Winning the War in Afghanistan

[Pol-Mil FSO]

Steve:

I don't have any answers on how to get to success in development. All I can offer are some observations about why it is appears to be such a challenge.

1. Intellectual Capital: A somewhat imperfect analogy that I like to use is that Afghanistan is like Cambodia in that an entire generation lost the opportunity for education. Outside of those who went into exile, there appears to be a large shortfall of university or even high-school educated persons among those Afghans who came of age in the 1980's and 1990's. This has obvious implications for governance and development efforts. It also doesn't match up well with our civilian and military modus operandi in Afghanistan, which I would characterize as seeking information dominance by creating ever larger and more complex bureaucratic structures. The international community can continue to pour bodies in to staff the working groups, coordination boards, and other bureaucratic entities but the Afghan Government doesn't have the bodies to do the same. Is there some way of making progress on development without heavy reliance on technocratic skills and bureaucratic structures? Maybe this is something that academics and think tanks should look at.

2. Centralization in Kabul: In addition to the obvious stovepipe problems created by placing line ministry representatives at the provincial level, centralizing decision making in Kabul founders on the fact that Afghans (and international community personnel) in Kabul have very little knowledge of what is actually going on in the provinces. Trying to run everything from Kabul is a show stopper in my opinion, but the Afghan elite (and the international community?) is fully committed to such an approach. I believe that development, governance, and security efforts will all fail unless the Afghan Government develops a construct that involves some sort of regional autonomy.

3. Targeting Assistance: During my time in Kandahar, the two greatest development priorities of Afghan authorities in Kandahar City were electrical power and potable water. Electricity was available to most inhabitants for only five-ten hours per week and potable water was an equally great shortfall. For reasons that are unclear to me, the international community seemed unable to provide any significant assistance in these two areas. Kandahar officials were acutely aware that they were risking popular support from a failure to deliver essential services and also understood that availability of power was a basic requirement for any sort of sustainable economic development. I am still puzzled about Kabul's apparent inability at the time to connect the dots.

[Steve the Planner]

So, here we are at the decision-point.

On the military side:

Is it a Counter-Intelligence Operation? COIN, Population-focused, troop-intensive, expensive, fraught with risk of appearance of foreign occupation, offset by substantial civilian engagement (nation-building?), including rapid and intensive Afghan forces training and build-up

Is it a limited Counter-Terrorist Operation? Bomb the bad guys if and when you see them. Limited population outreach or engagement, focus from defensible bases, but with limited access to the population, local knowledge, and increased risks of collateral damage, rely on rapidly expended Afghan forces for regional and national defense

On the civilian side:

In accordance with COIN, establish and maintain a high tempo and profile for national, regional, and local reconstruction, training, government support (vs. insurgents)

In accordance with limited Counter-Terrorism Operations, initiate local/regional projects in order to maintain security around bases, or (the opposite) redouble civil engagement (either/or at national/regional/local levels despite that this field may be the weakest link in the US arsenal, and fraught with substantial risks (fraud, waste, factionalism, and limited security/visibility to issues

In that consideration, the points raised by Pol-Mil, and others here, are critical dimensions.

I guess we all just wait for the shoes to drop...

Steve

[slapout9]

link to the Army COIN center blog on new Canadian approach. If they(A'stan) don't start cooperating they are going to stop development




http://usacac.army.mil/blog/blogs/co...ghanistan.aspx

[Steve the Planner]

Slap:

Are you suggesting that basic concepts like tough love, or "don't build where it can't be secured," should join the toolkit?

Remember, this is foreign aid/reconstruction. These are usually held to be in a separate universe.


Steve

[slapout9]

Slap:

Are you suggesting that basic concepts like tough love, or "don't build where it can't be secured," should join the toolkit?

Remember, this is foreign aid/reconstruction. These are usually held to be in a separate universe.


Steve

Sorta......basically if the Afghans don't cooperate by giving information as the article suggest...... then they are aiding the enemy! Now if it was up to me I would be arresting them. Why are we protecting the enemy? The Canadian General is right they(Afghans) need to make a choice. If you bite the hand that feeds you.....then I would become an Invisible Hand that is an bad Economics Joke.

[omarali50]

Sorta......basically if the Afghans don't cooperate by giving information as the article suggest...... then they are aiding the enemy! Now if it was up to me I would be arresting them. Why are we protecting the enemy? The Canadian General is right they(Afghans) need to make a choice. If you bite the hand that feeds you.....then I would become an Invisible Hand that is an bad Economics Joke.

