The New York Times runs a story today from reporter Rod Nordland in Kandahar about the shift in strategy there away from a military headlined offensive to more aid and reconstruction efforts, with a gradual increase in coalition constables walking the streets.
Partly this is due to local opposition to a military offensive by an “unsympathetic population.” The other major reason, according to the NYT, is the realization among the ISAF command that the much ballyhooed “Operation Moshtarak Phase II,” the Marine Corps air and ground assault on Marja in February, failed.
In a briefing to Pentagon reporters last month, Afghan commander Gen. Stanly McChrystal gave his assessment of the Marja offensive:
“As a counterinsurgency force pushes out insurgents, their smart move is to contest that, to try to undermine what we’ve done. They can’t come in and control Marja like they did before. They can’t raise the flag; they can’t hold terrain. But they can try to convince the people that they’re not secure: Murders, night letters, taxation. And they can try to send a message that says, “This won’t last. The coalition will leave. The government of Afghanistan will leave.”
Then McChrystal described the current security environment in Kandahar:
“[The Taliban] certainly do not control Kandahar city. They can contest parts of Kandahar city and they can create acts so there’s not sufficient security in Kandahar city, but the Taliban do not control the city. You know, you can walk around the streets in Kandahar and there’s business going on. It’s a functioning city.”
These are surprising statements coming from somebody as well versed in counterinsurgency as McChrystal. Insurgents don’t typically “raise the flag,” except perhaps in the final stages of an insurgency when they’ve won the political contest. As far as Kandahar is concerned, the fact that Kandahar city is “functioning” doesn’t mean the insurgents don’t control Kandahar.
One of the many fatal flaws in U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine is the failure to understand the “lone guerrilla paradox,” a concept that has vexed counterinsurgents from Algeria to Vietnam to now Afghanistan.
In his excellent book, War Comes to Long An, Jeffrey Race, a U.S. Army officer who served in Vietnam, described the paradox: In a village, a single insurgent fighter represents a “monopoly of force,” controlling that village even if challenged by an entire battalion of government troops doing continuous battalion sweeps.
The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.
– Greg Grant
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I don't see the conflict between what McCrystal is saying vs the article. Seems both are true…
Excellent post and it falls in line with the New Rules of War that John Arquilla put together. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/22/…
The remedy for the lone guerrilla paradox, is 'finding' and arresting him. In order to find someone, you can either co-opt with the locals or use sting operations or pseudo operations to find these persons. If the locals do not want to participate or they fear for their lives, well then the later option of finding is optimum. This is the scalpel for this kind of surgery.
Kinetic military operations are nice if we are dealing with a standing army or entrenched enemy, but this type of operation sucks at actually finding the right people and not pissing off the local populations in the process. That is a hammer, and a hammer has limited use in surgery.
So finding is crucial, and having the right tools to find folks is crucial as well. Drones can't do it alone, nor can we depend on the will of the people to completely help in this endeavor. What we need are individuals that can swim in that sea of population, and find the threats who hide in the shadows can. Former Taliban or Afghans that can pull off the Taliban act are probably the best we could come up with for finding operations. If you want to tear apart an organization, you need an insider who can lay out all of the pieces. If you want to tear apart the organization assigned to a village, you need an individual that can penetrate that group and report on every facet of it. I call it the law enforcement approach towards this phase of COIN, and that is how you find and take out those lone guerrillas.
As is usually the case, if you want a new idea you read an old book. Galula addresses this issue in his Rand Study (Pacification in Algeria, 1956-1958) He talks about the process of rooting out the FLN political officers in the villages.
Absolutely. There are tons of examples of this kind of operation in the past, and with numerous armies. I am sure the readership can bring up numerous examples of successful law enforcement sting operations as well.
———
Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Other Countries
Authored by Dr. Lawrence E. Cline.
The six factors for turning guerrillas into pseudo-operators.
