Quote Originally Posted by Red Rat View Post
Agree. It also creates a great degree of confusion. How can we (the UK and US) be conducting COIN when we we are not directly facing an insurgent threat (the Afghan Government is)? Then we start misreading history and fail to realise that in many of the successful COIN campaigns it was COIN and we were the government, and in unsuccessfull campaigns it wsas not COIN and we were assisting an indigenous government. UW is better as it is so broad a concept it forces us to think harder about the nature of the conflict we are involved in.

From the perspective of the government fighting an insurgency success is probably measured first in preservation of the government and secondly in defeating the insurgent. For an intervening or assisting nation both, one or neither of these may be true.
With respect the brush is too broad here.

What happened in the Oman? A lot of "outsiders" used there. Does the same theory apply?

The more I read the COIN comment here I more I see that there is general confusion about insurgencies as if it were a totally different and unique form of warfare. What is really different? The enemy behaves differently. So you need to adapt. It becomes a corporals war and not a generals war.

David Galula said: "“If the individual members of the organizations were of the same mind, if every organization worked according to a standard pattern, the problem would be solved."

How, may I ask, do you get everyone of the same mind if you don't know what the illegitimate and corrupt government you are propping up is really thinking? Or when you wheel your troops through for six months at a time where they neither learn the ropes nor understand the people and the geography in that time scale.

OK so lets take it that for reasons better known to the US and Britain they have decided to follow a policy that will ensure their troops do not become fully operationally effective in Afghanistan (through specialising in the tactics needed to successfully fight the Taliban and spending long enough in-country to learn about the enemy and the terrain to meet the Taliban on close to an even playing field.)

I have mentioned it before that I see the danger that all levels of soldiers are starting to have their heads filled with all manner of the latest, the greatest, the bestest of the new fangled ideas that go under the heading COIN. It is merely a different set of fighting skills that are required. Radically different it seems. The enemy is the the once anticipated Soviet tank masses heading towards western Europe. It is a guy in sandals with an AK and pocket full of ammo moving about over terrain (both human and geographical) that he is expert and attacking a hapless government supporting soldier who is flailing around under these mosquito or flea like attacks.

Let the soldiers get on with fighting the war (20%) and let the politicians handle the rest (80%) and for heavens sake put a civilian in charge of the whole bang shooting match (not a general).

The loss of the war in Afghanistan will be chalked down to:
* The illegitimate and corrupt nature of the government.
* A lack of unity of purpose between government and outside forces.
* The inability of the government supporting forces to adapt to the tactics used by the Taliban.

So lets answer these easy questions:
* Is there any chance of defeating an insurgency when the government is illegitimate and corrupt?
* Is it possible to plan a winning counterinsurgency strategy when there is no unity of purpose between the government and the foreign military?
* How does one expect to win the shooting war when government forces don't have the locally required tactical skills to defeat the Taliban in the field?

I suggest that we not search for a scapegoat when we probably know exactly where the problem lies. Afghanistan for the US and Brit militaries is a self inflected wound.