Winning the War in Afghanistan

[jmm99]

I'll leave aside the accuracy of their recollections of Vietnam. They point out the near-FUBAR state of the political effort in Astan. Their DRT concept seems a level too high. If Vietnam is any lesson, it is that security and political action must be solid at the village level. There are roughly 40,000 villages in Astan. That is the magnitude of the political action problem. No solution within our capabilities has been presented by anyone I've read.

Moderator's note post copied to seperate discussion on the MR article: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8975

[S-2]

There are roughly 40,000 villages in Astan. That is the magnitude of the political action problem. No solution within our capabilities has been presented by anyone I've read.

At least those 80,000-100,000 troops will be securing the really important places...

...you know, where the hotels, beds, and airports are so our politicians, generals, and scholars can get in and out, a decent meal, and a good night's sleep.

So with my trusty pocket calculator I got 4,937,400 for the top 50 cities in Afghanistan per this link.

So that leaves 24M or so floating around. The cities ran from 2.36M to 1,500.

Guess we don't need 2,000 troops to defend 1500 people though their security should be ASSURED with that many. Sadly, even at 100,000 troops we'd have, what, maybe 10,000 or so trigger-pullers?

I see a lot of empty space surrendered and a lot of people that we won't be protecting even if we doubled the city pop. data I have and cut the total pop. by a third.

Can we fudge some numbers so this population protection thingy doesn't look so whack?

[jmm99]

So, feel free to fudge away.

A more relevant set of numbers would be the number of Afghani soldiers and police, with honesty and integrity, who are willing to go and live in the villages to provide security for the number of local villagers, who are willing to stick out their necks and provide local governance.

Does anyone have that set of metrics ?

[Steve the Planner]

jmm:

As long as the Afghan troops/police sent are going to fit the area---to many stories about the potential conflict of sending urban Uzbek troops to rural Pashtun areas.

S-2:

Something tells me that our move to "safe" cities might not go un-noticed by the Taliban, so what was safe before might be a little more challenging than before. How much easier it is to blend into and destabilize an urban area than a rural one.

Steve

[S-2]

How much easier it is to blend into and destabilize an urban area than a rural one.

Impossible...

...with an invisible but inpenetrable force field.

Here's one nice lil' read about the Tupamaro movement.

Here's a better movie-State Of Siege.

Battle of Algiers, also, obviously makes for worthy viewing for those disinclined towards lengthy and scholarly written works.

Honestly though, I don't think that urban versus rural will present any particular difficulties for the taliban until our allies leave and we can begin to replicate our "surge" tactics of COPs inside urban zones ala Iraq. I understand that Kandahar City is effectively "indian country" after dark and not much better in the day.

That model worked as it seemed to optimize our troop-population ratios in a meaningful 24/7 manner. Short of that, shabnamah will continue ruling the evening.

Comes down to training the afghans to make this work, it seems, and that seems damned discouraging when we can't even seem to train their president.

[Steve the Planner]

S-2:

Good read.

Steve

[Bob's World]

I'll leave aside the accuracy of their recollections of Vietnam. They point out the near-FUBAR state of the political effort in Astan. Their DRT concept seems a level too high. If Vietnam is any lesson, it is that security and political action must be solid at the village level. There are roughly 40,000 villages in Astan. That is the magnitude of the political action problem. No solution within our capabilities has been presented by anyone I've read.

The lesson I take is that when a couple of outside actors waging a much larger competition use the populace of some smaller state to wage their contest in a form of pawn warfare don't be so blinded by your own ends that you are oblivious to those of the populace involved.

We propped up a series of three different ass-hats in Nam because we didn't want the Soviets to go "+1" in the global pawn warfare game that defined much of the Cold War; while the Soviets backed the side seeking freedom from the widely hated scourge of Western Colonialism.

Today there are a large number of populaces across the Middle East also seeking to get out from under the remnants of Western Colonialism and the governments imposed by the West during the Cold War to assure "friendly" relations and the flow of oil...

