Quote Originally Posted by LS View Post
*huh* Good point. I hadn't thought of it, but I suppose one could argue that our approach in PAK is tilted towards FID, while our approach in AFG is decidedly more COIN.
Even if there was agreement on where the border is located, there are a substantial number of people on both sides that don't recognize it.

Then there are other substantial numbers of people who have long existed under, at best, very limited authority from any central government. There are some groups that don't recognize any authority outside their own extended tribal structure. This is true on both sides of the border. What does the "i" in FID mean in these cases? What about the "i" in COIN? We see these people as "internal" because of lines on a map, we call some of them "insurgents" because they actively oppose central government, yet many of them see things quite differently. Do we have terminology and doctrine to change these kinds of loyalty structures, far removed and long hostile to any central government?

The point being is that I don't think our doctrinal constructs can hope to fit a place like Afghanistan or Pakistan, even assuming guidance from policymakers is clear, which, as Ken notes, it isn't.

IMO, Afghanistan and Pakistan are like conjoined Frankenstein twins - a menagerie of peoples that have yet to solidify into something resembling our Western concept of nationhood and likely never will. What is it called when we assist a central government in what amounts to conquering its own territory and its own peoples? Whatever it is, I don't think it's FID or COIN, but maybe it contains elements of both. We also need to consider that even Pakistan has been unable (and, it turns out, unwilling) to subjugate its people to its authority either through coercion or accommodation or FID or COIN.

Secondly, I think there is FID going on in Afghanistan, it's just that not much of it gets noticed and so much of it has been utter failure. The problems and issues are nicely detailed in a Richard Sale article in the ME Times (link to the full-text at another site) and those problems are nothing new:

Much of the ANP’s incompetence is due to a lack of adequate training but their mission of administering the rule of law is sidetracked and distorted by the sinister influence of power brokers or war lords. Afghan expert Gretchen Peters in a recent book “Seeds of Terror,” wrote of one power broker, Haji Juma Khan, as a criminal skilled in building networks and schemes to corrupt officials wherever he has chosen to operate. Provincial governors’ security agents, officials in the Highway Police or regional military commanders were all his targets. U.S. officials report that many Taliban commanders have forged affective and close ties with Afghan police officials which have proved troublesome. A recent UN report detailed a complex system of kickbacks involving 36 districts where governorships, customs and police postings are up for auction with the job winners paying huge fees to senior officials to keep their place. Top police officials in key districts pay $10,000 a month for job security, Peters said.

Cordesman noted in his report that power brokers see any improvement in police efficiency as a threat to their own operations and are desperate to forestall it by any means. But Cordesman and others make clear that their activity can only be countered by making vast improvements in the ANP leadership.
There are more details in Cordesman's report here. The short version is that it's hard to conduct FID when the population thinks the police are just a bunch of criminals.