Frontline in Afghanistan

[MikeF]

Video is posted here. It is a much watch. Here are some of my initial thoughts from Mike's world of Coin. My comments are not to criticize/critique those Marines working their butts off. Rather, it is to provide some of my lessons learned for the group on the tactical level of COIN. I'd like to hear from the group to see if they concur or have better tips to offer.

A couple of thoughts on engaging the populace:

1. The squad leader should take off his body armor, helmet, glasses, and gloves when talking to the locals. Yes, one assumes some risks, but his men can pull perimeter.

2. I always tried to mimick everything my locals did from the way they sit, to how they hold their cigarettes, to how they laugh. It just helps you fit in. In this case, he may need to start squatting instead of standing up lecturing. He's not talking to his joes.

3. I doubt the interpreter issue is one the Marines are happy with. It's probably more of a resource problem (i.e. they can't find enough willing to venture to Helmand Province).

4. Is the commander going out? One of his many roles is to patrol with his boys and find out who's in charge and start to engage him.

On the tactical side (this is more speculation as I'm just monday-morning quarterbacking a video and not on the ground),

1. The squad is throwing down a lot of suppressive fire often without seeing the enemy. It's often better to wait and try to positively identify rather than to spray a mad minute. Listening to the incoming rate of fire, they're probably facing 2 guys with AKs and 1 with a PKM. Just 3 dudes, not 50.

2. Frequency/variation of patrols. In a limited space, it is challenge to NOT get into a routine. When my troop averaged 12 patrols a day at the peak of the Surge, I found myself planning the same patrols at the same time so I switched it. I made my 1SGT, PLs, and PSGs responsible for making the patrol schedule. Then, I could spot check it and ensure we maintained the frequency but kept up the variance. It worked.

3. Ambushes. I'd start having men covertly infiltrate into the treeline at night, dig in, and wait for the Taliban to occupy their ambush position the next day. A second option is to have preplanned indirect targets in known ambush positions. If the Taliban is going there, the locals will stay away, and one does not risk civilian casualties. A third option is to send recce patrols past the treeline to start observing the Taliban's infiltration. They ain't appearing out of thin air.

v/r

Mike

[Steve Blair]

Good lessons, Mike, and it's interesting to me (as a historian) how many of them should not be new. Quite a bit of it is classic Vietnam (circa about 1968-69, but was being done earlier in some places). Not knocking your lessons at all, which are hard-earned, but more observing that we could/should do a better job of preserving those lessons. And on a possibly related note, many of them could have been pulled directly from the old Small Wars Manual.

[MikeF]

Good lessons, Mike, and it's interesting to me (as a historian) how many of them should not be new. Quite a bit of it is classic Vietnam (circa about 1968-69, but was being done earlier in some places). Not knocking your lessons at all, which are hard-earned, but more observing that we could/should do a better job of preserving those lessons. And on a possibly related note, many of them could have been pulled directly from the old Small Wars Manual.

You're right Steve. None of that is new. At USMA, I studied mostly the Revolutionary War to the Korea War. In my army schools, we studied the Fulda Gap. Small wars were glossed over. I hope that's changing.

v/r

Mike

[Steve Blair]

You're right Steve. None of that is new. At USMA, I studied mostly the Revolutionary War to the Korea War. In my army schools, we studied the Fulda Gap. Small wars were glossed over. I hope that's changing.

v/r

Mike

I hope so as well. That's actually been my biggest concern with all this...how long it would take the institution to "re-lose" all its "new" lessons.

[MikeF]

Schmedlap brings up a good point that I didn't consider. I guess that just shows you there are many ways to skin the cat as long as it's within the reasonable application of METT-TC.

Rob,

Lately, I've observed several commentators on other mil blogs explaining that what we're doing in A'stan is FID. If this footage is accurate, we're doing what I thought- a unilateral clearance to occupy (with a few A'stan soldiers along to put an A'stan face on the mission). Now if the ratios were reversed (1 Astan company with a few SF advisors), then I'd call that FID. If the ratios were equal (1 Marine company with 1 A'stan company, then I'd call that SFA.