Once again, I believe we have picked the wrong side, and that is a hard hand to play. This is why I strongly recommned that we co-opt the majority of the AQ message and ussurp them as the champions of the populaces of the Middle East in their quest for better governance. Such a move would sweep AQ's feet out from under them and bring the U.S. into line with our national principles.

But one'll never see this with their nose pressed against Afghanistan; or with their brain obsessed with rhetoric of the ideology AQ employs. Afghanistan is just one of many states in play, and ideologies are like socks, you need them, but you can change them too. Step back and the picture gets clearer.

Moderator's note post copied to seperate discussion on the MR article: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8975

[jmm99]

My comment re: lesson learned in Vietnam applied to the tactical level - and a very basic level, that of the villages and their hamlets.

Your comment pertains to the strategic level, which is fine since that is what you do for a living. Your comment goes beyond one nation (Astan) and looks to the region (basically Indian Ocean littorals and continental land masses, from say Egypt to Indonesia to include most of the Muslim World).

Going back 40-50 years, we (US) were looking at containment of two Communist powers (SovComs and ChiComs) in the region of Southeast Asia. The result there was a "win" from our standpoint - Indochina became Communist; but the remainder remained non-Communist - though not a US proxy (ASEAN, etc.). The key was Indonesia which found its third way, not without a great deal of bloodshed.

Whether that "model" has any application to the Muslim World is another question. Your "friends" in the Kingdom certainly employ much of AQ's message - in truth, AQ has co-opted much of the Kingdom's message and added enhancements to it. Unless I've misunderstood much of what you have written, the Kingdom does not fall within your definition of "good governance".

What would this Muslim World "Third Way" message look like ? You know me, I like concrete examples.

Regards

Mike

Moderator's note post copied to seperate discussion on the MR article: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8975

[Bob's World]

Mike,

I'm currently listening to Friedman's "Flat Hot and Crowded" (may be in a different order...). He lays down some great insights as to governance in countries that suck their money out of the ground. How good governance declines as oil revenues increase; or parallel to that thought that as a play on the American battle cry of "No taxation without representation" that in countries that do not have to tax their populaces it comes out more as "No taxation, so no representation."

As a forcing function to get to right and greater stability in the Middle East through governments that HAVE to be more open to the needs of their populaces; and a Middle East that the US is engaging through the highly clouded decision making process of an addict engaging his dealer; we must first dedicate our national energy to inventing and developing the next generation of energy.

Friedman describes energy as "Energy from Hell" (comes out of the Earth) vs. "Energy from Heaven" (comes from the sky). He gets a little too uber-green for my tastes at times, but his observations on governance in the Middle East and the impact of US energy policy at home on our foreign policy and and national security are insightful.

The Saudis are the worst offenders of the lot; and number one on the AQ hit parade for their association with the U.S. The al Saud family may be the best of bad options for governance there, but we need to change the nature of our relationship. We cannot simply embrace as partners in GWOT the Saudi and Lybian governments, who then in turn use that as a license to put the smack down on subversive nationalist movements seeking reasonable governmental reforms, or like the recent smack down the Saudis put on those Yemenes Shias. No good can come to America from validating such behavior.

Three key legs of the AQ platform are:
1. Remove Western Presence
2. Abolish Apostate Governments
3. Unite the Ummah

I think the U.S. should co-opt all three legs of that platform, but do so in a way that promotes Self-Determination and Freedom rather than the Stone Age version of Islam AQ is peddling.

There should be less overt Western influence over Middle Eastern Governance, and we should lead the effort to roll back the controls emplaced through colonialism and Cold War manipulations.

"Apostate" or more appropriately from our perspective, governments that draw too much of their legitimacy from foregin powers need to be brought into the embrace of legitimacy more widely recognized and accepted by the populaces they serve.

As to the Ummah, what does the West have to fear from an EU-like organization of Muslim states? We have far more to fear from the Muslim populaces who perceive they are being denied by the West the ability to seek such local collaboration. The Caliphate as the intel guys spin it to be is pure fanatsy. The old ones were built by conquest and held together at swordpoint. It just won't happen. But a political organization such as the EU is not only reasonable, but logical.

