Winning the War in Afghanistan

[Bob's World]

Yup. Of course, sometimes we do and you don't listen .

Those who are the busiest telling others what to do and how to do it are rarely the best listeners as well. Particularly when they are so damn certain in their "rightness."

[max161]

Those who are the busiest telling others what to do and how to do it are rarely the best listeners as well. Particularly when they are so damn certain in their "rightness."

We should all heed those wise words especially here on the SW Council!!!

I think it would be a great graduate student project for someone to analyze the national security debate since about 2006 to the present and try to assess the major protagonists (and antagonists)and their actual contributions to the debate and discern whether their outspoken positions on everything from the success or lack of success of the "Surge" to the American Way of COIN to the so-called "lily pad" "strategy" has really contributed to our ability to protect US national security. Or are they just peddling their own pet ideas and projects?

Debate is healthy and important but so is the ability to listen, learn, and discern, so that we can prevent the three major failures of all military operations - failure to learn, failure to adapt, and failure to anticipate (Cohen and Gooch in Military Misfortune)

[Fuchs]

Krulak letter to George Will

http://abcnews.go.com/images/ThisWee...ak_letter2.pdf

He's not about winning, but about accomplishing the real mission.

[Surferbeetle]

SWJ attracts excellent minds and acts as a digital salon which allows for the critical examination of many facets of the complex problems we face. I greatly appreciate the opportunities to visit because of the reasoned discourse shared by experienced people.

Marc, Dayuhan, Ken, Bill Moore, ODB, Omarali50, Wilf, and many others to include BW have valued insights to share however we all, to include myself, need to regularly fight the tendency to conflate our egos with the issues at hand.......this is much bigger than just one mans opinion...

[slapout9]

Yup. Of course, sometimes we do and you don't listen .

I am a Wardenfile but Bob is a "Missionary Man" for your listening pleasure and cultural enhancement.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RMEDBhXh-w

[jmm99]

Mr Will's article I read, but GEN Krulak's letter (linked by Fuchs) got my attention. The pdf doesn't allow cut & paste - so his 5 points are attached. I think they deserve some discussion here.

Buggered up my hand this weekend (so, one finger typing which does the hand no good) - in Internet terms, the lawyer is effectively silenced.

[Ken White]

Not being a Lawyer but able to use two fingers on the keyboard and being always willing to share my opinions, I'll take a shot at it.

General Krulak is as usual, pretty well on the money -- though I think he missed one critical issue. By the numbers:

1. He's right, of course -- that does not change the fact that we should be able to get DoD and DoS on the same page and it would behoove us to do so to preclude or at least diminish future stupidity on this scale. Depart too soon and the impetus to fix that disconnect will be diligently allowed to dissipate with the connivance of both Departments.

2. True, no question -- we do not have the troops to do the COIN trick. So any idea of 'fixing' Afghanistan before we depart should be DOA. We can leave it better than we found it and we can do as best we can what we said we would do and not just abandon them as we had before. Pakistan would appreciate that. So would Russia. So will the Afghans. So will we in the long term -- one of those pay now or pay more later things...

3. He's right again. We cannot defeat their ideas in spite of eight years trying. Will we -- can we -- come up with better ideas in the near term? Perhaps, perhaps not. Long as we're there, no harm in trying.

4. Still right -- But:

Afghanistan's structure is not a vital US national interest, nor, in a sense is that of Pakistan -- however, reasonable performance by both is in the interest of the world -- and thus, ultimately, in our interest to at least some degree.

What is in our national interest is finishing the commitment we launched eight years ago. It is not a 'vital' interest in the existential category however it is a critical issue that can have long term deleterious effects on the existential bit if not properly handled -- as we have seen over the past 30 years.

Whether we should have launched and made such a commitment is irrelevant. We did and we're there. In the view of most in the West, obviously including General Krulak and George Will, that is not a pressing or non-negotiable commitment; we should be able to say "we're tired now and the Troops are being run ragged by this and we need the money spent here at home so we plan to pack up and go home." We can say that.

