An Interview with Bing West, A Sequel
by Octavian Manea
Download the Full Interview: Interview with Bing West: A Sequel
What is wrong with the war strategy employed by ISAF forces?
The strategy's goal is "to serve and secure the people" (namely, the 11 million Pashtuns living in 7,000 villages.) This goal is too idealistic and too ambitious. We have 1,000 outposts; so what is happening in the other 6,000 villages? We do not patrol at night. We do not arrest. We do not speak Pashto or understand their Islamic tribal culture. How can we serve them? We can secure some of them as long as we are physically near at hand. But the people are the prize for winning the war, not the means of winning it. They are waiting to see whether the Taliban or the Afghan army wins. We are treading water with this strategy.
Download the Full Interview: Interview with Bing West: A Sequel
Octavian Manea is Editor of FP Romania, the Romanian edition of Foreign Policy
About the Author(s)
Octavian Manea was a Fulbright Junior Scholar at Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Syracuse University) where he received an MA in International Relations and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Security Studies.
Comments
It's as if we've got a "reverse body count" syndrome where instead of counting enemy dead, ISAF is counting the number of ANSF we are able to train. The number, whatever it happens to be, will be a type of trigger that will allow policy-makers to say, "looks good, let's start getting out." It reminds me of the graphic of a thermometer often used in fundraising campaigns that depicts the level where the current contributions stand and how far is left to go. However, that graphic is more meaningful.
Whether this number will be shown as hollow after 2014, is almost beside the point. This is still an operational level consideration that is disguising itself as strategy.
I feel as though someone needs to write an essay that borrows the title from Lenin's treatise, "What is to be done?"
""It appears from my perspective that the pereceived problems can and should be addressed by the Afghans themselves through the development and self-reliance on the ANSF. Thus, our new strategy is the rapid and significant buildup of, primarily, the ANA.
I'm sorry but this is a failed strategy vis-a-vis our mission and objectives. All it really achieves is an exit strategy for ISAF. It fails because it relies on an unsustainable (both financially and operationally) buildup of the ANSF. Second, it relies on a force which will be significantly: smaller than the current ISAF + ANSF forces; less capable (leadership, capabilities, enablers, medical, training, education, equipment, etc); and is likely to suffer from a rapid loss of donor funding in each of the governance, security, development and reconstruction pillars. It is simply an exit strategy which leaves the legacy of failure with the Karzai government.""
David,
I thought I was the lone ranger that held this view. Others have disagreed, but I continue to believe that building security forces in our image will fail when we take our image and funding back home. We preach understanding culture, but all too often they're empty words that we have no intention of following. Do they have bad military leadership, or bad leaders when we force them to employ our military model? SF is finally doing what it should have been doing starting in late 2002 (after the major combat operations against AQ and the Taliban and the policy came out "good news boys we're staying") and that is developing village defense capabilities. However, these militias will never stand up against a larger scale conventional like Taliban attack (if they decide to do so after we leave). We put too much emphasis on SFA and not enough on strategy. Even if we had all the authorities and money we needed to execute SFA, if it supports a faulty strategy it won't work. The defeat of the Taliban's core requires combat operations against their havens in Pakistan (by either the Pakistanis or coalition), and an agreement by Pakistan not to provide state support to them after we leave. Only then will a smaller Afghan Army be able to manage their internal threats. By no means am I implying this is a strategy, simply pointing out that if this doesn't happen our current strategy won't work (IMO).
David:
Agree, yet the strategy of "comprehensive counterinsurgency" brackets parts of the American Army that have become dogmatic toward its perceived efficacy and an almost true believer like faith that it can be made to work, even in the face of evidence that it cannot.
Still we are lectured by the experts of this strategy that counterinsurgency campaigns take a long time, as if strategy must by rule defer to this tactical principle of population centric coin.
gian
Gian, I will second that motion. This mission has never been adequately resourced to successfully prosecute the aspired end-state and (ever changing) strategic goals.
As we approach the potential ISAF force drawdowns this summer, beginning with some non-US troop contributing nations, but potentially including US Forces, I am underwhelmed by the proposed 'new strategy'.
It appears from my perspective that the pereceived problems can and should be addressed by the Afghans themselves through the development and self-reliance on the ANSF. Thus, our new strategy is the rapid and significant buildup of, primarily, the ANA.
I'm sorry but this is a failed strategy vis-a-vis our mission and objectives. All it really achieves is an exit strategy for ISAF. It fails because it relies on an unsustainable (both financially and operationally) buildup of the ANSF. Second, it relies on a force which will be significantly: smaller than the current ISAF + ANSF forces; less capable (leadership, capabilities, enablers, medical, training, education, equipment, etc); and is likely to suffer from a rapid loss of donor funding in each of the governance, security, development and reconstruction pillars. It is simply an exit strategy which leaves the legacy of failure with the Karzai government.
What is the follow-on strategy after ISAF withdrawl which contends with these second order effects and addresses the tacit challenges appropriately?
Escellent article. I spent 13 months in Afghanistan as an agricultural advisor on an ISAF PRT. The PRT did an excellent job of providing security and stability. But we could not be the government. Government in the rural areas was provided by warloards, tribal leaders and insurgents. Not GIRoA.
Building a good government will take a generation or more.