Look at the fear mongering that went on in the 50s and 60s over Communism. Seems silly now. It was never about the ideology, and far more about populaces seeking governments free of external controls; it was just our competition with the Soviets that muddied the waters. We don't need to go head to head with AQ by taking polar opposite positions; instead we simply steal their platform and and re-tune our engagement with the region to be more appropriate for 2010 rather than 1950. I think Ike would agree.

[jmm99]

Taking these one by one:

1. Remove Western Presence - we can remove our presence easily enough.

2. Abolish Apostate Governments - not our mission.

3. Unite the Ummah - again, not our mission.

Why engage in the region at all, except on a DIE basis ? Seriously, what would be the long-term effects if we followed that policy ?

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

Leaving isn't an option, as our energy demands and interests in the region have not changed.

So, if we stay, we must change the context of our presence. These three legs were designed specifically to challenge the current context and to take positions that are seen favorably by the populace. To stay and work to sustain the current context is to grow ever more mired in a conflict with populaces acting out and embracing change and willing to follow the leadership of whomever helps them get out from under their current positions.

It wasn't our mission to instal the "apostate governments" either, but we did, and then worked to sustain them in power. So I believe it is very appropriate for us to work now to help bring these governments and their people to the table to sort out a better future, an evolution of governance rather than the revolution of governance offered by bin Laden.

"Uniting the Ummah" creates a new potential ally, much like the EU or ASEAN. It will likely happen whether we resist it or embrace it, better to bring it on line on terms we can work with, than to resist it out of pure hard-headedness and create a powerful new enemy.

All of this supports the top three U.S. national interests of:
1. "Secure the Homeland" (defuse the powder keg of populaces currently attacking us)
2. "Access to Markets and Resources" (Overthrown governments = thrown out business contracts. Strating from scratch will not get us a better deal, and China and India will be in line making their offers as well)
3. "Preserve the American way of life." (I prefer to think of this as being able to live in accordance with the enduring principles in our Dec of Ind and Constitution; not as some particular standard of living measured by recent memory. Ensuring other populaces have access to similar freedoms helps to preserve our own as well.).

[Steve the Planner]

Much talk about parallels to history. Iraq, Vietnam, etc... Note that with the recent discovery of Galbraith's secret 5% KRG Oil interests as he argued for Kurdish independence and enacted a provincial-focused Iraqi constitution, reveals a weird historical tie-in to a previous shadowy Turkish 5% man that got that amount of all Iraqi oil in the past, and the 5% man that was Prime Minister Bhutto's husband.

How about this one from Galbraith in 2007:

[QUOTE]The Iraq war is lost. Of course, neither the President nor the war's intellectual architects are prepared to admit this. Nonetheless, the specter of defeat shapes their thinking in telling ways.[/QUOTE

The case for the war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning -- a stable Iraq, democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil Iranian and Syrian regimes -- but by the consequences of defeat. As President Bush put it:

The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America.

Tellingly, the Iraq war's intellectual boosters, while insisting the surge is working, are moving to assign blame for defeat. And they have already picked their target: the American people. In The Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly, a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote:

Those who believe the war is already lost -- call it the Clinton-Lugar axis -- are mounting a surge of their own. Ground won in Iraq becomes ground lost at home.

Lugar provoked Donnelly's anger by noting that the American people had lost confidence in Bush's Iraq strategy as demonstrated by the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress:

This "blame the American people" approach has, through repetition, almost become the accepted explanation for the outcome in Vietnam, attributing defeat to a loss of public support and not to fifteen years of military failure.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1748...he_war_is_lost

[jmm99]

Continuing the role of Devil's Advocate, and reciting again the AQ platform:

from BW
Three key legs of the AQ platform are:
1. Remove Western Presence
2. Abolish Apostate Governments
3. Unite the Ummah

Since

from BW
Leaving isn't an option, as our energy demands and interests in the region have not changed.

therefore, co-opting the first leg of the stool is an excluded option. In fact, taking action to co-opt the other two legs will project the "Western Presence" even deeper into the morass of Islamic politics and religion (which are intertwined).

