Finding Petraeusism in Naglandia

Finding Petraeusism in Naglandia:

The U.S. Military’s Hyper-American “Can-do” Spirit and Utopian Ideals Found in Afghanistan

In 1928 Henry Ford set out to establish a carbon copy of an American town along with an industrialized rubber plantation deep in a Rhode Island-sized piece of Brazilian Amazonia.[1] After upsetting the natives with American ways of doing things and failing to grow sufficient amounts of rubber trees, Ford’s son ended the experiment by capping the losses of “Fordlandia” at $20 million in 1945.[2] Back in 1922, as if to explain this future debacle, the Washington Post had used the term “Fordism” to mean “Ford efforts conceived in disregard or ignorance of Ford limitations.”[3] Today, we could use the term “Petraeusism” to mean “U.S military efforts conceived in disregard or ignorance of U.S. military limitations.” Likewise, we could use the name “Naglandia” to describe Afghanistan, a place where, much like Ford had attempted to do in the Amazon, the U.S. has attempted to establish a “New America,” albeit with the modern and contradictory political correctness that comes with our current obsession with “absolute tolerance” and our culturally-biased interpretation of Galula’s population-centricity in counterinsurgent activities. As if in some kind of twisted Shakespearean comedic tragedy, the U.S. military, traditionally an organization filled with political conservatives and Peace Corps-doubting Thomas’s, has turned itself into an organization that believes there is a Thomas Jefferson inside every Afghan and the solution to jump-starting an economy is to throw money at it. If only our losses could be capped in another seven years at the similar $240 million (inflation-adjusted figure) of Ford’s Amazon experiment.

Regardless of what General Petraeus’ and John Nagl’s concept for countering an insurgency actually was when they wrote the Army’s Field Manual on Counterinsurgency, FM 3-24, the manifestation in the military was one that had tactics dictating strategy, gave nation-building as the only option, and forced upon us all an assumption that has since become dogma: that bad governance is at the root of all discontent, followed closely by disgruntlement at not having a job. In addition, instead of stressing supporting a government’s internal defense when they align with our objectives and a population centricity that means an understanding- and not a protection- of the people, the U.S. went the opposite direction: emphasizing our own objectives and a “for their own good” attitude towards protection of the people. This operational paradigm does not, in and of itself explain all of our failures in Afghanistan—the lack of a clear goal and plan in the beginning probably holds most of the blame for that—but in the absence of a strategy in 2009 and after the very public vindication of General Petraeus’ textbook execution of FM3-24 in Iraq, it makes sense that the military brass turned very quickly to something they like at least slightly better than no plan: a bad plan.[4]

From 2001 until 2002, the U.S. actually did attempt to hunt terrorists and it seemed as if the country would be turned over to the victors: the Northern Alliance. At some point along the way the terrorists left and for some reason the U.S. thought the other groups in Afghanistan should get a share of the power.[5] In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq and told the forces in Afghanistan to tread water.[6] In 2009, with victory in Iraq at least the dominant narrative if not a fact, the strategy that emerged in Afghanistan was one most in the military called “COIN.” At least in the American view, COIN was all about protecting people (also called “security”), giving them jobs (“development”), and providing services (“governance”).[7] Little attention was paid to local nuances or realities.[8] The regional power plays that influenced much of Afghanistan at the strategic levels were totally ignored or discounted.[9] And the U.S. decided that our national security hinged upon ensuring that the Taliban (a heterogeneous group if there ever was one) never again harbored terrorists in Afghanistan.[10]