However, the rest of the world will know we reneged on a commitment that we freely made. Even if we elect to go into denial over the issue, others will not. They will add one more item to the "America can be worn down" list which already has too many entries.

His suggestion about Hunter Killer Teams is reasonable and can be done. Unfortunately, it will not stop the slide of Afghanistan into chaos and will get a lot of good guys killed for very little benefit. I've done what he suggests as did many in the 1st MarDiv and the Army's 5th RCT in Korea in early 1951. It is effective, it cleared out the Guerrilla remnants of the North Korean Army (who were not well trained but were very dedicated -- as are others) around Masan and Pusan in a matter of weeks. It also killed a helluva lot of civilians and created one of today's hotbeds of anti-US sentiment in South Korea, That's 58 years ago -- and they still remember. Most of the world has a far longer memory (and attention span) than Americans seem to possess. I think he and Will both forgot that as well...

I also strongly doubt that we have adequate forces trained in numbers to support the idea; I doubt that Congress would go along with it -- certainly not after the first couple of H-K Teams got totally wiped out by the opposition -- or a Wedding Party proven innocent is killed to the last baby.

His suggestion entails a bunch of support and airplane people in Afghanistan. Due to distances involved, at least some would have to be there; the other 'Stans can and might take a few but no one will take many Americans because the Russians don't want that -- either way, those become targets as do their resupply convoys. Of course, we could use Contractors or get the Afghan Police to provide security. In short that's one of those idea that looks great on paper but a closer look reveals problems of capability -- and will. And little real change...

In summary, lot to agree with. However, he totally ignores the non-western idea of humbling the Great Satan as an activity for fun and profit. Surprising given Beirut and a Marine plus the hard fact that the humbling bit is exactly why we are in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's the goal they have, humbling -- death by a thousand grains of sand -- and our early departure from Afghanistan would aid them in achieving it.

We may not have a clearly defined goal in the eyes of many but I submit that goal should simply be to finish what we started, get a minimalist government in place that most Afghans can and will support -- then make sure we don't get stuck on stupid and try to do stuff like this in the future -- because regardless of what many like to think, we don't have that many friends out there and there are a great many who do not wish us well. Faltering performance is seen by many as an invitation to kill the weak who cannot keep up. Or to help others do that...

[Surferbeetle]

From Business Week by Amb. Ryan Crocker: The Ambassador on the Front Lines

Americans tend to want to identify a problem, fix it, and then move on. Sometimes this works. Often it does not. Of course, imposing ourselves on hostile or chaotic societies is no solution either. The perceived arrogance and ignorance of overbearing powers can create new narratives of humiliation that will feed calls for vengeance centuries from now. What's needed in dealing with this world is a combination of understanding, persistence, and strategic patience to a degree that Americans, traditionally, have found hard to muster.

From London Review of Books by Amb. Rory Stewart The Irresistible Illusion

The fundamental assumptions remain that an ungoverned or hostile Afghanistan is a threat to global security; that the West has the ability to address the threat and bring prosperity and security; that this is justified and a moral obligation; that economic development and order in Afghanistan will contribute to global stability; that these different objectives reinforce each other; and that there is no real alternative. One indication of the enduring strength of such assumptions is that they are exactly those made in 1868 by Sir Henry Rawlinson, a celebrated and experienced member of the council of India, concerning the threat of a Russian presence in Afghanistan:

In the interests, then, of peace; in the interests of commerce; in the interests of moral and material improvement, it may be asserted that interference in Afghanistan has now become a duty, and that any moderate outlay or responsibility we may incur in restoring order at Kabul will prove in the sequel to be true economy.

[Rex Brynen]

We may not have a clearly defined goal in the eyes of many but I submit that goal should simply be to finish what we started, get a minimalist government in place that most Afghans can and will support

...this is becoming harder by the day, if the latest reports on the scale of voter fraud in the elections are accurate:

Fake Afghan Poll Sites Favored Karzai, Officials Assert, New York Times, 6 September 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.

