Always there is the illusion of the easy path. Always there is the illusion, which gripped Donald Rumsfeld and now grips many Democrats, that you can fight a counterinsurgency war with a light footprint, with cruise missiles, with special forces operations and unmanned drones. Always there is the illusion, deep in the bones of the Pentagon's Old Guard, that you can fight a force like the Taliban by keeping your troops mostly in bases, and then sending them out in well-armored convoys to kill bad guys.
There is simply no historical record to support these illusions. The historical evidence suggests that these middling strategies just create a situation in which you have enough forces to assume responsibility for a conflict, but not enough to prevail.
The record suggests what Gen. Stanley McChrystal clearly understands - that only the full counterinsurgency doctrine offers a chance of success. This is a doctrine, as General McChrystal wrote in his remarkable report, that puts population protection at the center of the Afghanistan mission, that acknowledges that insurgencies can only be defeated when local communities and military forces work together...
More at The New York Times.
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Guardiano versus Peters
Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Ralph Peters is one of the most widely regarded military commentators of our time. However, his analysis of Afghanistan is seriously mistaken; and his criticism of General McChrystal (Peters calls the General a "moral coward," and a "morally oblivious" lackey of the "Obama Way of War") is unseemly, nasty and vitriolic.
But Peters rhetoric is not without reason, because his ultimate target is much bigger than McChrystal. Peters aims really to bury counterinsurgency doctrine and to end counterinsurgency warfare. Hence his call for a radically downsized "counterterrorism strategy" in Afghanistan.
Peters is wrong -- dead wrong -- and I explain why at NewMajority.Com.
http://www.newmajority.com/ralph-peters-very-very-bad-advice
In so doing, I help to elucidate the rationale for General McChrystals rules of engagement, which some have criticized as being too restrictive on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1037/Ready-Aim-Fire-McCh…
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/In-Afghanistan_-let-U_S_-tro…
I also explain how these more restrictive rules of engagement are integrally linked to General McChrystals counterinsurgency strategy; and why this strategy is the only approach that will work in Afghanistan.
Anything else, I note, -- including Peters counterterrorism strategy -- will all but guarantees the collapse of the Afghan government, while ensuring the continued and indefinite presence of al-Qaeda in neighboring Pakistan.
The successful model to emulate is Pershing in the Philippines.
Play the strong horse. Build your forts upon quasi-neutral ground -- not directly adjacent to this or that tribe.
Establish psychological superiority by show and tell. In Pershing's case he demonstrated that Springfield rifles beat machetes.
Permit the enemy to waltz through our mine fields instead of the reverse.
Operate trading posts adjacent to our forts with particular emphasis on pots, pans, glasses and other nice things to have around the hut.
Restrict the sale of ammonium nitrate -- chemically label it and dilute it.
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Water is hard to come by in Afghanistan -- particularly in the off season. One must obtain it from the river valleys where the locals live.
It should not be so hard to frustrate Talib movement by positioning our forces -- oil spot style -- over critical water courses. In the dry season the enemy would just about have to come to us. (Shades of Bogart in SAHARA.)
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By aligning with one tribe ISAF (Intentionally Strung-out Anglo-spheric Forces) elements alienate the others. It's a McCoy vs Hatfield situation.
Everyone must purge themselves with regard to civilized assumptions: for the Pashtun EVERYTHING is tribal. That means that anything that you do to help one village is prone to be bitterly resented by the next village -- because you took sides.
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It is absolutely crazy to think that instant modernity is what the Pashtun want. They'd have long been moving in that direction if it meant anything to them.
It is pure Mission Creep that has arm-chair wise-fools promoting electrification, schools, medical clinics, roads and such. Considering our logistical overhead we can't afford them. We can't protect them, either.
Our presence must be marked by trade goods that do not need to be defended and which have universal appeal. Pots and pans come to mind. We should avoid any investments that require protection or maintenance by us. That means most of modernity is out of the question.
The Pashtun/Talib idea of an education is rote memorization of the Koran by young boys in preparation for jihad. Hence, we've got to be total morons promoting what the locals regard as an education.
In as much as ISAF can't figure out who is with who; it would be wise to draft coats of arms for the locals so that each village could flag their loyalty.
An irredentist conflict is sure to produce many an orphan. Some provision should be made to care for and educate them away from the fury of the battle but within Afghanistan.
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Sun Tzu would not give us good odds: we neither know the enemy nor ourselves. That goes double for Brooks.
Justin Logan at Cato takes on Brooks with his post <a href="http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/25/david-brooks-is-confused-abou… Brooks Is Confused about Counterinsurgency</a>.
I think the author is missing the crux of the debate. The question is not whether we try to fight counterinsurgency with large or small numbers of troops. Rather, it's whether we commit to full-blown counterinsurgency against the Taliban (troop increase) or a counter-terror campaign against al Qaeda (drawdown).