The U.S. military is infected by and should shed itself of its Petraeusism.[11] This condition- our efforts in disregard of our limitations- is seen today in the overly-positive and naïve-sounding reports out of Afghanistan from the top Coalition commands.[12] It is apparent in the belief that pouring money and troops into places like the Afghan district of Nawa- General Petraeus’ example of progress- will result in anything sustainable.[13] Either the U.S. military believes what it is saying, which runs counter to most media coverage and CIA analyses[14], or it believes that they have to sell success back home because in a “Long War” like Vietnam or Afghanistan, that is what it takes for the military to win: selling the effort (an implication being that the military did not sell its successes in Vietnam well enough). [15] This inability to realize our limitations and either resultant blindness to reality or our intent to deceive in order to get to a preferred “end” has resulted in a heads-down charge towards building a utopia in the one area that even characters in children’s movies know to avoid.[16] We are left then, even in today’s environment of economic hardship, with the curious spectacle of the U.S. still looking to continue to build a Naglandia in Afghanistan. The spectacle is even more interesting considering that the average American military officer comes from a tradition of doubting how much effectiveness soft-power- a la the stereotypical Peace Corps and State Department effort- actually has in poor countries and a healthy skepticism towards government programs that build dependence (whether they are instituted in downtown Kansas City, rural Nigeria, or in Kandahar, Afghanistan).[17]

Fordlandia

Henry Ford wanted to do two things in Brazil: find a solution to high-priced, foreign-owned rubber coming from Asia and re-capture an America he felt was rapidly becoming lost. The business side of things was relatively simple: copy the successful formula that had made Ford successful in the car industry: pay workers relatively high wages, force them to live the way he thought they should live (as much as he could), rely on the latest technology to overcome any obstacles (as well as brute effort), and maintain a healthy disdain for experts.[18] Ford did not, however, only want to establish another successful business venture, he also longed for an America he thought was rapidly disappearing. The changes that his factories, higher wages, and cheap products helped bring about in the fabric of American society ironically caused him to long for “the good ‘ole days.”.[19]

Re-capturing an America that was on its way out—in his eyes, at least—proved to be almost as difficult as countering high-priced, foreign-owned rubber. The people of the Amazon worked wild rubber trees, which meant they worked in the jungle on a seasonal rotation. They lived in the jungle during those times as well, and there was a system in place that was conducive—if not humane—to the rubber trade in that part of the world. Riots at Ford’s Fordlandia project broke out intermittently, but they weren’t because people were disgruntled over lack of governance or not getting paid.  Rather, it was because they felt they were being treated unfairly.[20] This feeling, mixed with the prohibition against alcohol, the non-conducive-to-the-jungle houses, and the war on prostitution must have been the spark that set off the proverbial powder keg.[21] Confident that they were going about the business of growing a rubber tree plantation the right way and taking many of their cues straight from Dearborn Michigan, the leadership at Fordlandia refused to adapt to the environment even when faced with obvious signs they were not having much progress.[22] Their “Fordism” forced them to believe they could accomplish anything with enough effort.

The first effort, however, was what doomed them in the end. Regardless of their efforts to purify the “savage” natives, if the plantation had made money and provided Ford with rubber there would have been no reason to abandon the effort. Unfortunately, the environment in the Amazon was not conducive to plantation-style cultivation of rubber like it was in Asia. The rubber trees in the Amazon had to contend with native threats. The only protection was to grow sparsely. In addition, paying workers in cash meant that they undermined the entire Amazonian system that underpinned everyone else in the area from the shopkeepers to the families to the local strongmen and politicians (not to mention there was nothing to buy with the cash).[23] The last, and perhaps greatest, challenge was that because the managers (on Ford’s insistence) did not rely on botanical or rubber tree experts, it was years before they even grew anything, and even then they could not avoid blights that killed off most of the trees.[24]

Ford believed in the superiority of the American culture, which, he reasoned, if exported would produce the same level of wealth and standard of living that he enjoyed. All he thought the Brazilians lacked was that most-loved of American concepts:  opportunity. Ford also believed in technology. He shipped the best and latest machinery down to Fordlandia and demanded that whatever was in use in Michigan should be in use in the Amazon. He also believed that he could shove money and effort into an area and that eventually it would “jumpstart” the economy. Lastly, he believed in centralized control. Many times his managers sent him requests based on local conditions and reality, but they were denied due to the worldview of those in Michigan.[25] Those same attitudes—that groups of people are pretty much the same, that American culture is self-evidently superior, that technology and sheer effort can solve any problem, that injecting money can jumpstart economies, and that one can micromanage strategy and operations from on-high—are all very similar to the attitudes found in the U.S. military in Afghanistan for the last ten years, and those attitudes do not seem to be close to being challenged.

