Michael O'Hanlon on Winning the Afghan War-WSJ

[S-2]

How To Win In Afghanistan-WSJ

"The war in Afghanistan is not going well, and the critical problem is the same one that dogged our efforts in Iraq for years: grossly inadequate troop levels...President-elect Barack Obama has wisely promised an increase in U.S. forces for Afghanistan. But his proposed minisurge of perhaps 15,000 more troops, on top of the 30,000 Americans and 30,000 NATO personnel now there, will not suffice as a strategy. More is needed."

It's also fair to argue that more troops aren't the answer either- and they aren't. Those troops, though, are a critical component and need to factored into the budgeting of each interested nation. Those that can't project force must instead project capital to sustain an increase in the forces by those who CAN project force.

Either way, here's the issue- where can enough competent and sufficiently sensitive soldiers be found to extend the writ of the GoA and ISAF throughout the region? What's clearly needed is for the ISAF force to leave it's compounds and move into the communities. Done in partnership with local forces, small units of platoon-sized creating COP (Combat Outposts) within a neighborhood provides an immediate presence. It's worked well in Iraq.

Why won't it work as well in Afghanistan? It might but there are problems arising from demographic differences between Iraq and Afghanistan. Population densities of the Iraqi urban-rural mix are generally quite a bit higher. This allows a smaller group of soldiers in Iraq to assert a disproportionate impact relative to that which a similar group might provide in Afghanistan over the same sq. kilometer of space.

To achieve the same effect, it's likely then that more would be needed for a larger nation with a larger population though lower relative densities. O'Hanlon's correct that a larger and better trained Afghan army is needed along with more allied soldiers and money.

As usual, it's in the communities where these wars are won. That means the gritty of work of cops with heavy weapons and a bad attitude when disturbed among the locals in a sufficiently pervasive manner to actively stomp on bad guys with an eagerness.

The visible and daily presence of trained soldiers creates the local security sufficient for true commerce to reawaken and NGOs/Gov't to do the civil aid thingy. Only then can you even have hope of winning the war and from there it'll be a long haul indeed.

That's the correct prescription, though. It'll mean an afghan army of disproportionate size to it's GDP for some time. Not disproportionate to the security issue though and that takes precedent. It'll take ISAF forces to backfill and provide the logistics until those sub-institutions can take hold within the ANA and GoA. That, too, will likely be awhile.

All this is important to my Pakistani friends here because until the west throws in the towel and quits, this prescription implies that Afghanistan is going to be an international crossroads of soldiers, aid workers, and foreign governmental advisors/consultants for years if not decades to come.

The need is sufficient in this woefully neglected nation that aid is welcomed from wherever. That's why India's assistance in Afghanistan has been so useful. It's come with few attachments and has provided tangible projects of value to the afghan infrastructure. Their efforts have been self-contained and, thus, very effective as a result of their internal cohesion. Most of us look forward to more nations able to assist Afghanistan's stabilization in this manner.

This will be a long and involved process. That's certain.

 

[fatman17]

Done in partnership with local forces, small units of platoon-sized creating COP (Combat Outposts) within a neighborhood provides an immediate presence. It's worked well in Iraq.

good idea!

almost 250 such posts are available on our side of the border but no such infrastructure is available on the other side. lets replicate it on the other side, set up ToE's and co-operate and co-ordinate our activities to squeeze the militants movements.

...or is it too good to be true!

 

[fatman17]

Barely Winnable

Packer has an e-mail exchange with foreign policy maven David Kilcullen.

Here's Kilcullen on the situation in Afghanistan:

It’s bad: violence is way up, Taliban influence has spread at the local level, and popular confidence in the government and the international community is waning fast. It’s still winnable, but only just, and to turn this thing around will take an extremely major effort starting with local-level governance, political strategy, giving the Afghan people a well-founded feeling of security, and dealing with the active sanctuary in Pakistan.

A normal U.S. government transition takes six to nine months, by the time new political appointees are confirmed, briefed, and in position. But nine months out from now will be the height of the Afghan fighting season, and less than a month out from critical Presidential elections in Afghanistan. If we do this the “normal” way, it will be too late for the Obama Administration to grip it up. I think this is shaping up to be one of the smoothest transitions on record, with the current Administration going out of its way to assist and facilitate. That said, the incoming Administration has a steep learning curve, and has inherited a dire situation—so whatever we do, it’s not going to be easy.


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[eva syed]

yes i have also heard it from many people.

 

[S-2]

More on these thoughts-

David Kilcullen is a Ph.D in cultural anthropology and a former Lt. Col. of the Australian infantry. As a company commander he's well-practiced in counter-insurgency, having guided his unit successfully through a rigorous East Timor deployment. His work as an advisor to David Petraeus was critical to the development of the al-Anbar "awakening" and it's underlying principles. He's done EXTENSIVE study of the afghan tribal network as a component of his academic pursuits. Here he offers his thoughts for the New Yorker-

Kilcullen On Afghanistan: It's Still Winnable- But Only Just- New Yorker Magazine

Kilcullen suggests that not nearly as many troops may be needed as many presume. He nonetheless largely endorses the notion of COPs (combat outposts) as instrumental.