1. Money counts.
2. The alternative to cooperation can be dire.
3. Coordination is critical.
4. Breaking guerrilla communications systems is a key tool.
5. Effectiveness of pseudo operations depends in large part on the effectiveness of response forces.
6. The role of “turned” guerrillas is critical.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pub…
People forget the level of bribery involved in AfPak. Insurgents are duplicitous in some areas. Whatever force is in their AO, they will acquiesce when its expedient for them to do so.
We are operating under ROE, laid down by the administration. We are operating as our commander in chief wishes us to operate. We are not winning, nor will we win in Afghanstan. Guerrilla wars have been fought and won by the U.S. Army, but not using the current methods.
Name a Guerilla war the US has won in its history.
There is no "win" in an occupation. All you can realistically hope for is a reasonable reduction in violence and a improved security. Those are the conditions we need to set so that the Afghans can take over and we can leave. One Taliban punk can cause problems, just as one MS-13 gang-banger can in Los Angeles, but that doesn't mean we're losing or winning. It means one punk needs to be arrested by a police officer.
The mission is not to defeat the Taliban in Kandahar. The mission in COIN is to build the police and security forces who will defeat the Taliban. Granted, we need to help the ANA secured the city and set the conditions where those police can succeed. But that "Lone Guerrilla" crap ignores the main effort of COIN, building partner capacity.
Well one war that they won, that lasted over a hundred years was the Indian wars. The Phillipines at the turn of the 20th century is another, then there were various American Excursions the Marines were involved in.
"There is no win in occupation", is historically false. The Romans occupied Britian, current France and half of current Germany, current Spain, N. Africa and a big chunk of Eastern Europe and the Mid-East for something like 500 years and they did it all with less than the manpower of the current USMC. Of course, the Roman Army fought to win, and didn't give out awards for PC and restraint.
You do realize that, in most cases, the Romans controlled those areas in name only. Most of the soldiers guarding those areas, enforcing Roman law, were from those areas. Romans would play a large part in taking these areas, but once the fighting was over they generally incorporated their former enemies into the Empire, and allowed them to be fairly autonomous. When you're government is run by your own people, is it really an occupation?
The local governments were run the way the Romans wanted, with Roman oversight, backed up by a Roman Legion(s). Occasionally there was rebellion. It was quickly stamped out. This prevailed up until the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted until the 15th century when it was finally conquered by Muslim invaders.
Maybe the Afgans don't want to partner with our infidel butts.
The occupation of Germany
Vietnam- Yes, Vietnam, we destroyed the vietcong. It was not untill years after we removed our troops the the south fell to an conventional invasion.
I'm pretty sure at least one in south america.
The battle for america against the indians.
“Name a Guerilla war the US has won in its history.”
Well the Marines won several of these in the Pacific and South America (former French/Spanish colonial possessions) around the turn of the last century:
Philippines insurrection
Haiti
As somewhat stated in the posts above, COIN isn’t 100% about killing the bad guys, but providing enough leadership, security, and stability to the populace to prevent insurgents from controlling an area uncontested.
The American Revolution
Beat me to it! :->
Yes….but that was as the insurgent "bad guys". So not the best of examples in this case.
We won the Philippines insurrection?
We won Haiti?
And those were Guerrilla wars, or insurrections that failed to retain national power?
Let me be more specific, name a case where the US occupied a foreign country and effectively quelled a violent Guerrilla resistance. Even more relevant to today's issue, name a case since Gap popularized effective Guerrilla tactics in Vietnam, where any country occupied a foreign country and effectively quelled a violent Guerrilla resistance.