The afghan "authorities" (and the Pakistani ones, for that matter) certainly include a number of people who take a very mercenary view of these things . And they are totally convinced (not without cause?) that the "real decisionmakers" in the US are equally cold blooded and mercenary. They have made their calculations and they think the US is not going anywhere soon and has no other good choices. I have talked to such people and their line is as follows: "lets cut the bull####. Americans have their own reasons to want job A done. We have our price. No one is being nice or biting feeding hands or other hogwash. We are doing X and being paid X in return. Pay us what you pay Halliburton and maybe we will jump higher". Make of that what you will.
An anecdote: After the Mumbai terrorist attack, a friend asked some Pakistani foreign office type "when alqaeda attacked New York, we handed over many suspects to the americans and generally made a show of cooperation, now that LET has attacked India, why are we so unwilling to do the same"? He expected some geostrategic BS in reply, but was rather stunned by the cool reply "The Americans are paying us 2 billion dollars a year. How much has India paid??"
But I dont want to give the impression that this is unique to Pakistan or Afghanistan. I have had similarly cynical and mercenary comments from the son of an American consular official in Lahore. Apparently, that is how the real world works.

[Pol-Mil FSO]

when I hear about "drive-by" ultimatums to Afghan villagers to cooperate with coalition forces or else lose assistance. The obvious rebuttal from the Afghan side - which I actually heard voiced once when a U.S. Army Major made a more low-key plea for cooperation - is "if you want us to help you why don't you give us some weapons or stick around in order to protect us from the Taliban?" We can't expect Afghan villagers to risk their lives to provide us with intel when we have no ability to protect them from reprisals because we are clueless as to who is doing the intimidation and because we return to our FOBs rather than live with the villagers. There is also an assumption, that is probably false in many cases, that Afghan villagers actually care enough about foreign assistance to change their beliefs or patterns of behavior. I do not know the particulars of this "model village" but I wouldn't be surprised if the project was designed by Canadian development officers with Afghans viewed more as recipients than participants. Finally, I doubt that the Canadian military has the power to make a unilateral decision to cut off assistance to this model village project. The civilian agencies have a say in this and there is a strong political imperative from Ottawa to continue with the project.

[slapout9]

I have talked to such people and their line is as follows: "lets cut the bull####. Americans have their own reasons to want job A done. We have our price. No one is being nice or biting feeding hands or other hogwash. We are doing X and being paid X in return. Pay us what you pay Halliburton and maybe we will jump higher". Make of that what you will.

I would have no problem with that what so ever. In fact I think that is the solution.

[slapout9]

"if you want us to help you why don't you give us some weapons or stick around in order to protect us from the Taliban?" We can't expect Afghan villagers to risk their lives to provide us with intel when we have no ability to protect them from reprisals because we are clueless as to who is doing the intimidation and because we return to our FOBs rather than live with the villagers.

Exactly! arm the villagers so they can protect themsleves if we can not always be there. That is why I say they don't need an army or police force they need a counter guerrilla army 1st.....all the other stuff should follow IF the Afghans want it to. This is all very mysterious to me because when I learned UW(early 70's) those were the basics.

[jmm99]

Perhaps something along the lines of the original CIDG program conducted by the CIA and SF in early Vietnam - or the USMC Combined Action Platoon program a bit later ?

Best

Mike

[slapout9]

Perhaps something along the lines of the original CIDG program conducted by the CIA and SF in early Vietnam - or the USMC Combined Action Platoon program a bit later ?

Best

Mike

Hi jmm, I would just follow the 7 steps I learned. True it was training but it was surprising just how realistic it was, example we had to find, buy or acquire our own food and water except for the initial amount we had during infiltration,gives you a lot of insight into the real problems of G-Force logistics. The CIDG is close but I was thinking more along the lines of the link I attached. Where is the plan to MOBILZE the country to throw the Taliban/AQ out of the country. Trying to build an army,police force,guvmint are a waste of time. A G-Force is part of a political organization 1st.... they are the new guvmint all ready to go It's the Band of the Hand.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/ar...rfare/ch01.htm

Replace the word Japanese with Taliban/AQ in the report.

[Steve the Planner]

Isn't that the big deal? Who has the power.

I'm very much of the opinion that our "bull in the China shop
tendency to fix things, and do it now or I'll do it for you creates a substantial imbalance in responsibility. When it becomes your project, and not their project that you are helping with, the expectation of support is, in some ways, inappropriate. Echo to Pol Mil's comment on whether they are recipients or participants.

But, as with the unarmed villagers, what do you do when they are faced with unequal threats, other than to equalize---sometimes with arms.

Is the real answer to increase arms for local militias or self-defense, despite the many obvious risks?

Steve

[slapout9]

Isn't that the big deal? Who has the power.


Steve

That is how I look at it.

[slapout9]

Straight from the Chairman's mouth.

