemplate a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan.

“We’ve seen no evidence of that and, very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation, unless they’re convinced that the United States is going to win and that they’re going to be defeated, I think it’s very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that’s going to be meaningful,” he said.

...

Pretty much my view too, regarding the senior Taliban leadership. At the local level the prospects might be a little brighter--although not much more so if there is a sense of momentum being on the Taliban side.

[Jedburgh]

Century Foundation, 21 Jun 10: Negotiating With the Taliban: Issues and Prospects

....This report tries to lay out how the Taliban are structured and organized, with an eye to assessing the impact of their organization and modus operandi on their willingness to negotiate and to reach a political settlement. There is considerable controversy over the way the Taliban function, which is inevitable given the limited information available. The different points of view can be summarized (with some simplification) as follows:

• the Taliban operate as a “franchiser” business, allowing disparate groups of insurgents to display the Taliban brand while retaining complete autonomy on the ground;

• the Taliban are not organized to the same extent as the Marxist movements
that had been the main worry of Western counterinsurgents until the end of the cold war, but nonetheless have a discernible organizational structure (decentralized).

As the reader will realize while going through the paper, this author tends to follow the second line of thinking. One reason for the failure to understand the modus operandi of the Taliban is the lack of in-depth studies of the 1980s jihad in Afghanistan; if such studies had been carried out, understanding the Taliban would be much easier now....

[davidbfpo]

Adam Holloway, a Conservative MP and ex-UK Army officer, took part in a short radio discussion today on Afghanistan; he has been an advocate of an accommodation with the insurgents since 2008.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00sw3sc (available for a week).

He made two particular comments:

The insurgents are hundreds of local groups united by a hatred of foreign troops and an unwanted corrupt central government....In Helmand 80% of bodies we recover after an engagement have died within twenty miles of where they live. That should tell you who we are really fighting here.

The second belongs better on 'The UK in Afghanistan' thread and will be posted there too:

The big threat (to the UK) is the video pictures on the websites of the global Jihad. Afghanistan is a massive driver of radicalisation across the region and in our northern mill towns.

I asked the head of the Afghan secret service a while back how many hard core AQ operatives were in Afghanistan, he said he didn't know it was less than the number of British citizens of Pakistani origin who were working with the Taliban...

(Commenting himself ) AQ are long gone from Afghanistan...

I know the Taliban this week decried negotiations, my question is how will the presence of non-Afghans fighting alongside the locals influence any accommodation?

[AdamG]

Strategy vs. Tactics in Afghanistan
Good counterinsurgency can't make up for the lack of a political plan.

BY ANN MARLOWE
Gen. Stanley McChrystal has embraced Hamid Karzai as part of the Obama administration's startling about-face on the Afghan president. Until recently, the Obama team seemed to understand that Mr. Karzai was "not an adequate strategic partner," in the well-chosen words of our ambassador (and former general) Karl Eikenberry. Mr. Karzai's refusal to name cabinet ministers in the wake of the August 2009 election (as required by the constitution) so angered his own parliament that for several days last month they refused to conduct any business, instead sitting silent in protest.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...ditorialPage_h