"Apostate governments" are very much an extreme Salafist concept - are we (US), mostly non-Muslims, to issue our own fatwas, or to endorse fatwas of convenience which we do not really understand, as to what an "apostate" is. To "Unite the Ummah" would inject us even deeper into the Islamic concept of community. Those two legs are definitely not our mission.

Going back to my questions,

from JMM
Why engage in the region at all, except on a DIE basis ? Seriously, what would be the long-term effects if we followed that policy ?

the first posits removal of the "M" component in DIME, leaving DIE[*] - thus, leaving the other variables in place.

Has anyone done an even-handed cost-benefit study of what would happen if we removed the "M" component, as opposed to continuing on the present path - or, on your modified "M" path if different ?

Another useful comparison (long-term) to study would be the cost-benefit effect on "our energy demands" from withdrawal of the "M" component. No doubt, some of the dozen or so regional powers (some global or near global powers) would enter to fill the vacuum. I suppose some of them might manage sweetheart energy deals to satisfy their energy requirements - which might be as shaky as the "apostate governments" they would now be supporting. Moreover, petro energy will eventually grow so expensive that alternative energy sources will become cost-effective. Those nations which take the lead (or are forced to take the lead) in this area will be the top dogs in the future.

One brief note before dealing with "the top three U.S. national interests". A compressed spring has a great deal of power. An uncompressed spring which has expanded to its limits has none. We seem to confuse "control" over territory (where that control is often an illusion) with power. By seeking to be powerful everywhere, we in effect are powerful nowhere.

1. "Secure the Homeland". I'm not enough of a Pollyanna to believe that withdrawal of the "M" component from Muslim lands will make everything wonderful. It would remove a source of provocation based on what seems to be a universal doctrine of the Islamic Law of Nations. Nonetheless, extremists will continue to see the US as a target. I expect those nations which rush in to fill the vacuum would find themselves the greater target.

2. "Access to Markets and Resources". If that is the basis for continued US military involvement, I guess Smedley Butler and Ike were right.

3. "Preserve the American way of life". So many Founding Fathers spoke of preservation of the "American Way" by not getting into foreign entanglements, that additional comment by me would be superfluous.

Regards

from Michael, Advocatus Diaboli

------------------------
[*] D=diplomacy and E=economic are self-explanatory. I=information and intelligence (not necessarily excluding direct action).

[omarali50]

Mike,

... We don't need to go head to head with AQ by taking polar opposite positions; instead we simply steal their platform and and re-tune our engagement with the region to be more appropriate for 2010 rather than 1950. I think Ike would agree.

1. What does it mean to be "engaged" with the region? Is the US the world's policeman? or "securing energy supplies"? or making sure no arab state misbehaves with Israel? or what? It seems hard to get a clear answer on this question and yet everything else follows from this.

IF the US is the world's policeman (is it possible to have a world without a policeman?), what is the government whose writ this policeman enforces? what law does he uphold? Is it possible to be clearer about those two questions? (I personally think the US IS a sort of policeman (and some policing is generally better than no policing), but all too frequently its OWN agencies dont seem to know what law they are enforcing and in whose interest. This may be the best that can be done, but why not ask the question and see if it makes things move any differently?).

IF the US is "securing its energy supplies", it seems to be expending a lot of effort policing a region from where most of the energy actually flows to India, China, Japan and Europe. Do they all pay their share of the policing costs? Is this the best way to achieve such security? Or is it the case that its not so much about securing OUR supplies as keeping a chokehold on THEIR supplies? Does all this effort secure that chokehold and in what circumstances are we thinking of using it? (I personally think this is a reason that is frequently quoted, but in actual fact it has more to do with the business interests of particular companies and very little to do with securing our supplies OR interdicting anyone else's. The threat may be almost entirely theoretical, the benefits are almost entirely accruing to particular oil and gas companies and those companies are basically using the US taxpayers to subsidize/protect their commercial interests...and they care nought for the interests of those taxpayers, etc. etc).

