NYT: U.S. to Protect Populous Afghan Areas, Officials Say

[CitadelSix]

From the NYT webpage

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s advisers are focusing on a strategy for Afghanistan aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers, administration officials said Tuesday, describing an approach that would stop short of an all-out assault on the Taliban while still seeking to nurture long-term stability.

Mr. Obama has yet to make a decision and has other options available to him, but as officials described it, the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed. The question of how much of the country should fall under the direct protection of American and NATO forces will be central to deciding how many troops will be sent.

At the moment, the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said. The first of any new troops sent to Afghanistan would be assigned to Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, seen as a center of gravity in pushing back insurgent advances.

So it sounds like we may be leaning toward a policy that only reinforces one of the central concerns mentioned in Matthew Hoh's resignation letter. Namely, that this war has...

..."violently and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."

Our students at SAMS, who have been looking at the problem closely over the last 10 months, in coordination with planners on the ground, have seen the same problem and came to essentially the same conclusions that the McChrystal report came to. Were their own ideas to be implemented, the strategy would focus on winning in the villages by focusing development and building good governance at the local level in order to rebalance the role of local / tribal leadership with that of the central government.

One can argue whether we should continue there at all, but if we are to continue, we need to ensure that understanding of the situation on the ground as it exists on the ground drives the strategy.

[Steve the Planner]

CitadelSix:

With due deference to the weaknesses of Russia's "retreat to the cities," if well executed, I could feel pretty comfortable that we are moving to a definable and doable mission.

Steve

[davidbfpo]

CitadelSix,

Welcome aboard and another current thread discusses the rural -v- urban population in Afghanistan: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8797

I am wary of a strategy that reduces even further the Allied role in rural areas and seems to be a return to the Soviet option. Cities and main roads, with frequent expeditions and raids into the rural 'Chaos Country'.

What did your studies conclude about Allied and Afghan government in the non-Pashtun areas? A cities first strategy needs to be balanced with retaining those areas, just look at recent events around Kunduz (with a Pathan minority).

What about those areas where we have tried to intervene, from a UK perspective Helmand Province, can we pullback to campaign in more important areas? The eastern mountain valleys e.g. Korengal now appear to be a "valley too far".

All from a faraway "armchair".

davidbfpo

[tequila]

Our students at SAMS, who have been looking at the problem closely over the last 10 months, in coordination with planners on the ground, have seen the same problem and came to essentially the same conclusions that the McChrystal report came to. Were their own ideas to be implemented, the strategy would focus on winning in the villages by focusing development and building good governance at the local level in order to rebalance the role of local / tribal leadership with that of the central government.

But the question remains, even if we plus up by 40k in additional to the 60k already there, is that enough to sustain a village-centric strategy?

Can we build good governance at the local village level if we can't even get it in the cities? Shouldn't we try to build some capacity where the GiROA at least can recruit officials?

I totally agree that we cannot just abandon the villages to Predators and Taliban, but if we can't at least secure Kandahar, what good is it to plant Marines in a few dozen Helmand villages?

[Rank amateur]

We didn't give a @#$% about the villages before 9/11. Long as they don't attack America from there, I don't see why we should care about them now.

The trick is to make sure AQ doesn't slip back in. But even if you occupy the villages, Astan is so vast and sparsely populated, you still have to figure out a way to make sure AQ doesn't use Astan as a base. Instead of top 10 cites, make it the top 100. What do we get for our increased investment and longer supply lines that can never be secured?

[jmm99]

Based on this:

from CitSix
Were their [Our students at SAMS] own ideas to be implemented, the strategy would focus on winning in the villages by focusing development and building good governance at the local level in order to rebalance the role of local / tribal leadership with that of the central government.

1. What does their model of local governance look like ?

2. What does their model of the local justice system look like (judges, prosecutors and police in the criminal sector; judges and "juries" - shuras & jirgas - in the civil sector) ?

3. How does that model interface with the national government (at district, province and national levels) ?

4. How does that model interface with local and regional "power people" (warlords in UnkindSpeak) ?

5. Is this an "all or nothing" model (all being Astan's some 40,000 villages), or would a more modest approach be taken ? If the latter, what portions of Astan would be the better choices for implementation ? See this post in another thread for links to some possibly relevant maps.

6. Who would implement the local governance model (e.g., military, civilian; e.g., US, Astanis - in what mix in this laudable political effort) ?

Regards

Mike

[Steve the Planner]

Just came back from a really good conference from some of the best of the DC world.

Schieffer Series: A Discussion of U.S. Policy in Afghanistan

http://csis.org/event/schieffer-seri...cy-afghanistan

Bob Schieffer (former CBS Anchor) moderated Bob Woodward, Kim Dozier, Anthony Cordesman, and Mariam Nawabi, and Afghan/American Broadcaster.

