COIN -v- CT debate

[William F. Owen]

It also makes me think of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, C Sqdn SAS, and Selous Scouts...but those folks were fighting pure COIN in a very classical sense. And the insurgents still "won". There were a ton of other factors at play, but they still won.

What often gets missed is that by 1979 the Rhodesians had inflicted such appalling casualties on the Insurgents and wrecked the economies of every neighbouring country that harboured them, that

a.) The Insurgents were going to transition to becoming a regular force with aircraft and armour - and might still loose!
b.) The UK, US and SA were no longer able to stand by and watch things get worse if the insurgency used regular armies.

Rhodesia was proof of classic Clausewitz. Rhodesia solved the military problem. The Insurgents had to negotiate their way into power Power was going to change hands. It was just when and how.

[Dayuhan]

I've always wondered if the AQ/Taliban link is as absolute and unbreakable as some propose. There seems to be a natural cause of internal conflict there: I'm sure at least some in the Taliban have noted that if Osama hadn't taken his show to America - an act which did nothing at all for the Taliban - they'd be running the show in Kabul today, instead of hiding in caves.

I've also wondered what might have happened if we'd got to Kabul in the first place, seen the Taliban off, and left... with a widely distributed statement that we are leaving Afghanistan to the Afghans, it's none of our business what they do with it, leave us alone and we'll leave you alone... but if you attack us or harbor those who do, we will be back, and if we have to come back we are going to level every structure that stands more than 6" above ground.

Impossible to assess a road not taken, but I wonder if the point would have gotten across.

My basic reservation with COIN in Afghanistan is that ultimately the success of COIN rides on the development of an Afghan government that has the capacity to govern the entire nation in an effective - or at least functional - manner, and I'm not sure we have the capacity to make that happen.

[tequila]

I've always wondered if the AQ/Taliban link is as absolute and unbreakable as some propose. There seems to be a natural cause of internal conflict there: I'm sure at least some in the Taliban have noted that if Osama hadn't taken his show to America - an act which did nothing at all for the Taliban - they'd be running the show in Kabul today, instead of hiding in caves.

Even after we had slaughtered them and driven the survivors across the border, the Taliban did not turn on al-Qaeda. They instead turned to them to provide the funding, the weapons, the leadership, and the training to take us on again.

This dream that somehow we can sever the link between the Taliban high command and the al-Qaeda leadership always strikes me as severely misguided. What in the history of the Taliban makes anyone believe that these people (senior leadership) are believers or practicioners of realpolitik? That would they abandon a key ally of decades to satisfy an infidel power?

The Taliban made deals with many past Afghan enemies on their climb to power, but that was always on their terms and to assist their own rise to power --- not compromising their own ideals, but forcing others to compromise theirs to assist them.

[Entropy]

I've always wondered if the AQ/Taliban link is as absolute and unbreakable as some propose. There seems to be a natural cause of internal conflict there: I'm sure at least some in the Taliban have noted that if Osama hadn't taken his show to America - an act which did nothing at all for the Taliban - they'd be running the show in Kabul today, instead of hiding in caves.

This is something that's come up recently. See here and here and here.