I think the US clearly does carry a lot of water for Israel. But I dont think the elders of Zion control the world or any such thing. For a long time, the effort expended was peanuts from a superpower perspective and domestic political considerations made it worthwhile. But because the arabs have not rolled over and played dead, the law of diminishing returns is now beginning to kick in. I personally think the US will do less and less of Israel's work in the future and if the Israelis are sensible, they will make a deal while they hold a good hand. Before people jump on me, let me add that maybe its not possible to make a deal. OK, so they will fight it out. They are grown men, let them figure it out.

2. It is a mistake to assume that Alqaeda's propaganda about apostate regimes imposed by the US is necessarily correct. Saudi Arabia's royal family is an old-fashioned royal family. They dont rule the place because the US put them in power, they rule it because their daddy won it by force of arms. They have a cozy relationship with the US, but they definitely have their own ambitions and they are NOT as dumb and useless as Friedman implies. The US is in no position to keep them in power or remove them from power. They have, as the leftists are fond of saying, "agency"...And they didnt just support jihadist and salafist causes all over the world in order to "pay off the mullahs". In some "moderate" fashion, its THEIR cause as well and they have not abandoned it. Do they have a right to have this cause? what is the line that they are not supposed to cross? Maybe they know their limitations and capabilities better than Friedman thinks and maybe they dont, but will learn from setbacks.....Personally, I think they had ambitions of becoming the head honcho in some Sunni Muslim NATO (manpower and nuclear weapons component mostly Pakistani) but this dream is not going to work. In the end, they will have even less success playing "strategy" than the big boys have had. In fact, they will probably end up paying Pakistan to barely survive and they will soon be in trouble in Yemen and that will be the end of that.

3. The US HAS played a big role in keeping the Egyption regime in power and that is almost entirely about Israel. But even in Egypt, the US does not call all the shots. And the mess that is US-Iranian relations has a lot to do with US arrogance (as in treating Iran as some kind of banana republic) and maybe about Israel (though I have some difficulty figuring out why Israel is supposedly so scared of Iran. I dont get it). But the bottom line is that Iran is a real country and someday the US will figure out a way to deal with them.

In Pakistan, the US has supported military dictators over democracy in the past, but again we may be giving the US too much credit if we assume that someone in Washington can magically decide whether Pakistan has democracy or dictatorship. The army high command in Pakistan has its own agenda and uses the US at least as much as the US has ever used Pakistan. And this relationship is pretty much on the rocks as well.

4. Even when its intentions are good, the US embassy is a very crude instrument and lacks the finesse or local knowledge to efficiently (as in input vs output) regulate a far away country (or even a nearby country, see Mexico). I agree with the idea of keeping goals in line with abilities. The US has tremendous clout and can force local powers to bend to its will in some matters as long as it does not try too much.

Sorry, got to run, these are off the top of my head and not well organized or prioritized. I will try again later.

[omarali50]

Amen.
I started writing my long winded reply and had to do some work, so missed the last two replies..which seem to me to pretty much sum it up.

[Surferbeetle]

...but definitely not for delicate sensibilities. Not everybody likes America

From Asia Times: UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2 Breaking up is (not) hard to do by Pepe Escobar...Spengler's relative?

Washington's rationale for occupying Afghanistan - never spelled out behind the cover story of "fighting Islamic extremism" - is pure Pentagon full spectrum dominance: to better spy on both China and Russia with forward outposts of the empire of bases; to engage in Pipelineistan, via the Trans-Afghan (TAPI) pipeline, if it ever gets built; and to have a controlling hand in the Afghan narco-trade via assorted warlords. Cheap heroin is literally flooding Russia, Iran and Eastern Europe. Not by accident, Moscow regards opium/heroin as the key issue to be tackled in Afghanistan, not Islamic fundamentalism.