let me suggest that logical solutions occur to others as well as to ones self -- if they aren't being used, there may be a reason...

Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
To answer Ken's question, the president has a number of carrots and sticks. I believe, "if you don't cooperate we'll bomb you into the stone age," did the trick after 9/11. "If you launch a true counterinsurgency campaign we will give you these things:... If you don't, we will bomb the hell out of your tribal regions" should do the trick. And my point is that if it isn't done things will get worse. Just like they continued to get worse in Iraq until we established population control.
Re: the first item -- do you know that or just think that might be the case? Re: the others, if the answers are "We'd like to but cannot;" and "If you do that we will have a rebellion which will make matters worse." What then will you do?
That's why you need to go into the village en masse, arrest all the foreigners and stay in the village for 15 years: clear and hold.
Where do you get the manpower and US political will to do that?
Of course they are. That's COIN 101. If we kill the bad guy, his wife and the rest of the tribe is going to get angry and seek revenge. The only solution is to put so many troops in the village that there is nothing the population can do to get revenge when you kill the bad guy. Then you spend 10 or 15 years trying to win hearts and minds.

That's why the argument we can't afford to do it right so let's do it half assed doesn't make any sense. There is no half assed counterinsurgency. You either establish population control or make things worse by angering the population and increasing the insurgent recruitment rate.
Shame the Administration and the big Army didn't know that in 2001 -- but they did not.

Did you know that then or have you learned it since like so many others?

By the way, Afghanistan is not an insurgency...