COIN

Sunday's New York Times Magazine article by Luke Mogelson takes a look at the hard gains being won to buy breathing room for transition to Afghan forces.

Year after year, month after month, Helmand has ranked as the deadliest, most violent province in Afghanistan. Nowhere else comes close. ... During the coming year, the number of marines there will shrink by the thousands; as early as this summer, many Marine positions will be shuttered or handed over to the Afghan Army and the police. No one expects the insurgency to be defeated by then. The issue has long ceased to be how we can decisively expunge the Taliban — we can’t. Instead, the question is: How can we forestall its full-fledged resurgence upon our departure? Toward the end of this year’s fighting season, just before the winter rains, I spent seven weeks with marines across much of Helmand, and everywhere the answer was basically the same. First, leave behind a proficient national security force. And second, win them as much breathing room as time allows.

Bing West argues that COIN as nation-building should not be a military mission at World Politics Review.

The manual’s Rousseauian outlook had its roots more in political theory than actual experience. Because 40 years had passed since the American infantry had last engaged in serious firefights in Vietnam, the generals who commanded in Iraq and Afghanistan had no combat experience at the grunt level. By Sept. 11, 2001, they had already risen to the rank of colonel or above.

So when faced with guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, they hastily read a few history books and searched their memories for scraps of knowledge faintly recalled from long-ago lectures. They distilled these lessons learned into operational orders and field manuals to be implemented on the platoon level.

The new counterinsurgency theory was based on the mission of winning hearts and minds, so that the local population would reject the insurgents and support the government. Since the people were the center of gravity, to use an overworked military expression, our tactics were conceived so as to cause them no harm.

The emphasis reflects the vast changes in contemporary U.S. culture and ideology, compared to 1941 or even 1961. 

Thanks to Dave Maxwell for the pointer.

The New York Times' Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt report:

The United States’ plan to wind down its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected relies on shifting responsibility to Special Operations forces that hunt insurgent leaders and train local troops, according to senior Pentagon officials and military officers. These forces could remain in the country well after the NATO mission ends in late 2014. ...

Senior Pentagon officials involved in the planning acknowledge that a military effort with a smaller force and a more focused mission could be easier to explain to Americans who have tired of the large counterinsurgency campaigns of Iraq and, previously, Afghanistan. ...

The plan first calls for creating a two-star command position overseeing the entire Special Operations effort in Afghanistan. Next, the three-star corps headquarters that currently commands the day-to-day operations of the war — and is held by an Army officer from the conventional force — would be handed over to a Special Operations officer.

At Carl Prine's Line of Departure, Victoria Fontan traces the journey of Mollah Nadhom from bystander, to al-Qaeda insurgent, to Abu Ghraib, to Sawha member and human intelligence source.  It ended on January 25 with shots from a silenced gun in Baghdad.

Because Mollah Nadhom is just another casualty of counter-insurgency, liberal peacemaking and nation-building, the moral of his story remains: Never trust an occupier who claims to be working for “peace,” for this peace is never what it claims to be.