The fake sites, as many as 800, existed only on paper, said a senior Western diplomat in Afghanistan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the vote. Local workers reported that hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of votes for Mr. Karzai in the election last month came from each of those places. That pattern was confirmed by another Western official based in Afghanistan.

“We think that about 15 percent of the polling sites never opened on Election Day,” the senior Western diplomat said. “But they still managed to report thousands of ballots for Karzai.”

Besides creating the fake sites, Mr. Karzai’s supporters also took over approximately 800 legitimate polling centers and used them to fraudulently report tens of thousands of additional ballots for Mr. Karzai, the officials said.

The result, the officials said, is that in some provinces, the pro-Karzai ballots may exceed the people who actually voted by a factor of 10. “We are talking about orders of magnitude,” the senior Western diplomat said.

...

Most of the fraud perpetrated on behalf of Mr. Karzai, officials said, took place in the Pashtun-dominated areas of the east and south where officials said that turnout on Aug. 20 was exceptionally low. That included Mr. Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where preliminary results indicate that more than 350,000 ballots have been turned in to be counted. But Western officials estimated that only about 25,000 people actually voted there.

[slapout9]

Link to website on some history Oil and Violence in A'stan.


http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline.htm

[Ken White]

My definition of 'minimalist' government is probably far more minimal than most...

I also believe that virtually anyone who ascends to the Presidency of Afghanistan is going to be tainted much like Karzai. I pointed out to a friend the other day that our politicians are not a great deal better, they just have a few more social constraints.

We are not going to 'fix' Afghanistan; not least because the social constraint process there is quite different and those pertaining to good government we have developed over centuries (heh!) imply time they do not have. However, we did say we would 'fix' it. That was regrettable political hype or abysmal stupidity -- probably a bit of both. We cannot foster the establishment of a decent government there for three reasons; the Afghans don't want one; we don't have the time or money to do that; and the Afghans don't want one...

So we need to acknowledge that reality. Will and Krulak are both correct on the practicalities and all the reasons to say 'we tried' and just depart except for two that neither addressed: We have not really tried thus far. We said to the world that we would not again abandon Afghanistan.

For those reasons, I'm pretty firmly convinced that we should give it a bit longer and really try to do the 'fix' thing -- my perception is that is in process with State taking ownership of many things they should've had six years ago -- and we need to depart fairly soon, couple of years or so, with the fond blessings of a nominal Afghan government much as we are departing Iraq. That means a continuing but far lower key engagement. My perception is that also is in process (couple more Fuel Tank Trailers may speed that up a bit... ). It'll take a bit.

The COIN view of ten years or more engagement is unlikely (and highly undesirable IMO) and departing abruptly presents many difficulties. A moderate approach between those poles with acknowledgment that Afghan government will be an Afghan construct and thus unpalatable to many in the west.

The alternative, Krulak's Hunter Killer Teams would require probably about 2-300 well trained platoon sized elements, around 10K troops plus about half that for support (X3 to allow for rotation) to decently cover the 936km Iranian border and the 2,430km Paksitani border -- both in some really bad terrain. You could provide fewer but that is really not an economy of force mission if you expect any success at all.

To leave and "go back punitively" is a pipe dream. May work in bong reality but on the ground, there is no infrastructure there to damage and no cohesive force to be punished. IOW, it would be late 2001 all over again. We could easily do it. Then what?

Hopefully we'll have learned from this to avoid such arrant stupidity in the future. We can and should assist the UN and others in nation building; we should assist internal development diplomatically and with USAid -- and even commit police trainers and SF where appropriate -- but we need to realize that commitment of a mass of US Forces will change the dynamics in generally unpredictable but most always adverse ways.

[jmm99]

One finger, hurty typing - so, briefly.