Woodward and Dozier explained a lot of what they can glean from the President's deliberations. Most of what has been heard here, but with more background, details and play-by-play.

Next, they got into background issues. Mr. Woodward was just back from Afghanistan and talked about the need for more police, if we are fighting a civil insurgency and domestic attacks. According to him, the number of police are declining while the need is growing. He also talked about the US past process of nine years, one year at a time.

Ms. Nawabi talked about the background Afghan perspective, and the need for long-term development/capacity assistance. They need a relationship.

All talked about the lack of effective Central government, and against that backdrop, what needs to happen on the civilian side.

Universal criticism for the civilian effort as ineffective. Prof Cordesman does a roundhouses the problems at the end of the presentation: need to start from scratch with the civilian side.

Ms. Dozier talked about the military audience response to the President's speech about taking his time before putting them in harm's way. She said the cheers that interrupted the speech were, for many, unexpected, but indicates that the military would rather he get it right than get it fast.

Prof. Cordesman's roundhouse on the need to start from scratch with the civilian effort comes at the very end. Insightful for those who are interested in the non-kinetic side of things.

Worth a listen if you want to get the DC perspective from some serious and studious insiders.

Steve

[CitadelSix]

Based on this:



1. What does their model of local governance look like ?

2. What does their model of the local justice system look like (judges, prosecutors and police in the criminal sector; judges and "juries" - shuras & jirgas - in the civil sector) ?

3. How does that model interface with the national government (at district, province and national levels) ?

4. How does that model interface with local and regional "power people" (warlords in UnkindSpeak) ?

5. Is this an "all or nothing" model (all being Astan's some 40,000 villages), or would a more modest approach be taken ? If the latter, what portions of Astan would be the better choices for implementation ? See this post in another thread for links to some possibly relevant maps.

6. Who would implement the local governance model (e.g., military, civilian; e.g., US, Astanis - in what mix in this laudable political effort) ?

Regards

Mike

Mike - great questions, and as mentioned in another post, I don't have much in the way of answers because the students did not have the time to fully develop their plan before we had to move on to the next thing in the curriculum. The students could probably answer some of those questions based on their work, even if the specifics did not make it into their written products.

In general though, the discussions indicated at local governance would look like whatever they want it to look like although we'd be driving to some sort of order. What does the village need? A sheriff? A magistrate? Basically, we would be promoting self organization, letting the village elders decide what works best for them- after all, every village doesn't have to be organized the same.

It was definitely not all or nothing - the students had not yet done all the math to figure out the scale of sequential versus simultaneous effort.

[CitadelSix]

But the question remains, even if we plus up by 40k in additional to the 60k already there, is that enough to sustain a village-centric strategy?

Can we build good governance at the local village level if we can't even get it in the cities? Shouldn't we try to build some capacity where the GiROA at least can recruit officials?

I totally agree that we cannot just abandon the villages to Predators and Taliban, but if we can't at least secure Kandahar, what good is it to plant Marines in a few dozen Helmand villages?

I think you can create good governance at the local village level - in fact, those villages have been self-governed for centuries. The concept was to help facilitate this through development and security to improve their capacity and to then help them reach upward to the central government for additional support. In some ways, central government doesn't work because the job is too big and there is nothing below upon which it is built. If all politics is local, then governance has to start (and be allowed to flourish) at the local level first. Then let the local bodies collectively develop regional bodies and so on.

[CitadelSix]

CitadelSix,

Welcome aboard and another current thread discusses the rural -v- urban population in Afghanistan: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8797

I am wary of a strategy that reduces even further the Allied role in rural areas and seems to be a return to the Soviet option. Cities and main roads, with frequent expeditions and raids into the rural 'Chaos Country'.

What did your studies conclude about Allied and Afghan government in the non-Pashtun areas? A cities first strategy needs to be balanced with retaining those areas, just look at recent events around Kunduz (with a Pathan minority).

What about those areas where we have tried to intervene, from a UK perspective Helmand Province, can we pullback to campaign in more important areas? The eastern mountain valleys e.g. Korengal now appear to be a "valley too far".

All from a faraway "armchair".

davidbfpo

davidbfpo -

Their planning effort unfortunately did not go on long enough to delve into great detail, but the broad approach was a combined effort between the Allies, Afghans, and US to focus security efforts initially in the border regions while weighting developmental efforts in first the north, then west and working into secured border regions last. ISAF was to focus externally (drumming up allied and regional support) and at the national level while the IJC focused internally on day-to-day operations.