Quote Originally Posted by pjmunson View Post
Gian Gentile's post acknowledges that both killing and "hearts and minds" were used, but then states: "war is war, it is not "armed social science,"...but who is really arguing that you can fight COIN by hearts and minds alone?
No one here, really, not even Gian. He appears here from time to time and gets published in the Op-Ed pages of the NYT and other papers and has articles in the Armed Forces Journal among others. You will see occasional references to the 'Gentile-Nagl' due to the fact the Gian is Mr. Anti-COIN to the point of vehemence. Armor guy, had a Cav Squadron in I-rak , historian and now teaches that at West Point. His concern is that the Army overemphasizes 'the new COIN' (and as an active practitioner of the old COIN, it is new in many respects, not all improvements) to the detriment of it's primary mission which is war fighting. I tend to agree with him on all counts -- COIN elements are required; the Army should not go overboard as they are prone to do on the new COIN and so on. He's more vocal but then I'm shy and retiring.

That position is of course not shared with Dr. LTC Retired John Nagl, the author of "Eating Soup With A Knife." They've had some discussions back an forth here.

Neither Gian not I or any of the other 'war is war' folks who comment here deny there is a place for what is called COIN -- though it is really not that -- techniques. What we do say is that if you're committing Armed Forces to an effort there is or will be a war of some sort. War is war, unchanging but warfare is constantly mutating and shifting and COIN like TTP may be needed and the force must be able to apply them but don't lose sight of the larger effort -- preparation for the full spectrum of warfare.

Some say that COIN is the graduate level of warfare; I once contended that it is not -- it's like middle school with all the envy, cliques, in and out people and things, jealousies, backbiting and more. Stability operations can be psychologically demanding but they are not as challenging as major combat operations to any part of the force by several orders of magnitude. Gian agreed with that, John Nagl probably would not.

Wilf, BTW, is a consultant and author but he's also British -- when he was serving (during the Reign of George III...), they had a civil service that would fall in on any COIN effort and take care of the civil side leaving the Army to strictly military tasks -- as directed by said Civilians. Very different system. His 'war is war' mantra is 'cause he's a Clauswitz fan. That's all background. I knew all that and you didn't; it may or may not make any difference to your perceptions. Terribly long way of saying you can't tell the players without a program...
The article rejects hearts and minds as a pipe dream...Germany; and abandon their cultural birthright of unrivalled hegemony over “Pashtunistan”...You aren't going to get Pashtuns to be eager "little Americans" but you can show them why it is worth their while to have you around.
Only if you can convince them you can keep the Talibs and all the other bad guys from visiting the villages in the night will they believe you are worthwhile -- and as soon as you do that, they'll want you gone. Afghans are not Arabs; they share some cultural similarities but they don't like the Ferenghee a bit better. I doubt that NATO et.al. will ever have enough troops to do that. So the 'COIN' approach cannot be fully implemented in Afghanistan and we'll have a hybrid op.
At the end, I guess I just don't understand who is advocating a purely hearts and minds approach that doesn't advocate killing the insurgents to secure the population as an integral and primary goal.
No one to my knowledge; that's not the issue -- the issue is future strategy and force structure. Does the Army follow the Corps and go with some units tailored for stability ops? Does it adjust TOEs to provide units tailored for such ops. Brother Nagl is the President of CNAS and is presumed to have clout in high places; he and other think that's the way to go. Gian, me, others do not agree.
And I'd also like to know what his vision of winning is since he labels his article as "How to Win in Afghanistan."
I thought he was pretty clear:
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""The approaches taken to countering insurgencies in Malaya, Vietnam, Northern Ireland and Iraq all contain some aspects that are transferable to Afghanistan but most are *. The counter-insurgency in Afghanistan is more intractable than any of these others.[* Believe a 'not' was omitted here / kw]

In Afghanistan a strategy focusing on the annihilation of Taliban power is the only way to achieve broad political progress...Until then NATO must be prepared to act as the proxy for the Afghan state in establishing control over the Pashtun population.

Without security there is nothing.""(all emphasis added /kw)
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My take on that is that he says more whittling down of the Taliban (and friends) or removal in some of way their ability to affect localities is required before the rebuilding can commence. My sensing from friends and all open sources is that is very much correct. Afghanistan is not an insurgency though there are aspects of one in place. It's a war with COIN like digressions.
To me, it is disturbing that such a reductionist argument is still ongoing 8 years into this fight.
Me too. Though I'm not sure it's reductionist -- it is an effort to make sense out of a very chaotic situation that has been exacerbated over a period of eight years -- or, actually, over a period of eight or more one year or less tours with a number of people going in different directions and no unity of command.
I would think that people would be arguing more about details rather than whether "hearts-and-minds" snake oil salesmen or people properly focused on killing and war as war has been for 3000 years are right. You need both and need to properly integrate all of your means and that is where the discussion should be: integration and synergy of the different means and ways.
True. That particular argument is not directed at Afghanistan other than peripherally. That argument is principally directed at FUTURE US Government policy, strategies and direction plus future (now in development) doctrine and force structure...

Afghanistan is on auto pilot with a coalescing mix of TTP -- no one's devoting much effort to it because what will happen there is pretty well locked in for the next three plus years.

It is simply being used as a How Not To Do It Training Aid by people on both sides of the very real doctrinal divide to point out their ideas for 2020. It's a big fight, it's real and has power players on both sides.

Sorry for the delay, two finger typist, sorry for the length, didn't want to leave much out; obviously discard all you think irrelevant.