Is my terminology doctrinally correct?

v/r

Mike

[John T. Fishel]

I don't know if your terms are doctrinally correct but they should be

Rob, if they aren't can you get folk to change them?

Cheers

JohnT

[Rob Thornton]

I saw the preview over at Noah S' Danger Room.

The two things that struck me in the 24 minutes of preview:

1) the contrast between the footage in D.C. and the footage of the Marines fighting to secure the population
2) the lack of USG civilians and GIRoA security forces (there were some ANA - I did not see any USG civilians.

I think I'll have to see the whoe thing.

It seemed to me they were geared up appropriately. It may be worth considering what message it might send if they took more than the one casualty they did, and what effect that might have on the Marines themselves - before, during and after. Its hard to tell where one event left off and another ocurred given what you can do with film.

While the ammount of fire recorded may have indicated only a few enemy, it may be wrong to assume that is all there were. I've been in a few fights where it started slow and then more showed up, and I've been in a few where it started intense than everyone seemed to decided they had other things to do.

Just hard to tell, and the footage may not tell the whole story.

On the leader side, it looks like the Echo leaders from team leader up were doing the right things as best they could given the conditions

I do look forward to the Frontine piece though, it seems to be well done judging the preview. The clip that sticks out is the one where it looks likeeither an RPG or a light mortar hit the berm and left the dirt cloud hanging in the air while still in contact and a few Marines sorting their selves out. ANother is the contact that put the camera man and the reporter on the ground. Both remind me of the struggle you go through when you are reacting to contact and have responsibilities.

Best, Rob

[Schmedlap]

The two things that struck me in the 24 minutes of preview:

1) the contrast between the footage in D.C. and the footage of the Marines fighting to secure the population
2) the lack of USG civilians and GIRoA security forces (there were some ANA - I did not see any USG civilians.

Ditto on number 1. Those people have lots of neat ideas and some very sharp presentations. Meanwhile, back in the real world...

[jkm_101_fso]

So I just finished watching it. Am I to understand that the main point of this episode was that the US military effort in AFG is mostly in vain until the U.S. makes REAL diplomatic progress with PAK, especially ISI who still supports the Taliban to this day?

[Steve the Planner]

The diplomatic problem crossed a lot of lines, beginning at the local level.

[MikeF]

So I just finished watching it. Am I to understand that the main point of this episode was that the US military effort in AFG is mostly in vain until the U.S. makes REAL diplomatic progress with PAK, especially ISI who still supports the Taliban to this day?

Jake, that's a tough one, and I don't know if I have the "right" answers for it, but here it goes.

First, for six years, we just threw money at the problem. Money without any recourse thinking that the Pakistani's would use it to tackle AQ. They didn't. In some ways, it's similar to our decision to throw money to the banks thinking it would solve the average citizen's mortgage problem. It didn't. Instead, the banks consolidated and paid big bonuses. It's all human nature. Their perceived enemy is India, and they used the billions to build up their conventional forces along the eastern border of Kashmir. In the latter years of the Bush Administration, we finally started fixing that issue.

Second, I've never been to Pakistan, but I had the opportunity to go to school with a handful of their best and brightest Air Force and Army officers. They are highly competent- most have served in high intensity conflict, small wars, and peace-keeping missions. I have the utmost respect for them, but they don't view AQ as an existential threat like we do. AQ is third on their list. They've dealt with the non-governed FATA for nearly 50 years, and I think that this history sometimes blinds them into accepting that there are just some areas within their borders that will never be modernized.

Third, the Pakistanis are finally pushing into the ungoverned areas at a high cost. They've suffered several thousand casualties over the last several years that are unreported in the news.

They are good people and willing partners, and it is a sensitive subject on sovereignty. Personally, outside of the initial "outrage," I think the Pakistanis would accept and understand if we simply invaded the FATA to finally capture UBL and Zawahari and destroy AQ; however, we must be willing to spend the time, money, and effort to modernize the area in the aftermath.

Sometimes you have to listen past the static to understand the problem.

