Re Hamlets
I co-authored the above article.
I apologise for being so slow in my response here. I have been out of the country for work.
After reading the above comments I decided that because my knowledge of this facet of counter insurgency is less than complete that I ought to ask someone with first hand experience for their input. As I am fairly sure this was done under Chatham House Rules i cannot identify said individual, although it would be fair to say that he is an expert on the strategic considerations in Afghanistan and one of the UK's top serving military officers.
Specifically, I asked for his thoughts on a Strategic Hamlets type programme albeit modified for the Afghan situation, bearing in mind the platoon houses disaster...
So for what its worth here is a summary of his (informal) response ...
Summary of Officer A's Thoughts on Platoon Houses:
When the Brits took over from the Americans in 05-06 it represented a massive increase in forces in the Lashkar Gar area from 130ish to over 4000. Because of the low number of Americans present previously, they had not ventured out much. As the Brits moved out, they over extended themselves and moved up to the three platoon houses where a protracted engagement between the Paras and Taliban commenced. Incidentally, the Uk fired more rounds in 2nd half of 06 in Afghanistan than it did in either of the gulf wars. Fortunately the forces were significant enough at these platoon houses that they could just about look after themselves but eventually we were forced to pull back from those platoon houses. The platoon houses had become targets and were reducing overall security in those areas - they were a tactical mistake that came about for a variety of reasons. [Declined to go into further details as time was pressing although admitting he could talk for hours on it]
Summary of Officer A's Thoughts on Strategic Hamlets:
Essentially a redeployment of population into managed developments - protect these areas and then build out. He thought there was a logic to doing the same in Afghanistan but he would call the strategic Hamlet approach a "tactic" that would depend on what the over all strategy was. If the strategy was to secure the northern boundary (between Pashun population / Taliban Heartland and the relatively peaceful north) then it might be appropriate - essentially, Hamlets would be a tactic that he "would dine on a la carte" depending on what one had decided the strategy was. If a strategic hamlets type tactic was adopted, he would make sure it was part of the wider strategy, at the same time as "securing" the strategic hamlet he would pay equal attention to judicial reform, the police and development in those areas, with a concrete view as to how to build out. But he "wouldn't do it as we have done a lot" as a rather scatter gun thing - "like we did with home guards" with bits and pieces of them all over the place as we sort of tried to get to grips with it. In summary he thought it would be appropriate within the context of a coherent strategy; At this point his colleague interjected and pointed out how painfully awkward it was having to explain to the Afghans why you have just spent 5 years disarming them only to give them their guns back in the space of 6 months because they were now civilian defense volunteers.
Now I am not sure what you want to glean from that, I am sorry it wasn't in a more formal format but I am paraphrasing from a recorded conversation and i am currently too short on time on a Wednesday morning to rewrite the conversation as an article.
B.Cook
Originally Posted by BJohnC
Bookmarks