New Guidance on Counter-Insurgency

[Bill Moore]

Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilR
we ARE NOT (or should not) be doing COIN in Afghanistan, but are supporting another government's COIN effort.

Posted by Dayhuan in response to PhilR,

True in a sense, but the government in question is our creation. We need to remember that, because nobody else in the picture is likely to forget it.

I do tire of the party line that we don't do COIN, we do FID and the host nation does COIN. Hopefully that is true in most in most situations, but it sure as hell doesn't apply to Afghanistan where a large part of the fighting is still being done by U.S. and coalition forces. As the Zen instructor frequently yells during mediation sessions, WAKE UP! We do COIN. We are confusing the desired state (the Afghans leading the COIN effort) with reality, and delusions in war are dangerous.

Besides winning (still needs to be defined), we need to identify what's more important:

- Is the most important thing to win, no matter what? If a win is more important than who wins it, then perhaps we can do more by focusing on winning instead of focusing on nation building.

- On the other hand if it is more important that the Afghans win or lose this fight with the coalition in support, then that leads us to a different strategy (their strategy, not ours).

Which one is it?