All the people in an area should arm themselves and be organized into two groups. One of these groups is a combat group, the other a self-defence unit with but limited military quality. Regular combatant guerrillas are organized into one of three general types of units. The first of these is the small unit, the platoon or company. In each county, three to six units may be organized. The second type is the battalion of from two to four companies. One such unit should be organized in each county. While the unit fundamentally belongs to the county in it was organized, it may operate in other counties. While in areas other than its own, it must operate in conjunction with local units in order to take advantage of their manpower, their knowledge of local terrain and local customs, and their information of the enemy.

[jmm99]

I think we are talking about two different things. CIDG and CAP are examples of foreign security assistence efforts to indigenous inhabitants.

Mao (and Giap) were indigenous insurgents (to begin with), writing to their own folks on how to do it - e.g., Mao's 7 points in your link:

1. Arousing and organizing the people.
2. Achieving internal unification politically.
3. Establishing bases.
4. Equipping forces.
5. Recovering national strength.
6. Destroying enemy's national strength.
7. Regaining lost territories.

So also Lenin. To do that sort of stuff you have to be indigenous, or be so much a part of the landscape that you are accepted as indigenous. You also have to be on all fours with the cause or causes of the indigenous people.

What if your indigenous valley folks hate the Karzai governmental like poison; dislike the "Taliban" (different herds of them), but don't hate them as much; don't like AQ at all (a bunch of intervening Arabs who are nuts); are only interested in the almost complete automony of their little series of inter-connected river valleys; and don't really care about whether AQ or "Taliban" exist in other parts of the country - so long as they do not bother the valley folks.

What's the solution for that kind of situation ?

Mike

[slapout9]

I think we are talking about two different things. CIDG and CAP are examples of foreign security assistance efforts to indigenous inhabitants.

Mao (and Giap) were indigenous insurgents (to begin with), writing to their own folks on how to do it - e.g., Mao's 7 points in your link:



So also Lenin. To do that sort of stuff you have to be indigenous, or be so much a part of the landscape that you are accepted as indigenous. You also have to be on all fours with the cause or causes of the indigenous people.

What if your indigenous valley folks hate the Karzai governmental like poison; dislike the "Taliban" (different herds of them), but don't hate them as much; don't like AQ at all (a bunch of intervening Arabs who are nuts); are only interested in the almost complete automony of their little series of inter-connected river valleys; and don't really care about whether AQ or "Taliban" exist in other parts of the country - so long as they do not bother the valley folks.

What's the solution for that kind of situation ?

Mike

No not at all. When I was in the original mission of SF was to raise and train indigenous forces and carry out missions beyond the scope of regular troops at least that is all my memory can recall.

Everything Mao said works just as well on the other side. In my case I was supposed to be the indigenous folks! SF was there to train and advise us on how best to fight our war. The fighting/mobilization process is the same, what you call yourself CIDG,UW,Freedom fighter depends on your point of view and which side of the struggle you are on.

Part two of your question. I would answer that the CIA and original SF teams new who and how to gain the cooperation of the various tribes, so I can only answer that with another question. what happened to all the original support? It may no longer be there........ which means maybe we shouldn't be there either


Also you didn't notice any similarities between clear,hold, and build and Galula,Trinqiuer and Mao's 7 points?

[Steve the Planner]

Isn't the difference here that you are talking about sub-national units?

There may be a strong concept of Afghanistan, but are people going to rally, fight and die for it?

To be come indigenous to the local people,and to become indigenous to a concept of nation sound like two different things in the case of a weak national government with some, but not too much support.

The storyline that I am trying to follow, if one could read the real tea leaves from the elections, is not how many votes are attributed to President Kharzai, but from one sectors. Did he get as strong a Pashtun vote as a Tajik or Uzbec? Was his constituency based in the East or West?

That would lay a foundation for where the central government might find a stronger affinity, but it still sounds like regions and localities to me.

Otherwise, perhaps the last comment has bigger resonance.

Steve

[slapout9]

Isn't the difference here that you are talking about sub-national units?

There may be a strong concept of Afghanistan, but are people going to rally, fight and die for it?

To be come indigenous to the local people,and to become indigenous to a concept of nation sound like two different things in the case of a weak national government with some, but not too much support.


Steve

STP,That is why PSYOP and Civil Affairs(that would be you and Beetle) used to be part of SF. The Guerrilla action unit is just one part of the entire organization that you have at your disposal. But
as Ken pointed out SF had that capability removed from them......ain't real bright in my opinion.

[Steve the Planner]

We've managed to divide and conquer a lot of things---usually ourselves.

Steve

[Tom Odom]

We've managed to divide and conquer a lot of things---usually ourselves.

Steve

As long as we love ourselves and treat ourselves as liberators, we all will be wonderful...