Elmo
RETIRED MOD
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- Jan 31, 2009
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Our war against Taliban has not even started. Already willing to throw in the towel? This is the first time there is something of the sort of a national consensus. This means that for the first time the GoP, public and the Army are on the same page to face off the threat. To say that our war is a failure has yet to be seen.
Okay, so what exactly have we been chasing out of the tribal areas since 2002… after reading your comment, certainly not the Taliban. As for being the “war a failure”, what S-2 understood is what I had implied.
Our case is even more complicated than the one faced by the ISAF. In our case its brother turned on brother. All typical approached to COIN go by the wayside in a campaign where family and tribal alliances are strained. What matters more? Religion? tribe? country? .
Yes sir agreed and that’s another count I oppose use of force. It’s psychological warfare. And these aren’t issue that have sprouted up overnight, we have known this for the last many years. Law-enforcement agencies’ personnel have been reluctant to fight the Taliban and there have been desertions on these counts.
Here’s a link to David Kilcullen’s piece on the Small wars Journal where he argues that religion is not really a barrier when it comes to counterinsurgency.
Religion and Insurgency (SWJ Blog)
So need your opinion, is religion really a barrier? Can the army somehow circumvent this in the future?
People may not know because most people in the United States do not know what COIN is. The key is that those who have to wage it should know of it and as I have mentioned, its a known science, however its one that is constantly in need of revising and evolution.
Once again, what have WE learned so far from COIN? That remains unanswered. I am not the one with the army background here!
Don’t confuse military knowledge with civilian knowledge.
I had stated this a couple of pages back only: being a civilian I have absolutely no knowledge whatsoever of military operations etc. You clearly missed that.
Yes, but what is the Pakistan Army’s doctrine regarding it?Secondly if it is part of a standard training concept there is written doctrine outlining what it is and how it is to be executed. Doctrine is in military generic terms so it, as doctrine, has flexibility.
Twisting what you said I did not. I had highlighted what you had stated because that’s what I had said in my post earlier: we lack credible intelligence and don’t know who the enemy is. Period.“At this point of time you do not have that luxury. At best you have unsubstantiated pointers from the displaced pers. This is a big problem as you have no idea if it is a fact that the enemy is there or it is a vendetta issue.”
I second nothing actually. I do point out you do have intel. I also point out it may have errors like any intel. Do not twist what I said for your argument.
As for pointing out military facts, well I never claimed that I know everything. National and geo-political may be but certainly not military. I have been asking these questions all along except no one seems interested in answering them.I am trying to point out some military fact that you do not understand.
I make no concept because I have no expertise in that area. So what I know I state, what I don’t know I stay mum on.You make criticism but no concept of how it may be dealt with. One sided flash points do not help with considered discussion.
The methods I mention are as valid as any, some of these being
1. Interrogation of IDPs.
2. Patrolling.
3. aerial/satellite photos
Now interrogation of IDPs has usually a limited ability as it requires a lot of cross reference of the gained intel. An IDP is not a totally reliable source. But it is a source and useable. For each piece of intel gained it has to be cross referenced with other bits from other IDPs. It is time consuming. In the end yes a picture can be built. This is a method that can not be discounted of hand. As I also said it may unfortunately involve matter of vendettas and that is a difficult point to deal with. There are examples of this in all CI ops. Patrolling is one method that will return reliable intel. This though assumes you have some control of the ground and you use appropriate sized forces to patrol. At present you are not in a position to actually do this fully and the terrain is not conducive to it in many places. The terrain is more conducive to ambush of the patrol so it risk is very high for a patrol. If you loose half a platoon for the sake of a bit of intel on 3 pers then it is over costly in life. Aerial/sat photos are useful in some respects provided you are dealing with static positions. But if you have to deal with caves etc then they may be of little advantage. Here though tracks may show up but that is not specific proof. Now I said you do not have the luxury of doing some of these. You do not in fact have the luxury of mounting patrols into a high risk area. You are at the start of this campaign not into it. So you must rely on a loose form of intel that is from local police, local security pers and also IDPs. Now as for intelligence as a whole, whet you get substantiated or not is only a snap shot of time. It was only valid at the time that intel was observed. Nothing is static. Thus any actions based on that intel will have a probability level of error.
Yup that pretty much answers my questions. Thank you for enlightening!
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