Like most insurgencies, the conflict is waged in some remote corner among the disaffected segment of the populace; too often with the military as the agent of the government; but can only be resolved ("won" or "lost" for those who insist on applying the language of war and warfare to what is a political dynamic) in the capital
It will be decisions and paradigm shifts made, adopted and operationalized in Manila that will ultimately bring stability to places like Basilan. OEF-P is a good US operation, but it will never achieve that effect as it is designed to bring some small degree of goodness to that small (ok, not so small) corner of the Philippines where the various manifestations of Philippine insurgency among the Muslim segment of the populace manifest. As we all know, this same insurgency manifests differently in other regions of the country among other segments of the populace, and has been porpoising up and down with varying degrees of activity and violence for hundreds of years.
The root causes of how the central government governs, how the cultural system of elites vs peasants; Catholic vs. Muslim; etc, etc (so many long established roles and perceptions that serve to always allow one small segment of the populace to achieve success while the majority feel trapped or disrespected) go unaddressed.
This is largely true in Afghanistan as well. Village Stability Operations and Afghan Local Police are also great SOF programs among the people in the regions where disaffection with the government is high; yet the true root issues in Kabul and the historic inertia of that culture also prevent any true addressing of the issues that could actually resolve that conflict.
We can mitigate symptoms of such conflicts, or we can exacerbate symptoms of such conflicts, but we cannot truly resolve the actual roots of such conflicts with such engagement. US foreign and US military policies and doctrines need to evolve to grasp this reality. Our history and doctrine on COIN tout temporary suppressions as "wins," or overly focus on military actions that occurred over major political changes that were implemented where more enduring effects were achieved (most famously in Malaya, or perhaps the American Colonies), so we miss the most important lessons to be learned from such operations.
In the Philippines we primarily conduct mitigation operations. In Afghanistan we conduct a mix of mitigation and exacerbation operations (but see that latter group as also contributing to success,( i.e., Ranger raids on Afghan homes to take out low-level Taliban leaders of the resistance movement in Afghanistan proper, or haul off their friends and family to gain more info to capture or kill such leaders; or drone strikes into Pashtun homes in the FATA in efforts to kill senior leaders of the revolutionary core of the insurgency).
We must change how we think about these types of conflicts, and how we think about what our proper role (if in deed, any role is proper in most cases) to best help bring stability and enduring peace to such people should be as well.
Until then Manila will keep sending good young citizens out to do battle with other good young citizens in an effort to not have to take on the hard decisions about who they are and how they govern. Same same in Kabul. And the US will keep sending good young men out help those governments in those Sisyphian-like efforts.
We can do better, but first we must think differently. Until then, there will continue to be avoidable "bad days" like this.
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