The Search for Strategic Intelligence

[Steve the Planner]

Joanne Nathan, not Joanne Semple. (Typo) Correction just made.

[Bob's World]

Clear-hold-build is a good tactic (It worked great for the US as we implemented a strategy of "manifest destiny" to build this nation), but it is not a "strategy" in of itself.

Similarly, when I speak of what we are lacking in terms of strategic intelligence, it is not a quest for a country-wide perspective, or even a geographic combatant command -wide perspective, but rather a perspective that takes into account and places into context seemingly unrelated factors as they in fact do interact and interrelate globally.

So, in persuit of tactical victory in Afghanistan, what effect to US National security as a whole if the approach chosen (say, clear-hold-build; that is short on hold and build as described above) provokes the hell out of muslim populaces in 12 other countries and actually builds the base of support for AQ globally? How could the approach be tailored to mitigate those undesired and unintended effects? Is "victory" even necessary to secure US national interests?

We all crowd around the campfires our tactical comanders are tending to so that we can stare at the same flames. Then, when our butts start smoking from a flame behind us we proclaim "Black Swan! no one could have predicted that!" Perhaps. But then again, if some would have been held to task to look in other directions in the first place, perhaps not.

[Steve the Planner]

Bob:

As a dumbass tank commander from the old black boot army, one to the front, one to the rear, and the rest at the sides.

Nathan's point was that, without admin activity to hold and build, COIN is not being applied---just a piece of it.

Their broader points as to how and where to engage Afghanistan (with detailed differences area by area) are pretty extensive, and highly detailed. They are not about defeating the "bad guys" but how to hold on to the good guys, to later engage the bad guys more effectively.

I think I agree with their general posture that the sum of many tactics don't equal strategy, and it is the strategy that must be addressed first, and the tactics to followed it.

Interesting perspectives.

Steve

[Entropy]

Similarly, when I speak of what we are lacking in terms of strategic intelligence, it is not a quest for a country-wide perspective, or even a geographic combatant command -wide perspective, but rather a perspective that takes into account and places into context seemingly unrelated factors as they in fact do interact and interrelate globally.

So, in pursuit of tactical victory in Afghanistan, what effect to US National security as a whole if the approach chosen (say, clear-hold-build; that is short on hold and build as described above) provokes the hell out of muslim populaces in 12 other countries and actually builds the base of support for AQ globally? How could the approach be tailored to mitigate those undesired and unintended effects? Is "victory" even necessary to secure US national interests?

I don't think it's possible to answer your questions since future effects will NOT be determined solely, or even - one might argue - primarily, by a particular tactical strategy. It's more likely that other unknown and unpredictable factors will have a bigger effective impact on your question than clear-hold-build vs something else. There's also the definitional problem in that "clear-hold-build" can be implemented in a variety of ways. How such a strategy is implemented is likely to have just as big an effect (if not more so) than the strategy itself. What assumptions should a strategic intel analyst make? That's a critically important question because the assumptions will determine the results of the analysis. Who decides what the assumptions are?

For example, let's set the wayback machine to before OIF and try to ask similar questions. With the benefit of hindsight, is it possible to determine if a different operational ground campaign would have affected Muslim populaces any differently? Suppose we did what Saddam expected - a long air campaign followed by a ground invasion. How would things be different? What effect would that different approach have on Muslim populations and support for AQ? Maybe with a long air campaign we might have killed Saddam before the ground invasion. Maybe with a long air campaign we would have killed a ton of civilians with errant bombs, inciting even more world and Muslim hostility than already existed. Even with hindsight and knowing how one path turned out, it's impossible to know how things would be different today if another path was taken.

Of course, some effects of the invasion surely were predictable and were predicted (and ignored), but some of the biggest effects resulted from events that were not anticipated or planned for - Abu Ghraib is the most obvious and perhaps most far-reaching as an event that provoked Muslim populaces (and continues to do so). An assessment of the strategic effects without accounting for unknowables like Abu Ghraib and other incidents would turn out to be wrong. How useful would such analysis be to you since it would have to be heavily caveated?

In short, I don't believe there is a predictive method or any means, short of being lucky and correctly guessing, that can account for such vagaries, so I have to question the utility of that kind of far-reaching strategic analysis. Since the analysis would be reliant on an extraordinary number of assumptions, it is likely to prove wrong and would provide leaders and policymakers with a false sense of security about the effects of potential actions and policies. Policymakers want the path paved for them. They want intelligence to lift the fog from the future, but Intelligence has limits as a predictive art and science. Intelligence which makes the future only appear less certain is worse than useless - it's dangerous.

Finally, I think there is a general problem when attempting to do analysis across the tactical/strategic divide. What I mean is that it's extremely difficult to predict what will happen at the tactical level based on an analysis of differing strategic alternatives. The reverse is also true - it's extremely difficult to estimate the strategic effect of one tactical course of action vs another. Hope that makes sense.