To this end, while he agrees that population densities generally suggest a dispersed population, he points to southern Afghanistan where 80% of the population lives within the confines of Lashkar Gal or Kandahar cities. While not uniform, Kilcullen points to the modest forces needed to secure these two areas and their populations, given the high densities. The value, of course, is population security and control. Moved into the communities, some semblance of normality can be re-established.

The soldiers must be very well-trained as they constantly interact with the locals. They must be polite and capable of developing local relationships. They must also transform into a serious threat to the well-being of any malefactor and do so with lightening speed. This threat of overt force must be understood in the local community.

Kilcullen points to the mis-use of the ANP because of manpower needs on the battlefield. They are under-armed and ill-trained soldiers in that role. Re-orienting the ANP's focus away from the ostensible battlefield to police and criminal work affords the communities local arbiters of the mundane- a role better filled by the afghan taliban to date in many locales.

Kilcullen's over-riding assumption is this- Troops are needed but, perhaps, not in the numbers nor role generally suggested. There are efficiencies that can be explored and, if so, exploited. Finally, a re-orientation of the conflict's center of gravity will create further efficiencies-

The population are the strategic objective for which both sides contest. The side which provides the most tangible, visible, and consistent presence wins. Pursuing the enemy across the depths of the nation dissipates our effort from where it's most central to success- among the people. While combat must continue to be offered against identified groups of taliban observed in movement, foremost is securing the cities, other key population areas and their transportation links as contested objectives and rapidly following upon the heels of those successes with intense and focused civil projects in a prioritized need.

In Iraq, because of sectarian violence, the best arbiter of community projects and issues is often the local U.S. Army commander on the scene. They're the most impartial and, further, possess discretionary funds available to jump-start projects. This has been an effective component of the COP concept.

Kilcullen warns that time is short. He fears a nine month window to capture the good-will of the afghani people before next summer's war campaigns and the elections one year from now. He doubts that Obama will have much grace-time to absorb emerging issues before needing to make critical decisions.

 

[S-2]

My apology. I also posted this excellent read in the O'Hanlon thread after the fact. He's interesting thoughts on actual population densities and how they may effect some savings in troops to assert control in certain areas.

Good thoughts too on the center of gravity- the afghan population and measures to secure their existence rather than dissipate valuable troop strength chasing the taliban over terrain that they don't need to control in order to win.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Threads merged.

 

[muse]

Excellent thread, great pieces.

Fellow Pakistani may find this instructive:

On the Pakistani sanctuary, this seems to be the cancer in the bones of Afghanistan, and no one has a good answer. Both air power and special-forces incursions have drawn the wrath of the Pakistani government and people, but their efforts, as you say, have been weak at best and two-faced at worst. Our diplomats and development workers are being systematically targeted, and there’s a question how well we can spend $750 million in the northwest. Is there a way to clear out this sanctuary, that doesn’t cause the problem to metastasize?

You’re right. Pakistan is extremely important; indeed, Pakistan (rather than either Afghanistan or Iraq) is the central front of world terrorism. The problem is time frame: it takes six to nine months to plan an attack of the scale of 9/11, so we need a “counter-sanctuary” strategy that delivers over that time frame, to prevent al Qaeda from using its Pakistan safe haven to mount another attack on the West. This means that building an effective nation-state in Pakistan, though an important and noble objective, cannot be our sole solution—nation-building in Pakistan is a twenty to thirty year project, minimum, if indeed it proves possible at all—i.e. nation-building doesn’t deliver in the time frame we need. So we need a short-term counter-sanctuary program, a long-term nation-building program to ultimately resolve the problem, and a medium-term “bridging” strategy (five to ten years)—counterinsurgency, in essence—that gets us from here to there. That middle part is the weakest link right now. All of that boils down to a policy of:

(a) encouraging and supporting Pakistan to step up and effectively govern its entire territory including the FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas], and to resolve the current Baluch and Pashtun insurgency, while
(b) assisting wherever possible in the long-term process of state-building and governance, but
(c) reserving the right to strike, as a last resort, at al Qaeda-linked terrorist targets that threaten the international community, if (and only if) they are operating in areas that lie outside effective Pakistani sovereignty

for Pakistan to make claims with regard to it's soverignty -- it must must be soverign in FATA, PATA or all these other idiot anachronisms.

To succeed, the Pakistani state must behave as a State, it must deliver services, it MUST collect taxes, it MUST police, It must administer Justice (firm and fair).

Before it does this, Pakistanis must accept that they have a huge problem and ignoring it will not make it go away. islamic extremism are not just parlour room ideas, it is a vicious murderous ideology that translates into action - and must be acted upon by the state.

Pakistanis will also note, that after 60 years of nationhood, the failure of the State to be a State is, obvious - And again, it not the problem of others, no amount of blackmail to squeeze more $$ aid, will solve a problem of WiLL.

Please, no more osterich acts, no more deflecting calls to action by pointing to the short coming of others - everybody can "do more", in our case, we MUST, do more to save ourselves.

 

[fatman17]

To succeed, the Pakistani state must behave as a State, it must deliver services, it MUST collect taxes, it MUST police, It must administer Justice (firm and fair).

well said but not from this govt.!