Naglandia

Naglandia, or Operation Enduring Freedom, did not start out too badly and, in fact, could almost have been called “New Grenada.”[26] After being told to go back to the drawing board on their plans for a 9-11 retaliation, U.S. Central Command offered up a more unconventional approach: teams of Special Forces aligned with CIA teams already in-country would link-up with Northern Alliance forces and lead them against Taliban forces, calling in air strikes when the enemy massed. SOCCENT had a relatively limited and easily-understood goal: overthrow the Taliban and kill or capture Al-Qaida leaders. Taking Osama Bin Laden was an obvious goal, but the overthrow of the sanctuary-providing and extreme fundamentalists who controlled the country was the main objective, and that was accomplished within months.[27] At this point, in early 2002, although the hazy notion of a democratically-elected government in Afghanistan emerged, most of CENTCOM’s attention turned very quickly to the preparations for an invasion into Iraq.[28]

Although the forces in Afghanistan from 2002 until 2009 performed admirably at the tactical level, the effect of their sacrifice and hard work from the 2009-2011 perspective appears to have been minimal.[29] From 2003 until 2004, the international community made a democratically-elected government their focus. By 2004, “Naglandia” arguably started to emerge.[30] With coaxing from the altruistic West, Afghanistan boasted democratic elections, a president, and gender and ethnic balances in the legislature. Between 2003 and 2006, however, the Taliban did not stay put. They ran into Pakistan in order to recruit and rearm. The showdown would come in 2007. NATO now had full control and a large amount of British forces arrived in Southern Afghanistan to do battle with the reemerged Taliban.

There are different views on what the American strategy was from 2002-2008. In this author’s view, there really was no deliberate strategy (see Rhyne's and Grossman’s papers). A strategy emerged that can be characterized as schizophrenic: Special Ops Forces conducting Counter-terrorism missions, some National Guard units conducting what could best be called Foreign Internal Defense as they attempted to train and assist the Afghan security forces, and active-duty forces that attempted to loosely follow what COIN lines of operation they could with limited resources- none of these individual efforts seemed to be synchronized and, indeed, many could have been counterproductive to each other. Others have argued that we did not really start our COIN efforts until 2009. Even if this was true, the fact that the U.S. attempted to work on COIN lines of effort (security, governance, and development) from 2002 and a priority was establishing, as quickly as possible, a democratic government, is this author’s argument as to why “Naglandia” began from almost the beginning. Whether it began in earnest right away or in 2009 does not, in this author’s view, matter as to the greater points contained herein.

The greatest change to the strategy, or the lack of one, happened in 2009. First, Iraq provided a vindication in the eyes of the military in the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, FM 3-24, and its tactics of protecting the people, its lines of operations of security, governance, and development, and its strategy of…tactics.[31]  Secondly, there was increased political will to send more troops and money to Afghanistan.[32] Although Naglandia had been emerging due to NATO’s focus on establishing a democracy, this effort got a tremendous boost when the U.S. unleashed its seemingly endless amount of money (indeed, it was difficult to spend it all) and its seemingly endless amount of troops.[33] Still, every commander wanted more than what NATO could send and the U.S. could politically support.[34]  McChrystal even wrote a memo stating the need for 500,000.[35] Regardless of the numbers eventually sent, compared to the NATO contributions- especially in terms of equipment- the U.S. contribution was immense. This Petraeusism- the feeling that the U.S. military could accomplish anything if given enough time, people, and money, led directly to the feeling that we could indeed build a Naglandia- a perfect society with jobs, democracy, women’s rights, economic development, free health care, ethnically diverse political institutions, tribally diverse security forces, and a literate populace.