[Steve the Planner]

One of the things thaty continues to trouble me is the deep lack of knowledge, insight of Afghanistan as a whole.

I think Andrew Exum did a great job last week of asking, in the Hoh context, for Gilles Dorronsorro, Micheal Semple and Joanne Nathan (deep experts, not generalists) to comment on the concept that someone could take knowledge from one province or district and validly project that to knowledge of Afghanistan or the Region. They were clear that the entire environment was just too complicated and variable to do that---it was not about nuances of differences, but whole measures of different politics, circumstances, relationships, and drivers.

Here, as I understand it, we stand on the brink of a radical change in US focus, from chasing bad guys around the desolate and foreboding eastern rural border to "protecting the population" in large urban areas, each with it's own hugely different and complex politics, socio-economics, and needs.

The deep consequences of such a change is so far removed from a simple road march. Everything about urban deployments requires totally unique challenges, risks, tools, training and approaches.

Alone, the strategic consequences for a military re-deployment from rural to urban is huge, especially where, as Joanne Nathan indicated, we are only good at the military clear part, but with huge impediments to hold and build. The difference between Southern Helmand and Kunduz are more than just geographic, and not to be measured and planned only by the amount of fuel it takes to get there. Even more so as Tajikistan's economy and society continue to collapse, with bleed over to Afghanistan.

Strategy is just not the sum of multiple tactics. Somebody has to set the big course, and provide the training, resources and direction to connect the dots.

[William F. Owen]

Strategy is just not the sum of multiple tactics. Somebody has to set the big course, and provide the training, resources and direction to connect the dots.

Sorry, that is exactly what strategy is, as concerns the mechanics of how it is applied. Callwell noted (and I agree with him) that strategy should be limited to what was tactically feasible. Hamley made much the point.

Now, I think what you are trying to say is that tactical success does not equate to strategic success. This is true, with Hannibal the Idiot being the primary example - win most battles, and still loose the war. I agree.

The problem is that we do not teach strategy properly. Tactics are the cogs and levers of strategy. Winning at the tactical level is not the be all and end all, IF you can keep fighting long enough to exhaust your opponent.
It requires tactical skill to avoid decisive defeat. Where the Taliban are wining tactically is in their ability to infiltrate forces into the areas they wish to contest, and to keep doing it. That is tactics. The Taliban have substantial freedom of action. That is tactics. The Taliban can initiate attacks mostly when and where they want. That is tactics. The Strategy is to exhaust US/NATO - and they know they can do that because "we" are not going to take the actions that would hurt them. - and I mean "hurt" the Taliban, not "protect the population."

Is "protecting the population" tactically feasible?

[davidbfpo]

Wilf asked:

Is "protecting the population" tactically feasible?

Mindful of comments on another thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=7128&page=26

In the Afghan context an element of protection is possible in large swathes of the countryside, especially where Pashtuns are a minority so sympathy for the Taliban is less. With urban growth protecting city populations is possible, but very different tactically. Where our strategy has gone wrong is trying to protect an un-willing or neutral rural Pashtun population; why is Helmand Province so vital? Before 2006 there was a tiny ISAF presence and some Afghan government presence.

I am mindful of this thread on Strateic Intelligence duplicating, rightly maybe, other threads.

[bellz]

So, here is my question: WHAT exactly is strategic intelligence? and why is it so rarely asked for, and even more rarely provided?

I'm new here so let me know if I'm totally off haha.

I think strategic intelligence is so rarely asked for because there is so little strategic decision-making made by policymakers in the U.S. government - especially regarding the GWOT, Afghanistan and Iraq - and therefore the intelligence community has gotten tactically heavy in critical areas of U.S. interests. We have been identifying our strategic post-Cold War national interests now for three administrations (terrorism, human rights, proliferation, etc ) but never are there consistent linkages of these interests to a strategic concept.

While George Kennan’s concept of “Containment” became the fundamental strategy that defined U.S. policies for most of the Cold War; it seems no similar strategic concept can define U.S. policies for the last eight years in the War on Terrorism. U.S. strategy must, but has not so far, be able survive the daily partisan jostling of security politics in Washington and the constantly changing political temperatures in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Short-term operational/tactical policies like killing terrorist leaders, seizing financial resources, deposing state sponsors and destroying training camps have been successful. However, I feel eight years of war and certainly more ahead have shown that these operational and tactical policies are not translating into any strategy. aka what the hell are we going to do in the long-term? We overthrew the Taliban and Saddam and the immediate political and military operations were rather brilliantly conducted - but what were the long-term strategic vision and policies for their new governments? We still have not decided what we want in Afghanistan despite the overwhelming existence of "serious threats to U.S. Interests" - terrorism, human rights violations, drug trafficking, extremism, etc.

I feel this is because policymakers are generally inclined to think in the short-term as they hop from crisis to crisis and deal with politics and election cycles - strategic intelligence of long-term threats and opportunities therefore does them little good compared to short-term policy prescriptions.