A suggestion for changing the course of the conflict on the Afghan/Pakistani frontier

[Rank amateur]

To answer Ken's question, the president has a number of carrots and sticks. I believe, "if you don't cooperate we'll bomb you into the stone age," did the trick after 9/11. "If you launch a true counterinsurgency campaign we will give you these things:... If you don't, we will bomb the hell out of your tribal regions" should do the trick. And my point is that if it isn't done things will get worse. Just like they continued to get worse in Iraq until we established population control.

Hi RA,
In a SWJ blog last December titled "Can the Anbar Strategy Work in Pakistan?", Clint Watts illuminated three impediments to separating foreign Jihadis from the tribes:

- "al-Qa’ida has operated in the tribal regions of Pakistan for more than two decades and today it is part of the region’s fabric, not an outsider"

- Ideological fissures are small because "today there is a greater overlap between the Deobandi strain of Islam that the Taliban follows and the Salafism of al-Qa’ida"

- Financial inducements are unlikely to work because the "tribes in Waziristan have already withstood six years of pressure from Musharraf and al-Qa’ida has more than twenty years worth of supply networks in the region"

That's why you need to go into the village en masse, arrest all the foreigners and stay in the village for 15 years: clear and hold.

Open source information indicates that the local Pashtuns in the FATA have reacted badly to the recent US ground and air incursions.

Of course they are. That's COIN 101. If we kill the bad guy, his wife and the rest of the tribe is going to get angry and seek revenge. The only solution is to put so many troops in the village that there is nothing the population can do to get revenge when you kill the bad guy. Then you spend 10 or 15 years trying to win hearts and minds.

That's why the argument we can't afford to do it right so let's do it half assed doesn't make any sense. There is no half assed counterinsurgency. You either establish population control or make things worse by angering the population and increasing the insurgent recruitment rate.

[Ken White]

let me suggest that logical solutions occur to others as well as to ones self -- if they aren't being used, there may be a reason...

To answer Ken's question, the president has a number of carrots and sticks. I believe, "if you don't cooperate we'll bomb you into the stone age," did the trick after 9/11. "If you launch a true counterinsurgency campaign we will give you these things:... If you don't, we will bomb the hell out of your tribal regions" should do the trick. And my point is that if it isn't done things will get worse. Just like they continued to get worse in Iraq until we established population control.

Re: the first item -- do you know that or just think that might be the case? Re: the others, if the answers are "We'd like to but cannot;" and "If you do that we will have a rebellion which will make matters worse." What then will you do?

That's why you need to go into the village en masse, arrest all the foreigners and stay in the village for 15 years: clear and hold.

Where do you get the manpower and US political will to do that?

Of course they are. That's COIN 101. If we kill the bad guy, his wife and the rest of the tribe is going to get angry and seek revenge. The only solution is to put so many troops in the village that there is nothing the population can do to get revenge when you kill the bad guy. Then you spend 10 or 15 years trying to win hearts and minds.

That's why the argument we can't afford to do it right so let's do it half assed doesn't make any sense. There is no half assed counterinsurgency. You either establish population control or make things worse by angering the population and increasing the insurgent recruitment rate.

Shame the Administration and the big Army didn't know that in 2001 -- but they did not.

Did you know that then or have you learned it since like so many others?

By the way, Afghanistan is not an insurgency...

[Pragmatic Thinker]

QR,

Much of what you propose (i.e. combined operations with the PKMIL) have already been floated by the Pakistani's with them answering with a resounding 'NO'. They are not unlike any other people on this earth, and they do not see the value in having armed US forces patrolling inside their borders 'fixing' the Al Qaeda problem. Why this is unpopular inside Pakistan is endless, but again they are a soveriegn people who suspiciously view our activities in Afghanistan as yet another failed 'Great Game' attempt to mold a disparate group of tribals into a civilized western-like society. The Pakistani's know something we fail to admit with regards to Afghanistan and bringing democracy and civilized western values to them -- 'it ain't ever gonna' happen'

Once we start developing a strategy that embraces this fact that the various tribal entities within that God foresaken hole will never embrace western culture and values with regards to basic law, human rights, woman's rights, religious freedoms, and education then we will move beyond this COIN strategy of trying to 'win their hearts and minds' and we will prop up an iron-fisted dictator (think Marcos, Tito, Suharto...our allies in the fight against Communism but instead today it's Terrorism) that will maintain relative peace and support our long term political and economic goals for that region.

PT
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