Just my .02 cents for what it's worth. I realize my voice is a minority.

v/r

Mike

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Steve Blair,

Good lessons, Mike, and it's interesting to me (as a historian) how many of them should not be new. Quite a bit of it is classic Vietnam (circa about 1968-69, but was being done earlier in some places). Not knocking your lessons at all, which are hard-earned, but more observing that we could/should do a better job of preserving those lessons. And on a possibly related note, many of them could have been pulled directly from the old Small Wars Manual.

Posted by Ken White,

The problem is that our training got dumbed down in the 1970s and 80s and we stopped teaching NCOs how to talk to people. I saw dozens if not hundreds of on NCOsS doing what that guy was doing on presence patrols in three countries. Most, not all doing it pretty well.

The above comments simply reinforce the SECDEF's assertion that we have failed to institutionalize the lessons learned from our previous experiences in irregular warfare. It is not the same as conventional war, thus the argument if you can win in a conventional conflict you'll be able to win in an irregular conflict is dangerously misleading. While many of us disagree with the definitions and some of the new fangled theories being pushed (with no historical evidence to support them), most of us hope the SECDEF is successful in institutionalzing the study and practice of irregular warfare throughout DoD.

[Ken White]

The above comments simply reinforce the SECDEF's assertion that we have failed to institutionalize the lessons learned from our previous experiences in irregular warfare.

Not on that; that's totally correct and a lick on us.

It is not the same as conventional war, thus the argument if you can win in a conventional conflict you'll be able to win in an irregular conflict is dangerously misleading.

Heretical comment -- I'm not that sure we would've done all that well in a conventional war against a near peer competitor. I'd rephrase that statement of yours a bit; "If you're well enough trained to win a conventional war, you're probably well enough trained to do okay in irregular conflict." Mostly because I do not think we were at all well trained for conventional war; we were and are too rigid, too reluctant to take risk and we do not trust our subordinates adequately.

Well trained troops can handle both and the Army and Marines both worked at being able to do that in the early 60s with some success, noting that there were a some units that specialized in MCO, a few that emphasized IW and an even smaller few who trained for full spectrum.

I'd also suggest that in most IW, the possibility of 'winning' is not good for anyone if the fight even somewhat approaches a mid level conflict -- as in Afghanistan or Iraq.

While many of us disagree with the definitions and some of the new fangled theories being pushed (with no historical evidence to support them), most of us hope the SECDEF is successful in institutionalzing the study and practice of irregular warfare throughout DoD.

Yep. Needs to happen. Training required to win against a near peer in MCO needs only slight modification and additions to adapt to irregular war -- with the caveat that the GPF will never do more than an adequate job at IW or COIN. Not their thing...

[Schmedlap]

1. The squad is throwing down a lot of suppressive fire often without seeing the enemy. It's often better to wait and try to positively identify rather than to spray a mad minute. Listening to the incoming rate of fire, they're probably facing 2 guys with AKs and 1 with a PKM. Just 3 dudes, not 50.

They're probably not going to kill the attackers either way. To look at this from an IO angle - Firing back a few rounds can be interpreted as weakness or hesitation. Throwing down a hail of gunfire creates a "holy crap!" effect. A lot of Iraqis got frustrated at us for using well-aimed fire. As they saw it, the local terrorist cell was firing 6 magazines at us while we shot back with 10 rounds. To them, this demonstrated an unwillingness to protect them. Once we relaxed our fire control measures and encouraged more forceful responses, the people were more content. We did not fare any better or worse against adversaries - we did not kill them any more often - but the locals were reassured because they heard more barking from our guns.

[Rank amateur]

3. Ambushes. I'd start having men covertly infiltrate into the treeline at night, dig in, and wait for the Taliban to occupy their ambush position the next day. A second option is to have preplanned indirect targets in known ambush positions. If the Taliban is going there, the locals will stay away, and one does not risk civilian casualties. A third option is to send recce patrols past the treeline to start observing the Taliban's infiltration. They ain't appearing out of thin air.

The way COIN is supposed to work is first you control the population, then the population tells you where the Taliban and are setting up the ambushes.

I wouldn't even call it that. I'd just call it people skills.

