After the Bin Laden op, what is the impact? Not on terrorism. Merged thread

[Ray]

I've read about insurgents use of motorcycles before. How much of a mobility advantage does that give them and what can we do to counter it? (I know this question is off topic but since you guys are both here I figured I'd ask.)

Everyone in Afghanistan would have a weapon. It is macho. Therefore, if they were on MCs, they would pass off as any other villager!

Only way is to stop them and question them. But that would mean many average chap will be harassed and it would not be good for the PR that is so essential for a COIN campaign.

[JMA]

Everyone in Afghanistan would have a weapon. It is macho. Therefore, if they were on MCs, they would pass off as any other villager!

Only way is to stop them and question them. But that would mean many average chap will be harassed and it would not be good for the PR that is so essential for a COIN campaign.

These guys are (should be) drone fodder (drones are cheaper to operate than gunships). Just take this problem by the scruff of the neck and say to the people in that district that it is open season on guys on MCs. They will get used to it. It will solve the problem in no time. After that you can negotiate the terms and conditions of further MC use in that district.

[carl]

JMA:

I am not sure that would work so well. You would deprive people of an important means of transport for occasional gain. I would guess there wouldn't be enough aircraft available to really make it stick. If you blanketed a small area for just a few days while covering some kind of operation though, maybe that would work. You might still run the risk of knocking off some guy who was desperate to get his sick wife to a doc and wasn't thinking so straight.

When I mentioned the motorcycles I was thinking more along the lines of getting into remote places that our big vehicles can't go either for regular patrolling or in careful pursuit. Should we use motorcycles, or 4-wheelers or dune buggy type things to try to match their mobility? That was what I was thinking.

[JMA]

JMA:

I am not sure that would work so well. You would deprive people of an important means of transport for occasional gain. I would guess there wouldn't be enough aircraft available to really make it stick. If you blanketed a small area for just a few days while covering some kind of operation though, maybe that would work. You might still run the risk of knocking off some guy who was desperate to get his sick wife to a doc and wasn't thinking so straight.

When I mentioned the motorcycles I was thinking more along the lines of getting into remote places that our big vehicles can't go either for regular patrolling or in careful pursuit. Should we use motorcycles, or 4-wheelers or dune buggy type things to try to match their mobility? That was what I was thinking.

Yes that was a quick solution which would need to be worked through tactically before implementation. That video depicted a Taliban group travelling together by motorcycle, a whole bunch of them... and not the odd individual motorcycle travelling around the area.

But are we not back to a similar argument of a year or so ago?

Then there were those arguing to allow the locals to grow poppies as their source of income. I said no poppies others here said the farmers must be allowed to grow poppies and be given an incentive to switch to a less profitable commercial crop.

Well that better plan would have been to tell the farmers that there will be no poppies grown next season... and then enforce it. The incentive would be for the locals to approach the local department of agriculture office to sign up for any incentive scheme going. Done from the outset poppies would be part of history now and I need to be convinced that the military problems in say Helmand could have been worse as a result.

I suggest that the US driven pop-centric approach is the cause for much of the lack of progress in Afghanistan. If you are going to push this pop-centric stuff where are the civil action personnel?

The insane situation was written about when the Brits "best" troops - the Paras - arrived 6 months ago and were tasked to clear an area controlled by the Taliban (so far so good) then they are tasked to hold the ground. Where were the civil action (or equivalent) personnel to follow on and take over? This would release the combat troops to pursue the Taliban or clear new areas etc etc. Its all about horses for courses... and don't use your best troops to secure the area for local government officials and field workers (which I would have thought would have been obvious).

The Afghanistan situation is closer to what the South African forces faced in South West Africa/Namibia. There was a government system (Apartheid) which could never be sold to the population just as in Afghanistan a criminally corrupt Karzai regime could never win the hearts and minds of the Afghan nation.

Dust off your copy of McCuen, find out what the South Africans did and at least dominate the shooting war while the politicians work out an agreement.