Quote Originally Posted by kingo1rtr View Post
One of the early contentions in this thread was the premise that war is war. I wonder if we ought to be making security in Afghanistan, not war. Why?
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My point being if we kick every door down to get at the Taliban (and most of those doors belong to locals), and do get our man, what use is it if we turn round and there is nothing to hand him to, if we have failed to create the security, in doing so failing to win the 'minds' of the local, are we not ultimately failing, simply creating a tactical gain but underpinning operational failure and ultimately strategic stalemate?
You have just cited a superb and I think accurate rationale for why these types of operations are best avoided. That means identifying future problems early on, increasing the Corps Diplomatique locally, sending in a few SAS / SF and some Police Assisters on a low key basis and putting USAid or DFID to work BEFORE one needs to send the Army in. Thus hopefully to preclude having to do so.

Once you send in the Armies, the potential for escalation is significant, that for war almost assured. Armies break things. If they do that well (and they are worthless if they do not), they'll almost certainly do the foreign internal development thing poorly for a number of practical reasons.

Armies need to be trained to and able to do that mission, no question -- and the US was quite remiss in not being so prepared eight years ago and that has cost us -- but to expect more than a marginal performance and problem free execution from any decent Armies in such missions is deluded.

So you're spot on.

Now to get the Politicians aligned...