Yeah, how about you introduce yourself here? Not to threaten you, but don't make me unfriend you from FacebookOriginally Posted by jmm99
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Mike
Yeah, how about you introduce yourself here? Not to threaten you, but don't make me unfriend you from Facebook
Mike
jmm -- You posit correctly.
I've been around SWC for a couple of years, but tend to lurk more than post (and when I did post, it was under my real name; this was before I had professional justifications for anonymity, I suppose).
Mike -- This, of course, is the problem with my thin veil of anonymity: I'm not on Facebook as "Gulliver"!
No worries. Just poking the bear
Control comes before Collaboration
Mike F,
I just hope as 'Ink Spots' moves along they can explain to this "armchair" watcher why Helmand Province is so (deleted) valuable that the UK commits 7-9k and the USMC 8k plus? Plus a reported 8K ANP (which I simply don't believe). Better back off this "hobby horse" quest.
davidbfpo
One of my brothers, an SF buddy, was the sole-battlespace owner for two years in Helmand (in between rotations). Long before the rest of us could spell Helmand, he was screaming of the threat of safehavens, shadow gov'ts, training camps, and narco-terrorism. Nobody listened. He handed off responsibility to the UK. We've discussed the problem in length over many lunches and dinners.
Back in the day, the British refused his recommendations along the lines of Jim Gant, and they established a FOB in the desert far removed from the populace.
I've made some of my points clear on other threads. At this point, I am only saddened at our lack of creativity, ingenuity, and resolve.
I can resolve any safe-haven dillema with 10 hand-picked men and an unlimited budget or 200 paratroopers.
From an acorn observer comes a mighty hammer
Mike F,
Cheers for that. I'd read the only Western presence in Helmand Province before the UK choose it as the place to be, in 2006, was only a small US SF presence. I accept the Taliban were there, maybe a "safe haven", but "mowing the grass" was far from worthwhile.
davidbfpo
He was that "small US SF presence."
In this case, as with most of small wars, size does not matter. As many tell their wives and girlfriends, "sometimes less is more!!!"
As for me, I walk with a big stick regardless of my numbers
Cause that is where the pipeline is going.
Link F.W.Engdahl article
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.ne...ghanistan.html
I agree with most of the points from Gulliver, just like MikeF and JMM. Control is a key point to settle your position. But not THE key.
Counterinsurgency theory is based on the fact you are ruling a place and then you become or stay more attractive by your capacity to deliver social services and protection. The challenge on uncontrolled areas is to reinstall the legitimacy and the legacy of loyalist power. This is costly, extremely costly. Why? Because you have to conduct at the same time shock or hold operations and convince the people that you are the legitimate power.
In somehow, in red areas, you are the insurgent (with a lot more means, manpower and money). The battle you are conducting is the propaganda phase from Mao insurgency three phases, the very first one step.
In such approach, you need to put more efforts and money into red areas. But, in the same time, and this is costly, you have to strength and settle your position in green areas.
Loosing the red areas may look more interesting in a short term. But after, you put your self into a defense strategy. This never works. The best defense being attack, you have to challenge the insurgents in red areas. They protect people then you have to demonstrate to the people that they are not protected. You cannot kill them but you can disrupt their economy, the distribution of justice…
Justice, as it is mentioned in the first quote from MikeF, is one of the most important issue to be addressed. Justice does not have to be the tool to distribute terror but to convince population that under your power, justice is protecting them.
In green areas, distributing justice and fighting corruption should have been the objective since the first day.
As humanitarian coordinator, I can just agree with Steve. And not just about social services. Bad implementation of any kind of aid based on administrative career is may be the most counter productive thing that we have been able to come with in conflict areas.As a senior planning adviser in Iraq, I lived with that book and it's realizations, and tried to re-direct US efforts to helping Iraqis to fix what was broken, rather than any stupid US programs and projects. Obviously, in 2007, I was too late to stop much of the Sorcerer's Apprentice buckets of cash wasted, but did what I could.
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