A strategy of tactics and vastly more resources combined to bring Naglandia to reality. Units now started working on gender equality, literacy, economic development, district and village-level governance, police force establishment and development, a health care network, a complex logistical and personnel system for the army and police, Western-supplied equipment, systems, and processes, centralized judicial system, Western planning and decision making tools and processes, an end to corruption, and ethnic “norming.”[36] The idea was not just to set up a sovereign nation and then support that nation; the idea was to change the culture and usher in a country with all the values and norms that a Western country would have. Many of the efforts the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) pushed in Afghanistan were things that many progressives noted we did not enjoy in our own countries. In that sense, Naglandia was very similar to Fordlandia:  a chance to “do it right” and establish the idealistic society that its proponents felt was lacking at home.

The failure to establish a sustainable Naglandia rested on two very important realities: the fact that Afghans were not ready to usher in a more progressive society than even Western countries had and the fact that much of the unrest in Afghanistan had to do with regional power politics.[37] This second reality (that the unrest had a regional source) was one in which NATO got just as wrong as they did the first (that most Afghans do not support many of the Coalition’s social efforts).[38] Pakistan fears India; Afghanistan fears Pakistan. Iran fears a strong Afghanistan aligned with the U.S.; China wants access. Russia wants access and stability. These foreign influencers (and others, to include the northern “Stans” and many Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE) result in unrest and power struggles in Afghanistan. It is an understatement to say that NATO has ignored these influences. But what can NATO do? Since the 1980s the U.S. has gutted its diplomatic corps and neutered its spy capabilities.[39] To play the “New Great Game”, the U.S. has to have more and savvier diplomats and the will to use them to further our national security.[40] To even know what to do in this game we must have intelligence on what is going on and how we can affect things, and we must have enough spies and the will to use them to give us that intelligence. Today we do not have these two paramount tools and rely mainly on our military might.[41] Unfortunately, as Ford found out in Brazil, brute force does not solve problems of broad scope and time.

The political realities in 2010 were such that they conflicted with the strategy at the time in several ways. Military leaders acknowledged that the President had chosen to send the lesser amount of troops of the three choices he was given by the Secretary of Defense, but instead of the military concluding they needed to change the strategy to reflect political ends and the means available, the military leadership within Afghanistan chose to ignore the growing economic hardships and the lack of political will within the population and politicians.[42] Instead, the military leadership inexorably devised their own ends, their own ways with which to get to those ends, and attempted to get the means with which to carry out their preferred strategy through several efforts.[43]

These efforts rested on a fervent belief in three overriding assumptions that governed everything we were doing in Afghanistan. These overriding assumptions- going back to at least as early as 2009 and carrying into 2011 (and to some extent still exist) are: 1) that if the U.S. left Afghanistan the Taliban would take over, invite Al-Qaeda back in, and we would be attacked again like 9/11; 2) that the only way to keep this from happening was to build a strong, democratic nation with a robust economy and principled government structures at the local, district, provincial, and national levels; and, 3) that if NATO showed short-term progress in these efforts, the money and “surge” troop levels would remain indefinitely. The first assumption was based on simplistic thinking and an overly naïve understanding of the Taliban, the insurgency and Afghanistan. The second assumption flowed from our COIN doctrine: to defeat an insurgency you had to set up a good government, provide jobs, and protect the people. That this particular way of approaching an insurgency seemed to have worked in Iraq did not make it just as valid in Afghanistan by a long shot, but although many generals acknowledged the differences, no plan to address those differences was ever called for. The most obvious sign that the third assumption was invalid was the stated goal of the Obama administration to begin pulling troops out in the summer of 2011 and the plan to have all combat troops out in 2014.[44]

