Reconciliation and COIN in Afghanistan

[Steve the Planner]

(Moderators note copied here from Strategic Intelligence thread, as appropriate).

Went to a Center for American Progress conference today.

Gilles Dorronsoro, Micheal Semple and Joanne Nathan (corrected), all non-US experts who have been in Afghanistan since before 2001.

Each had a presentation on their field. Most of you have heard some of this: Dorronsorro (secure the cities first, etc..), and Semple's work with the Taliban are pretty well known.

Nathan, an Australian, asked: What's this COIN thing about? I read the manual and it said Clear-Hold-Build, but all you ever do is Clear, Clear, Clear. No administrative purpose or capability. Why are you clearing unless you have civilian capacity to Hold and Build? Where has this strategy ever been applied?

Even Andrew Exum didn't take a stab at answering that.

The big question that all were asked to comment on: What do you think of these people who see one small part of the country, then try to exprapolte what they saw there to a bigger picture about the country? (Obviously, the Hoh question).

They were pretty devastating in explaining just a snippet of what they know about the whole country, and why that kind of speculation is not useful.

Like Exum said, DC is usually full of generalists, and it was a rare opportunity to have three leading specialists in one place.

Certainly worth hearing every word yourself to build or assess strategy.

http://www.americanprogress.org/even...streaming.html

Steve