Quote Originally Posted by Entropy View Post
Exactly, and in Afghanistan we are doing both. I'm not sure how useful it is to pick one over the other at the level of "Afghanistan" or, if you're like me and take a bigger picture, at the "AF-Pak" level.
*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.

I've been looking at references this afternoon, and am really disappointed that most of the official literature still limits FID to security assistance, and still (apparently) overlooks the non-kinetic requirements for a viable State (that can, in turn win their COIN fight).

Entropy, where I don't think I agree with you (yet!) is I don't think we're doing FID in AFG (we're not "doing both." We're fighting a COIN fight...). Our efforts to build ANSF are really in support of our own COIN (and other) objectives; not, as would be the case in a true FID-driven mission, IOT give GIROA the capacity to win this fight. Data points? The POI for ANSF are ours, not theirs. Less decisive, but still important (to my mind), the standards for training are ours; artificially high, especially in areas of human rights and other western constructs.