The understanding of Afghanistan—or the lack thereof—contributed to efforts that ignored the uniqueness of each village and each district in Afghanistan.[45] This resulted in the deployment to Kandahar of Tajik gendarmes, the involvement of NATO troops in inter-district tribal feuds, the equipping of all Afghan police in the same uniforms, the centralization and standardization of all police training in Afghanistan, and the pressure for all police to get involved in domestic disputes—an area usually reserved to families and tribal elders. This resulted in anti-corruption efforts that ignored the possibility that those who followed the law ended up weaker as a result due to a lack of supportive infrastructure.[46] Lastly, this resulted in attempts to build a security force that was standardized across the country, multi-ethnic and balanced, co-ed, and expeditionary: able to be deployed anywhere and defeat a conventional threat due to its standardized and disciplined processes and structures. Unfortunately, the security force that Afghanistan needs is arguably different: one that was more locally-oriented, manned, resourced, and focused.[47] In two or three generations, a more national focus might emerge, but to force it down from above too quickly is a recipe for disaster. For some reason, the "Naglandanistas" believe that all humans think like Westerners and that all Westerners think rationally. It is recommended military officers read and practice Kaplan’s Warrior Politics and his conclusions:  leaders should get rid of Christian morality when it comes to foreign policy and this idea of American exceptionality and go with a pagan morality focused on ends rather than the morality of the means.[48]  This “pagan morality” would be comfortable with the seemingly hypocritical U.S. practice of valuing foreign populations over foreign individuals, using spies and proxies, and engaging in cunning and complex diplomacy to gain influence. We could even take a cue from many Afghan tribes: we should engage in the practice of switching sides constantly as it favors us.

The only other alternative to this is a strictly consistent Christian morality. The problems with this approach are that the rest of the world does not operate in this way (and thus more times than not those vying for power will use our morality against us and we’ll be the only ones punished) and that the U.S. is not very likely to ever get political backing for actual action: Christian morality-backed actions are very expensive, time-consuming, difficult to link to the national interest in the long-term (and almost impossible to in the short-term) and require short-term (and possibly long-term) sacrifice. Although many Christians and liberals may enjoy the challenge of taking the second issue on (one of little will to act), to this author the first issue of effectiveness is a much greater problem. [49] After a decade of sacrificing American soldiers and taxpayer money it is arguable what- if anything- we have done that can be termed effective or sustainable with respect to increasing our national security. At some point even Fordlandia was closed up for being ineffective, it follows that Naglandia will also one day shut-down (all signs point to 2014 as being the start of this).

While the U.S. is engaged in building Naglandia, it makes no sense for U.S. troops to be engaged in fighting all of the disparate groups it is fighting. The Coalition fights HIG, HIK, the Hakkani network, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, Pakistani ISI proxies, Iranian Quds forces, incensed Pashtuns, offended Balochs, and enraged Aimaqs because the connection between solving all of those groups’ issues and American policy objectives are shaky at best, absent at worse. If we were really limiting ourselves to securing our country from Afghanistan and Pakistan-based Al-Qaeda operatives we would increase our intelligence, diplomatic, and proxy efforts in Pakistan, while keeping some intelligence assets (mostly native proxies) in Afghanistan and supporting in a small way their security forces development.  We would also engage in the same game that is played by Pakistan and others: playing all of the insurgent and other groups off onto one another in order to gain some kind of national security objective. Building Naglandia, just like Fordlandia, will ultimately be too costly, may never happen even if given generations of time, and is not linked to our national security interests. It is a massive stretch to argue that building a strong nation-state in Afghanistan- and all the blood and treasure that implies- is the key to ensuring Al Qaeda does not attack us from there again. Instead, it is more likely to posit that we have already made ourselves secure from an Al Qaeda attack emanating from Afghanistan and now we must focus our soft power on Pakistan and other places to ensure the same.