Convert the mission to true peace enforcement (note, I did not say peacekeeping) - separation of Pashtun forces south of trans-Astan highway (Hwy 1) from Karzai forces north of highway. Continue FID to Karzai security forces, but no combat support unless Pashtun armed forces cross highway.

We (international community under German lead at Bonn) created a constitutional and statutory framework for Astan govt. It's up to them to implement it by negotiation between Karzai and Pashtuns.

GEN Krulak's point 4 - decide who is US enemy for direct action. AQ - yes (take them out); Taliban - no, unless they get in the way. Krulak's HK teams (and your estimate of force requirements) would be aimed at AQ groups.

We cannot continue fighting the Pashtun nationalists unless we are willing and able to commit the 100s of 1000s of troops that GEN Krulak cited. There are more Pashtuns in Astan and Pstan (42 million) than there were Vietnamese in 1965, N & S (38 million).

[Bob's World]

Krulak basically said what I have been saying, but I would not commit anywhere near the 2-300 platoons Ken suggests. Like the General asks "who is the enemy"? We don't want to build and sustain a string of fortified patrol bases to enforce a border that means nothing to the people of the region to kill those same people. I think more a size element with CIA and full support of both Af and Pak intel; to work from the shadows, not bases; to go after the 2-300 specific men we are after to keep them in the shadows as well.

I also think this is a great place to test some new political concepts of sovereignty. We say the Westphalian system is under attack and evolving, yet we do little proactive to shape that evolution. I like my concept of a lesser included form of sovereignty for the Pashtun people that grants them special rights and self-governance within an area marked by their traditional tribal homelands, but not removed from the states it exists within. Like if we had a huge Indian reservation that straddled the Canadian border. Unique rights and privileges for those of the tribes, but full rights of citizenry from the states that have emerged around them. Use that as a start point, devil in the details as usual, but have the moral courage to try something new!

If it worked, then we could look if the States that contain the Kurds would be open to a similar approach; It could be a pressure valve, I suspect, to many African states as well.

Royalties for mineral rights, easements, etc all need to be worked in advance. We are still pulling tons of gold from the Black Hills, and the Sioux got nothing. How different their experience would have been if granted even a 10% take.

Bottom line, is if we do what we've always done, but the conditions have changed, we won't get what we've always got. We'll get failure and conflict. We must evolve with the times. The top dog loves the status quo, and the trail dogs embrace change. We need to embrace change as well.

[jmm99]

BW: As to your first paragraph, that's between Ken, you and whoever else military wants to chime in on bases and force structure.

As to your second paragraph, specifically..

I like my concept of a lesser included form of sovereignty for the Pashtun people that grants them special rights and self-governance within an area marked by their traditional tribal homelands, but not removed from the states it exists within. Like if we had a huge Indian reservation that straddled the Canadian border. Unique rights and privileges for those of the tribes, but full rights of citizenry from the states that have emerged around them.

that is one possibility. But, what results is not what we like, but what can be negotiated by Karzai govt, Pashtuns and Pakistan.

We don't negotiate, but only establish an arbitrary Tripwire Line (in orange on revised map from Khyber Pass to Turkmenistan) to separate the warring parties in Astan - peace enforcement (Joint Pub 3-07.3, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Peace Operations, Chap III, as updated by more recent operations).

The trans-Astan highway is symbolic - do these folks want a united Astan or not ?

PS: The peace enforcement operation (basically NATO + US FID) would be separate from the direct action operations vs AQ (OEF mandated under the 2001 AUMF), continued under SOCOM C&C.

[Ken White]

In the east it's called surrendering. Really. They do not do compromise other than as a tactical ploy.

That's the issue -- all this is based on western perceptions and would be possibly good ideas were we but fighting other westerners. We are not.

JMM

GEN Krulak's point 4 - decide who is US enemy for direct action. AQ - yes (take them out); Taliban - no, unless they get in the way. Krulak's HK teams (and your estimate of force requirements) would be aimed at AQ groups.