I was going to make the same point. The guy in the video appears to be doing the equivalent of walking up to a girl and saying, "Why aren't you willing to have sex with me." It takes time, patience, there has to be something in it for her and you need to prove yourself worthy of trust.

[Ken White]

The way COIN is supposed to work is first you control the population, then the population tells you where the Taliban and are setting up the ambushes.

'Cause you cannot control populations without draconian measures and we are not going to use those...

[John T. Fishel]

of controlling the population... In Malaya, the Brits relocated the Chinese population to "safe" controlled villages - not voluntarily - and it worked. In Vietnam, the GVN on US advice tried to do the same thing and called it the Strategic Hamlet program - it failed. In Guatemala, the govt relocated villages to "Development Poles" (read strategic hamlets) with armed militia patrols (PACs) - it worked. 3 cases of essentially the same program 2 of whichworked but for different reasons with differentg adaptations and one of which failed because of both poor execution and a failure to adapt.

A key to success is flexibility, ADAPTATION of what worked in the past and appropriate new TTP.

Cheers

JohnT

[Pol-Mil FSO]

The problem with employing standard population control measures in Afghanistan is that they would quickly annoy Afghans and increase hostility towards foreign forces. Pashtuns do not like to be ordered around, especially by foreigners. I think it would take draconian measures as Ken White noted, to compel Afghan cooperation. Maybe something like public executions and other intimidation tactics but for very good political, ethical, and legal reasons we are not going to go there. That leaves us with the persuasion and bribery alternative to get the population on the government side.

The Guatemalan Army addressed both the population control and force ratio issues by going into the Mayan highlands in the early 1980's and forcing male inhabitants of the villages to join the self-defense patrols (PACs) with a penalty of death for refusal. Within a couple of years there were over a million villagers enrolled in the PACs - more than 10% of the total population. Each PAC was controlled by the military commissioner (an Army NCO) stationed in the village. The Army pursued a deliberate strategy of involving the PACs in massacres of unarmed civilians and other human rights abuses in order to exert psychological control over the PAC members and break any ties that PAC members might have had with the insurgents. This brutal but effective employment of PACs was part of a ruthless COIN strategy that earned Guatemala widespread international condemnation and left the Army without any overt international support in its fight against the insurgents, apart from some minor assistance from Israel and Taiwan.

[John T. Fishel]

either the Brits or the Guats nor to excoriate the US and GVN but simply to point out the similar methods can work or fail depending on how employed and the culture in question. Obviously, strat hamlets did not work in Vietnam because the culture would not accept it. What I am suggesting it that there are likely to be effective ways of controlling population even in Pashtun areas with an appropriate understanding of the culture. As a start, one might begin by asking how the Brits successfully coopted Pashtun elements even incorporating them in the Corps of Guides. The questions to ask are what worked in the past, might they work now, how would we need to adapt them.

Cheers

JohnT

[Backwards Observer]

In Malaya, the Brits relocated the Chinese population to "safe" controlled villages - not voluntarily - and it worked. In Vietnam, the GVN on US advice tried to do the same thing and called it the Strategic Hamlet program - it failed.

From Born A Foreigner: A Memoir of the American Presence in Asia by Charles T. Cross (1999):

There was no talk of the crucial differences between Malaysia, where Thompson’s ideas originated, and Vietnam, where they were to be carried out. The British were in complete charge of the military, the police and the civil services in Malaysia. They had a cadre of experienced life-time colonial officials, speaking the languages of the country, who could in quiet, disciplined ways maneuver the political process toward clear, unambiguous goals of eliminating the communists and establishing self-government. Moreover, the war in Malaysia had been smaller, with only 8,000 to 10,000 armed guerillas in the whole country at the height of the Emergency. Single provinces in South Vietnam at times had that many or more, counting the North Vietnamese in regular conventional units. Our own political aims for South Vietnam were as confused as those of the South Vietnamese themselves, agreeing between us only on opposition to North Vietnam. p.158

Born A Foreigner - (Amazon)

Charles T. Cross (Wikipedia)

Killers in Retirement, the last chapter of Jim Morris', Fighting Men, has some war stories from the period.

Fighting Men- (Amazon)