A Different Way: American Limitationism

There is an alternative to this, which I call “American limitationism.” Even with all of the technology, money, and sheer effort we can muster, we still cannot affect radical cultural change on the scale that our counterinsurgency doctrine implies we can and should (as translated by our military), especially when we are limited to the tactics of protecting the people. Surely there have been examples wherein massive social change has been forced on groups of people throughout human history, but normally that has been gained by using such horrifying means that our Western populations today would rather put up with the  long-term instability that the more humane approaches usually result in.[50] Because of the inability to support drastic action to change populations, we should acknowledge that there are limitations to what we can accomplish with our “kinder, gentler” ways. Even if we had the diplomatic and intelligence capabilities, there probably are limitations to how we can use them that are directly tied to our notions of fairness, transparency, and distaste for underhandedness. Again, it would be nice if we had the will to use Kaplan’s Machiavellian methods, but the reality is that we do not. Maybe, one day when our way of life is truly on the brink of extinction we may change our minds, but for now we need to accept that we can only accomplish so much, and establishing democracies and developing economies are not ones we can.

To the extent possible, if we are to get involved in an area, we must play the regional power political game as best we can, or we will be chasing our tails fruitlessly. The Chinese, Indians, Iranians, and others are all gaining from our efforts in Afghanistan.[51] It is doubtful if we are gaining much in Afghanistan simply because of the lack of Afghan products reaching America and lack of American products reaching Afghanistan—with no foreseeable change in that situation no matter if peace breaks out or not. Worse, , we construct strategies that are bound to fail by ignoring the realities in Iran and Pakistan. Every pro-Indian event that happens in Afghanistan from Afghan police traveling to India to be trained to Indian companies and consulates opening in Afghan cities is viewed as a direct and dire threat to Pakistan and is countered by growing ISI contact with insurgents in Afghanistan. In fact, one could argue that any small effort we could have initiated towards improving peace between India and Pakistan would have been much more fruitful to building stability in Afghanistan than anything we’ve done the entire time we’ve been in Afghanistan.[52]

The entire U.S. government- but especially the military- must stop trying to establish governments and hold quick, so-called “legitimacy-building” elections in countries we involve ourselves in. If we establish a government that the people then do not like, we either have to leave or we have to back the insurgents and overthrow the government- assuming we really are “population-centric.” The sad fact is, holding to our “limitations” theory, that we cannot establish a quick government no matter how hard we try. Governments must come from the people, and holding quick elections ensures that the elites are the only ones that buy-in to the government. Democratic governments must emerge with the populace’s consent, and this cannot be rushed or it will be short-lived and weak. Governance, contrary to popular ISAF belief, is not the root of all stability (and bad governance is not the root of all insurgency). Governance is an emergent entity that gets stronger over time, must come from the people, and cannot be supported much from external parties (unless, of course, one is talking about autocratic “governance”- but that is NOT what ISAF defines as governance).

We should end the practice of injecting tons of money into the countries we are trying to change. Money did not help out Fordlandia, and it is not helping Naglandia either. Money has contributed to corruption. It has undermined emergent development and empowered local strongmen. And if a country is one day expected to be self-sustaining, the systems and infrastructure we help set up must be self-sustaining, or they will continue to arrest development and only build dependence in our hosts. Spending does not create wealth, becoming more productive creates wealth, and one cannot become more productive if they are relying on charity from the beginning.[53] People are not altruistic, as much as we would like to think they are, and free money only corrupts faster.[54]

We must stop trying to protect the people in Afghanistan as a blanket policy, both for practical reasons (it rarely results in sustainable positive effects and because it gets us involved in internal problem areas that are best handled internally. It should be noted by most of those who have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past few years that most people do not start supporting you if you protect them. In fact, most will be non-committal—until, that is, they get attacked.  Then, they will blame you if you in any way have postured yourself as an official entity in the region, especially one engaged in judicial (ad hoc or not) proceedings. Unless you are going to bribe them forever and are very close to them culturally and physically, it is possible that people actually do not want a foreign army protecting them, and the result is that there will not be much in the way of a quid pro quo for that protection.[55] In terms of getting involved in local issues, trying to protect the people invariably leads one to protect them against someone else. That someone else many times—especially in a place like Afghanistan—is not the ‘evil insurgents’ who are supposedly affecting your national security.  Instead, they are people who have some sort of grievance against the people you are trying to protect. If we think we can protect “all” people, then we must be getting ourselves confused with a domestic police, judicial, and penal/ rehabilitative system.

