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Thread: COIN -v- CT debate

  1. #41
    Council Member slapout9's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
    Well aware. So the "so what" is that giving "legal" status creates the condition where your own branches and representatives in government can effectively work against each other. - thus an example of how not to do it!

    So assigning legal status is not actually good a policy as it makes the implementation of strategy far more difficult. Assuming most folks know this, how much further along are we?

    It depends. In a democracy the assumption is that once the vote of yea or nay happens everyone will support the side that wins. The way it actually works, as you point out, is one side will try to exploit political advantage with the intent to create a policy failure which will allow a political advantage during the next election for their own party. So the nation suffers as a whole.

    Which leads me to point two, if the violent act is committed by a non state actor(s) it may be best to treat it as a Law Enforcement problem as opposed to a lets invade every country and turn them into a democracy problem.

  2. #42
    Council Member jcustis's Avatar
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    In reading the Long proposal, it looks neat and clean, and almost sterile of sorts...nice little packages that are able to employ significant freedom of maneuver in order to get the job done. It also makes me think on Takur Ghar mountain, and the challenges faced by similarly-equipped task forces going into a prepared action against particular targets.

    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.

    Long seems to totally wave off the arguments presented by Bruce Riedel and Michael O'Hanlon in their Op-Ed piece, and I've seen that trend apparent in other folks who opine that we should transition to a CT effort. That we can transition to said effort isn't so much the question (we've become particularly adept at dropping from the sky in the dark of night to spirit bad guys away or kill them outright), as is the issue of "well, so what?"

    I don't buy into everything presented in the O'Hanlon and Reidel argument, but the Long piece seems...just odd. The outline of his CT force reads like something I could find in a Popular Mechanics article, or worse yet, on some Call of Duty clan board. I've seen how this works at the pointy tip of the spears, and it takes a lot of "beat cop" sort of work that comes from patrolling, key leader engagements, patrolling, project work, patrolling, security force training, patrolling...you get the picture by now. Bottom line is that it requires a ton of intelligence that I don't think Long can really appreciate because he simply hasn't been part of a targeting cycle for a mission that really counts.

    I like your points Entropy, as I like this snippet from one of the posters to the KOW thread:
    the debate is now so intense that it’s in danger of also acquiring a cartoon-like quality to match it’s blind-faith style structure.
    Last edited by jcustis; 11-11-2009 at 06:28 AM.

  3. #43
    Council Member William F. Owen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jcustis View Post

    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.
    Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"

    - The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
    - If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
    Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition

  4. #44
    Council Member Dayuhan's Avatar
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    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.

  5. #45
    Council Member tequila's Avatar
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    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.

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dayuhan View Post
    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.

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