Government is more important to certain parties than others. For example I really believe that we are dealing with what I call a "two-tier Insurgency" in Afghanistan. The top tier being that of the senior leadership of the TB and other groups, that are conducting what is best seen as a revolutionary insurgency, and is driven primarily by these factors of poor governance. (They don't recognize Karzai's legitimacy, they are excluded from any means of legally addressing that problem, and the Pashtuns as a whole are having their faces rubbed in it by the long suffering groups making up the old Northern Alliance.) This is the key to stability in Afghanistan and requires reconciliation. Not necessarily reconciliation with particular individuals or groups, but rather reconciliation of these issues of Poor Governance. We largely ignore this aspect of the insurgency and instead focus on the lower tier. This is our comfort zone.
The Lower tier is a resistance movement made up of the rank and file. They are largely self-governing, want or expect little from government; but do demand to be treated with respect, and can see from the very presence of the Coalition, with foreign advisors sitting at the shoulder of virtually every official, that the government has no true legitimacy. They fight because the Coalition is there, because they get paid, and because it is the honorable Pashtun thing to do. Most of us who frequent SWJ, if we were Pashtun, would be right there with them.
We focus the vast bulk of security efforts, development efforts and governance efforts at the bottom tier; yet this is a resistance. So long as the top tier remains committed to the effort and so long as the coalition is present there will be a bottom tier. You cannot defeat this insurgency by digging at the bottom, that is what the "nation building" strategy has us do. Foolishness.
We ignore the top, as that forces hard decisions in regards to GIROA, and we've adopted a definition of COIN that says our job is to keep GIROA in power rather than to focus on what best supports our interests. Where is the full court press to fix legitimacy? Where is the full court press to shred this abortion of a Constitution that enables Karzai's poor governance every bit as much as our military protection of his regime?
We called it a war, so we're fighting the war, we are trying to WIN when we should be working to simply enable conditions that support the rather minor interests we may have in this region.
By shifting our main effort to political/diplomatic efforts at the top, and reconciling the key causal issues at that level the lower tier of the insurgency will largely take care of itself. Our current approach merely enables Karzai to delay making any substantive changes at his level. He understands this very well. Some may call him the puppet, but he is more the puppet master in how he leverages Western fears to support what he knows full well is an unsustainable system of governance.
Its frustrating. Fighting season is about over for the year. We should pull all of our troops back into the FOBs and rotate the bulk of them home. We should then put Mr. Karzai on clear notice that how many come back and what we have them do is largely dependent on how successful he is in fixing his constitution and reconciling the issues that drive the top-tier of the insurgency. This also give us time to get our own strategy straight and our operational design as well.
People need to understand that be it Marjah or Zari, or the Arghendab, or anywhere else in Afghanistan, if we do "Shape-Clear-Hold-Build" on our little checklists; but the insurgency all around that little temporary pocket of effort is still at a solid Phase II Strategic Stalemate, we haven't made any enduring progress at all. Our phases of COIN mean nothing, it is the Phase the insurgency is in that means everything. Even then, phases are designed to flex based up the level of resistance, so the only true success is when you get the insurgency to Phase 0. You can't make that happen with S-C-H-B aimed at the lower tier of the insurgency. You make it happen by focusing on the issues driving the Top Tier.
(Oh, and Bill, I really rarely think much about Malaya as I see it as a COIN operation were we learned the wrong lessons because we don't understand what of all the things that were done actually contributed to the success. Besides addressing governance, the fact that it is a lower portion of a Peninsula and the government dominated the sea and air is probably the second largest factor to the success there. (Probably why South Korea is a success as well) So I have only selected a couple issues that are indeed relevant in comparison with Vietnam. I can't speak for Dr. Nagl. I bought his book years ago, but was never able to get though it because I agree, most comparison between Malaya and Nam are of little value.)
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