In other words, population-centric COIN should only mean you understand the people—not that you necessarily do anything for them.[56] Moreover, it does not mean that the foreign, visiting force should do anything “for” the native countrymen that the foreigners think they would like themselves.  The U.S. military should stop thinking that they can win hearts and minds by engaging in any kind of activities, there is a strong possibility that there is no logical linkage between what Afghans think and how U.S. forces act. The perception of the Afghans, a culturally-influenced abstraction, is perhaps beyond our best efforts to effect. Motivations, moreover, not only often are inconsistent, but oftentimes are dictated by a confluence of factors unable to be predicted beforehand. Ignoring the possibility that others’ perceptions of our efforts could be one-hundred and eighty degrees from ours, even helping people does not guarantee anything.[57] We must become more realistic and, if we cannot or will not become more ruthless, we should at least understand that others will be, and we should not let our unwillingness to be ruthless to hurt us in our efforts to defend our national security interests. In other words, if the reciprocation for “population-centric” action is not very apparent and material, then we should abandon population centricity for other methods or disengage if our population does not support those methods or see a link between military actions and national security.

Conclusion

Henry Ford thought that, regardless of the situation, if given the right systemic conditions, humans would behave the same and respond to stimuli in the same manner. He thought they would strive to work hard and not indulge in self-destructive (as defined by him) behavior. He must have imagined the Brazilians would value health care (even strictly enforced mandatory health care), education (even Western-style education), consumer products, and other Ford “gifts” in such a way that the locals would change their cultural norms and be happy for the assistance. He thought he could bring enough effort, people, and money to bear on a problem and realize success no matter the situation. In many ways, in Afghanistan we are repeating this hubristic example.

The U.S. military leadership should instead encourage a healthy skepticism towards transformation of cultures and complex social problems. Let us stick to military objectives and stop attempting to build economies and democracies. Let's ensure we are linking our means-ways-and ends to the political objectives and synching them with the will of the nation (instead of trying to intentionally influence it). We should advocate the view that counterinsurgency is not about fighting other people’s counterinsurgencies for them, but assisting them in fighting their counterinsurgencies.[58] If others don’t want to do the fighting themselves then we must choose to leave, change our fighting partners, or go with whatever strategy the government prefers. Everything we do must be caveated with a bold statement of our limitations. I recommend we stop trying to oversell every program that the military is working on as a "silver bullet" (pick any effort in Afghanistan: Afghan Local Police, Village Stability Operations, Reintegration, women’s rights, FETs, Rule of Law, anti-corruption, literacy training, “independent operating units”, etc. ) assuming that will get us more resources. Let's under-promise and, if possible, over-perform, all the while being as transparent and brutally frank about what we are doing.

We can’t turn Afghanistan into a progressive European-like society. We shouldn’t build an exact replica of our own Army for them, and we shouldn’t attempt to establish a Western-style police force. We definitely don’t need to be fighting their insurgents for them. Let’s train some of their army and police as the local conditions merit for a few years, and that’s all. We can concentrate the rest of our power in that region towards Pakistan, knowing that we’ll have to play a little dirty, build up our intelligence capabilities and grow some more diplomats. And we can still be “population-centric”, but let us redefine that to mean that we understand the people better, not that we are attempting to protect them from something they might not wish to be protected from even if some of them sometimes say they want to be. Surely we must be as unconventionally savvy in our thinking and dealings with people in an unconventional environment as we talk about needing to be in a tactical manner. In other words, instead of trying to get everyone to enjoy cookies and milk while watching Leave it to Beaver, let’s play some poker.

The author is an active-duty Army officer.  The views herein are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of Small Wars Journal or the Department of Defense.