While I don't have all the details at my fingertips, it seems the Brits did a pretty good job in Malaya from 1948 to 1960. I know your question was about the US, but just perhaps it is time for our "professionals" to actually BE professional enough to put away their egos and realize that they don't have to re-invent the wheel every time to come up with a winning system/strategy/tactic. The Marine Corps "Banana Wars" in central and south America before WW2 did actually defeat the "bandits" as they were then called. You've heard of the "Small Wars Manual" that came out of that, I'm sure. The Marines did it in Vietnam with the CAP program, but it seems it wasn't compatible with Westie's big war strategy and the results are history…
I thought the idea was to stay after sweeping through an area, not sweep and leave. What happened to the "government in a box" concept touted as the future of Afghanistan counterinsurgency?
Well, as you have all read from the article,the commander of forces in Afghanistan needs replaced. But that's not all….we need MORE forces to hold the ground and stabilize the population in the areas we control. Attacking population centers and occupying them fails every time as the enemy is allowed to move to the out lying areas and re-groups and re-arms. If Obama is committed to winning in Afghanistan as he says he is, then he will ultimately commit more troops, or allow us to fail,which the latter seems to be his ultimate goal.
Anything that Obama says has an expiration date of from hours to days or weeks. He isn't known for straight talk and honesty.
Why should the people help us when we are drawing down in 2011.
What, exactly, constitutes victory at this point? With what are we going to win hearts and minds? Forget how to achieve victory, what is victory? Our biggest handicap is the Afgan government. Your average person in Afgan just wants something resembling stability and the illusion of safety. Like the cops in prohibition era Chicago, we only provide those things when we are there. Then we leave. The Afgan government is corrupt and unpredictable. The people have no faith in them. But the gangsters, they always remain. At least with the gangsters, if they play by the rules, they will get some kind of safety and stability, even if they don't share the Taliban's religious zeal. As long as we don't kill the bullies, the poor people will always revert back to them in the vain search for peace in their own life. In some ways, the Taliban are more predictable than the Afgan government, and no one makes them go away.
So, what now? We can't kill them all and really root them out because of ROE and this never ending desire to "win hearts and minds", and the Afgan government is not seen as viable alternative that the people can have faith in or trust. What does victory look like again?
Who was the idiot who started us down this nation building path?
It sounds like Yon is right about McChrystal. Does he know how long the Anbar effort took? Of course he does. As for Obama, well, the commanders didn't push back on his timeline, from what I understand. If they thought they could 'out-political' or finesse Obama, then they were very naive.
It sounds like the strategy was to have the field elements figure out how to win it. And when they didn't do it according to some absurd schedule, then the field gets scapegoated. Great leadership.
don't blame coin or the military. they didn't send troops in and announce at the same time that they will be gone by 2011. they didn't send their troops on a "re-building" mission either. go blame the politicians and the people who vote for them.
Don't think some of you guys can start comparing the Romans nor the US revolution to the current Afgan conflict. Last time I check the Romans/US revolution was more of an invasion than a "Temporary Occupation" which is what I thought the US was doing. And that I mean helping the local government to become self sustainable than going in and kill of any locals than opposed your ideals, culture, currency etc..
"And they can try to send a message that says, “This won’t last. The coalition will leave."
Obama pretty much took care of that…
It sounds like the MOB in the 70′s. Business owners knew they were in charge and had to fear both entities – MOB and police. The solution – capture or kill the organization’s leaders and their replacements. Eventually an idiot comes to power and exposes the entire organization. In the mean time, cozy up to business owners and get them to play both sides of the fence – giving up the taliban applying pressure.
I respectfully disagree with Greg Grant on severel levels. He claims McChrystal displays a lack of understanding by implying the insurgents would "raise the flag" if they could — Grant suggesting they only do that late in an insurgency.
where there is a government vacuum and the insurgents are able to raise the flag in even a small area they will sometimes do so. I personally witnessed this in a compact 4 neighborhood (mulhallah) are in Baghdad and then again in a 4 X 12 kilometer area of Diyala province with a relatively large population living on well-irrigated land. They had raised the flag in both places to the extent that they controlled all movement, imposed their own curfew and even had personnel records recording the request of a bereaved mother asking for a pension because her son had died in Al-Qaeda's service.