Aside from the difficulty of determining the difference between the uninvolved, the AQ type and the Talibs -- that's two out of three to be not fired up; preponderence of evidence goes to 'don't shoot' -- and, Krulak not withstanding, that will affect the ROE and, more importantly, it will affect the outlook of the teams on the ground.

I was looking at interdiction to keep the majority of the Talibs in Pakistan from whence they come to allow that government to take care of them and the Afghan government to try to insinuate itself. Others appear to see it as a HVT takeout option, an option that IMO is not nearly as successful as many seem to believe. Leaders can be and are replaced, often one takes out an ineffectual opponent only to have him replaced with a guy who knows what he's doing and is terribly effective...

We cannot continue fighting the Pashtun nationalists unless we are willing and able to commit the 100s of 1000s of troops that GEN Krulak cited. There are more Pashtuns in Astan and Pstan (42 million) than there were Vietnamese in 1965, N & S (38 million).

We are not fighting Pashtun Nationalists. We are in conflict with less than 2% (plus the people they hire to fight for them who are not nearly so committed) of the total Pashtun demographic who want to impose a rigid Islamic code that is actually alien to the Pashtun tradition and is not really wanted by most. You forgot to mention that Afghanistan is also four times larger in area than Viet Nam and has much more difficult terrain, militarily a far greater problem than the population herring.

Bob'sWorld

Krulak basically said what I have been saying, but I would not commit anywhere near the 2-300 platoons Ken suggests. Like the General asks "who is the enemy"? We don't want to build and sustain a string of fortified patrol bases to enforce a border that means nothing to the people of the region to kill those same people. I think more a size element with CIA and full support of both Af and Pak intel; to work from the shadows, not bases...

The term Hunter Killer teams implies mobile teams with no bases, thus the shadows are a given. However, those teams do need support so there will be bases somewhere in the vicinity. Those and the Air support that GEN Krulak suggests will be targets of intent for the bad guys, they will require security. My point was and is that there will be only a small footprint reduction with Krulak's admittedly different plan..

I'm looking forward to learning how you will obtain the unbiased and unstinting support of Afghanistan and Pakistan Intel elements...

...to go after the 2-300 specific men we are after to keep them in the shadows as well.

Why, Bob, you old kidder -- and I thought you wanted a change to the way we the USA do business -- you just want to continue using the Tampa approach and go for the HVTs...

How's that going for us? Not in numbers -- in actual effect?

How does that proposal by you square with this:

...We must evolve with the times. The top dog loves the status quo, and the trail dogs embrace change. We need to embrace change as well.

Seems to me you're supporting the intent and hoped for effect of a program with which I once worked long ago in an galaxy far away. That one, BTW, did not get too far in achieving the desired effect -- it also imposed a cost on us.

As an aside on the HK Teams and options to field such an effort -- I'd agree that if we did that, the Agency should have the job with local hires. That would entail Congressional approval and funding. It would entail SOCOM backing out of the picture in large measure. Good luck with that effort on either count.

I like my concept of a lesser included form of sovereignty for the Pashtun people that grants them special rights and self-governance within an area marked by their traditional tribal homelands, but not removed from the states it exists within.

Have you spoken to the Pakistanis, the rest of Afghanistan, the Russians, the Tajiks or the Indians to get their sensing on this? Or the Chinese with their little training mission in Qal'eh e Panjeh? Or even the bulk of the Pushtuns?

I thought you were opposed to pushing our solutions off on others...

[Fuchs]

In the east it's called surrendering. Really. They do not do compromise other than as a tactical ploy.

That's B.S. Compromise is no Western concept and compromise isn't the same as surrender anywhere.*

Total War/war goal "(unconditional) surrender" is ingrained in Western minds more than anywhere else.
Others do limited warfare and accept unclear war outcomes much more readily than Westerners do (averages/medians each).

Or do you want to assert that India surrendered to Pakistan? Pakistan to India? PR China to Vietnam?


