Afghanistan ROE Change

[Surferbeetle]

We're not going to change 3,000 years of Afghan history and culture. Never were going to be able to do that.

Too true; not Costa Rica, nor "...a Scandinavian Democracy.", nor anything close to a 'western' construct.

If one has swallowed the Kool Aid and believes the rather foolish rhetoric that population centric stuff matters, then one could hope for that. Big fly in that pie is that we do not have enough troops, NATO, US, Afghan (Police and Army) to do that. It would take five to ten times the now available strength to do it that way and neither we, NATO or the Afghans (or anyone else) are likely to come up with gold or the people. Plus we Americans just do not do that stuff well -- impatience again, plus the tour syndrome and the domestic political turmoil every two years. Not our bag.

So then, I agree with you on what the warm chunky goats milk of inadequate force ratios and unrealistic political schedules could to do to us

....and as a result I am eyeballing that damn population centric purple kool-aid...

Realworld applications-wise, upping the total force ratios/total mass (our side + % of population) by focusing upon population issues is possible and doable. We did it in Mosul for a while and we have done it in other locations (Japan & Germany, different sized delta yes but there were/still are appreciable cultural differences). The western clock we like to time ourselves on however may be the 'special' ingredient in the purple kool aid that we have to watch for. Reading about Mr McNamara in today's WSJ was pretty sobering.

So we go to Plan B. Clear, then dazzle with footwork and get the crowd behind the Goal to wave their pom poms or whatever while building roads and schools and giving the max number of troublemakers an opportunity to repent and be productive Pomegranate growers. We can get there. Just makes it more difficult and more likely to provide a temporary 'OK' solution rather than a long term good one. Tough world out there, people don't play fair...

Schools/madrassa's are specialized high end type work that require sustained cash flows and networks, instead simple gpf water & ag projects might be playing more to our strengths....ring road status...

Steve the Planner was saying the other day the Afghanistan once exported ag products and I have read that Kabul U's ag program was supposed to have been pretty strong...where you around/aware when/if that occurred?

Finally, I note that we have transitioned from relying on only our boxing skills and are adapting …it's slow going sometimes but somebody wise told me that the kids always come through…