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

[wm]

I’m just a simple kind of guy; maybe that’s why I don’t understand this idea of concentrating in a few cities. I don’t believe it worked in the past for the British or for the Russians but then we aren’t the Brits or the Bear are we?
Seems to me the bad guys in Afghanistan are forcing us to fight their fight—they are good at non-linear hit and run type skirmishes. So what do we do? Establish ourselves in a series of non-linear enclaves (in the big inkblots AKA the cities or the smaller inkdrips AKA the villages) that are just perfect targets for the tactics employed by the opposition.

Here’s an alternative to consider. We establish ourselves in a couple of linear, protectable enclaves and then advance slowly out from that protection—this is more like bridgeheads or a couple of big blobs that keep getting bigger by swallowing up more territory slowly. I’d suggest we could have two such blobs that center on the North and the South of the country respectively.

The northern sector would span the northern provinces from Badakhshan province westward along the national border through the provinces of Takhar, Kunduz, Balakh, Jowzjan, Faryab and Sar-E-Pol. I accept that this may be too broad a spread; so, we could lop off pieces on the eastern and western extremes. This positioning would act as a something like a bridgehead for a forced entry from which forces would get pushed out to the South, SE and SW over time. Simultaneously, we would have a second enclave in the south across the provinces of Nimruz, Helmand, and Kandahar. This bridgehead/enclave would expand to the N , NE, and NW over time as we finished clearing, holding and building inside it.

If folks want to, we could also have a Fort Apache in Kabul Province. I’m not sure why we need one. We are long past the days of wars in which victory consisted of “I captured your capital city so I’ve won.” But, we did seem to need to have forces in Berlin to create an instant POW camp for the GSFG to guard in the event of WWIII in Europe. Since I’m advocating a return to a more conventional strategy, maybe we need to do that again too.

This “strategic” deployment brings us more in line with what we historically have trained for and done well--fight linear battles. It also forces the opposition to fight us on our terms rather than on theirs, if they choose to fight at all. By establishing the two enclaves along the southern and northern borders, we tend to have more defendable LOC leading into the enclaves from Turkmen-, Uzbek-, Tajik-, and Pakistan. As we expand them over time, the bad guys get caught in the jaws of a closing vice. And we have established ourselves, in the north at least, in areas where the bulk of the population is less likely to be Pashtun—the folks who seem to have the greatest problem with our presence in the region. In the southern enclave I propose, Baluchis are almost as prevalent as the Pashtuns I believe In the south we are also in a position to interdict the opium cash crop that may be funding much of the bad guys’ efforts. We could try to get the Pakistanis to provide pressure on the east as well, but that might be a bridge too far, especially since our senior leaders making speeches to alienate them.


Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready in the center? Weapons off safe! Commence firing!

[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.

[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]

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.

[Eden]

I have some sympathy for the President. He appears to be digging deeper into Afghanistan, trying to make sense of what is happening there - that's why he has now asked for a province-by-province analysis. I'm guessing that he is, with a mounting sensation of dread, coming to the realization that there is no strategy that can reasonably hope to 'dismantle the Taliban'. Not with the resources that we can reasonably devote to the task.

We can, I believe, achieve a certain equilibrium, but at the cost of conceding large parts of the country as ungovernable and providing a huge morale boost to our Afghan enemies. Tragically, I think this will be the option chosen in the end - do less with more for a very long time.

[MikeF]

I have some sympathy for the President. He appears to be digging deeper into Afghanistan, trying to make sense of what is happening there - that's why he has now asked for a province-by-province analysis. I'm guessing that he is, with a mounting sensation of dread, coming to the realization that there is no strategy that can reasonably hope to 'dismantle the Taliban'. Not with the resources that we can reasonably devote to the task.

We can, I believe, achieve a certain equilibrium, but at the cost of conceding large parts of the country as ungovernable and providing a huge morale boost to our Afghan enemies. Tragically, I think this will be the option chosen in the end - do less with more for a very long time.

This COA reminds me of Iraq circa 2005. As we consolidated in the cities, we gave up a lot of battlespace. The various insurgents groups established training camps in those areas and the borders were open for trafficking weapons, money, and fighters. That was not a good thing.

It was very costly to have to reclear those camps and seal the borders in 2007.

Mike

[wm]

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.

This is exactly the effort that needs to be going on in the hinterland of the two enclaves/bridgeheads I proposed. What is most important is to recognize that we cannot adopt plans for helping those villages that use a one-size-fits-all approach. Without it, the benefit of interior lines that the enclaves could provide will not exist. Our folks will be sitting on Hadrian's (or is that Humpty Dumpty's) wall, getting shot at by foes on each side of it.

The expansion occurs in bite-sized chunks--the size being dictated by how many resources are available to do the village self-organization support in the latest bite just taken. Someone once advised me never to try to eat anything bigger than my head. The current plan and the decision to just hold a few key cities both seem to violate that advice.