Besides; I've seen "surrender" being mis-used in so many political discussions among Americans that were pure B.S. that I abstain from throwing the word into discussions altogether.

---------------------------------------------------------
*: Except in American right wing speeches and comments that I won't give a rating here for reasons of netiquette.

[Ken White]

That's B.S. Compromise is no Western concept and compromise isn't the same as surrender anywhere.*

It's not B.S. -- it's hyperbole; an overstatement to make a point. The population of the Middle East and South Asia are great hagglers and bargainers -- it's an effort at which they excel. In such bargaining, things that to a westerner might seem as compromises are taken by the locals as concessions.

That obviously cannot correlate to all activity but there is enough correlation for me to have made the point the way I did -- so not B.S. as you so nicely put it due to your failure to understand, simply hyperbole.

The statement by me that "they do not compromise other than as a tactical ploy" OTOH is accurate for most dealings with locals in that area. That's then obviously not B.S. in any way.

Total War/war goal "(unconditional) surrender" is ingrained in Western minds more than anywhere else...Others do limited warfare and accept unclear war outcomes much more readily than Westerners do (averages/medians each).

Thank you for reinforcing my point. That's exactly what I meant. They are extremely pragmatic and they know that as well as you and I do, thus they will accept our departure too soon with equanimity if not glee and immediately turn it to their psychological and media advantage. Their advantage is our disadvantage; not ruin, just disadvantage, not significant even perhaps -- but one that it is not necessary or desirable to have occur.

Besides; I've seen "surrender" being mis-used in so many political discussions among Americans that were pure B.S. that I abstain from throwing the word into discussions altogether...*: Except in American right wing speeches and comments that I won't give a rating here for reasons of netiquette.

Thank you for the netiquette. Might I suggest you lay off the "B.S." tag as well -- particularly when you do not know what was in the mind of the writer toward whom you sling that phrase. You do that all too often. Attack dogs have their place but a discussion board isn't one of them, a growl can come across as a bite.

You might recall that I've often said that the words 'win,' victory,' 'defeat' and 'lose' have no place in wars of this type; all that can be hoped for is an acceptable outcome. By extrapolation, that applies as well to 'surrender' so your comment on that score doesn't apply to me, it's a generic comment that adds nothing to the thread and was superfluous to your erroneous B.S. call. You do that all too often as well.

[Fuchs]

I slinged "B.S." at your writing, not at your mind - and I stick with it.

[Ron Humphrey]

tough to keep up with but trying none the less

On a side note Everyone like to talk about Westphalian or western constructs as disconnect points

Am I following that reasoning if I ask myself the question how would China do what I 'm trying to do

(Especially when the answer there seems much more straightforward-
{Outbid the bad guys and not care who gets hurt doin it})

[Bob's World]

I never profess to have "the answer," I am however, able to look at something that is not working, think about it, and offer "an answer," that is both more likely to succeed than "do the same old crap, except more of it," and more constructive than "this sucks."

Its a start point.

Populaces are rebelling in the middle east for a reason. That reason is not "ideology," it is not about religion, and it is not "because they hate us." It is about politics, and human nature, and man's natural tendency to prefer a hell of his own making than a paradise forced upon him by another. Bin Laden and AQ are born of their time. If not him, it would be someone else. If not AQ it would be some other organization. They may be the enemy, but they are not the threat. The threat is the conditions that gave rise to them. To ignore the conditions to attack the symptoms is to make the conditions worse while weakening our ability to resist the real threat at the same time. To me, that is high order short-sighted foolishness.

So here we are. We can keep working to force people to accept what they reject and foment the perpetual conflict of "irregular warfare;" or we can help enable populaces to seek new governmental constructs of their own making, and perhaps allow for more evolution than revolution as these changes work out.

In the end, there is no end. No option is perfect, and there will always be conflict. The real question is what role do you want the United States to play in all of this? Personally I prefer what Marc call the "Myth" of our idealistic history over the reality of our current role as enforcer of the effort to sustain an out of date status quo.