A More Lethal COIN Strategy in Afghanistan

U.S. Army Pfc. Eric Guzman provides security alongside Afghan Border Police officers while patrolling a village in Afghanistan's Khowst province, Jan. 18, 2012. Guzman is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division's Company C, Team Hatchet, 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team. U.S. and Afghan National Security Forces worked together to surprise and corner insurgents with air assault missions in the villages near the Pakistani border. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Phillip McTaggart

Afghan Village Fight Illustrates More Lethal COIN Strategy -- David Axe, Aol Defense

MARZAK, Afghanistan -- In the middle of the night on July 23, U.S. Special Forces infiltrated a bowl-shaped valley in Paktika Province in remote eastern Afghanistan. Their target: a major Taliban encampment just outside this, which hadn't had a government presence in decades. Taliban fighters had been using Marzak as a rest stop on the long road between Pakistan and Afghanistan's major cities.

What followed was "one of the biggest fights of the year" in Afghanistan, according to U.S. Army Lt. Col. Curtis Taylor, commander of forces in western Paktika. When the sun rose on July 24, around 100 insurgents lay dead. One American had died.

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My Comment: With a lack of boots on the ground, I have trouble seeing how this new strategy can work .... especially since more U.S. troops are slated to withdraw this year and next.

Is Counterinsurgency Working In Afghanistan?

American forces fired 105-millimeter artillery toward an insurgent rocket position near the Pakistan border after being attacked on the 10th anniversary of the Afghan war. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

10 Years of Counterinsurgency In Afghanistan — Is It Working? -- ABC News

On the 10th anniversary of the War in Afghanistan, ABC News takes a closer look at the U.S. Army strategy being used in Afghanistan to win – and end – America’s longest war.

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — In an interview with ABC News, Lt. Col. John Paganini, director of the U.S. Army’s Counterinsurgency Center, explained how the counterinsurgency strategy being employed in Afghanistan is still the Army’s strategy there, despite having no concrete end date, no measurable metric of success and awareness that resources are limited.

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My Comment: When I read stories like this one .... that is when I become VERY skeptical that counterinsurgency is working in Afghanistan.

Is U.S. Counter-Insurgency Era At An End?

This Week At War: End Of The COIN Era? -- Robert Haddick, Foreign Policy

Obama's Afghan withdrawal speech may mark the end of the U.S. counterinsurgency experiment.

President Barack Obama's prime-time speech on his plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan left no doubt that he intends to run for reelection as the leader who ended two painful wars. Most notable was his intention to extract 10,000 soldiers this year and 23,000 more by next summer, before the height of Afghanistan's traditional summer fighting season. For some analysts, this would seem to be a large military risk, taken for purely domestic political benefit.

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My Comment: Robert Haddick makes a number of valid points in this post .... especially on his analysis of the RAND Corp. report "Looming Discontinuities in U.S. Military Strategy and Defense Planning". Read it all.

COIN As A Minority View In The Military

From The Best Defense/Foreign Policy:

For those who worry that the whole U.S. Army has gone overboard about counterinsurgency, here's an image to keep in mind, offered by Ganesh Sitaraman in the New Republic after a visit to the Army's counterinsurgency school in Kabul (oddly enough, just down the boulevard from where I went to high school for two years):

"How many of you have read David Galula's Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice?" Lt. Colonel Matt Galton, the deputy director of the center, asked in his Australian accent. Two hands slowly went up. It was not surprising. Though Galula's book is a--possibly the--classic starting point for counterinsurgency, it was written over 40 years ago and isn't required reading. More troubling, when Galton asked how many had read the Counterinsurgency Field Manual, only about five hands went up.

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My Comment: David Galula's book .... Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice? ....can be read here.

The Counterinsurgency Field Manual can be read here.

The Evolution Of Counter Insurgency Theory

Photo from Directorate of Intelligence. RTAF HQ

The Birth of Modern Counterinsurgency -- Ann Marlowe, World Affairs

At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003, counterinsurgency theory was about as popular in American military circles as tank warfare is today. An early study by the chief war planner for the 101st Airborne Division during its first deployment to Iraq reported “a collective cognitive dissonance on the part of the U.S. Army to recognize a war of rebellion, a people’s war, even when they were fighting it.” There was a reason for this. Eager to forget the most painful experience in its history, the army had all but banished counterinsurgency from the lexicon of American military affairs after Vietnam. As a result, the army relied on a flawed strategy in Iraq for a period that lasted, according to author Thomas Ricks, at least “twenty months or more.”

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My Comment: There is a lot of good stuff in this article. I have already read it once, and I am reading it again and taking down notes. In my spare time I have been doing research on the history of counter insurgency theory .... it is obvious that Ann Marlowe is doing the same thing .... including putting a book together. This is a must read article.

Was It The The Nazis Who Taught The Soviets All That There Is To Know About Counter Insurgency?

Soviet tanks in Budapest, Hungary in 1956. Radio Free Europe broadcasts encouraged the Hungarians to battle on in the false understanding that they would receive reinforcements from the West. Photo from Videofact.

Counterinsurgency: The Brutal But Effective Russian Approach -- Foreign Policy

I've spent the last several days at the Naval War College, which hosted a big summary conference on counterinsurgency practices.

One of the most interesting presentations was by Harvard's Mark Kramer, who took issue with the assertion made in the American military's counterinsurgency manual that each side in a COIN fight is vying to be perceived as legitimate by the population. The Russians, he said, in several campaigns both at home and aboard have strived not for legitimacy, but simply for control. And in each instance their operations were notably brutal but also quite effective.

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My Comment: I think I can add a bit more to this discussion. During the Russian campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s, my father (a former Soviet officer in the Second World War) remarked on numerous occasions that the Soviet approach towards counter insurgency in Afghanistan was all wrong.

Years later I asked him how did he know .... his answer was that he and other officers (during the Second World War) were educated on numerous occasions on how effective the Nazis (through their special SS units) were in anti-partisan operations and tactics (we call it coin today) against Soviet citizens in occupied territories. As Soviet officers they were taught that German 'coin' tactics were terribly effective, and that in the event of being cut off from the Soviet Army, they would .... as partisans .... must be made aware of what the Germans were capable of.

As he put it .... when he and his fellow soldiers started to liberate occupied territories, partisan units were far and few between. He quickly learned the reason why very quickly .... the SS were successful through torture, intelligence, informers, intimidation, murder, and wholesale slaughter of communities to subjugate and pacify the population. And as my father put it bluntly .... they were very pacified.

Learning from the best .... he believes that the Soviets then copied and started to use these same tactics against future rebellious populations and territories. What is worse, is that they taught other communist movements around the world these same tactics and procedures. This is probably one of the many reasons why the Communists were successful in crushing dissent in China, Indo-China, and Cuba.

On a side note, my father also remarked that at the beginning of the Indo-China war, the French Foreign legion had no difficulty in defeating the communists and supporters of Ho Chi Min. It was when Paris found out that much of the officer corp of the French Foreign Legion were ex SS German officers ..... the political scandal that then erupted resulted in all German officers being purged. A few months later, the slow and grinding road to defeat started for the French in Vietnam .... and the Americans 20 years later.

2nd Comment: Hmmm .... this posting has got me thinking. How far back in time does counter insurgency thinking and strategy goes .... the British? The Vikings? The Romans? I smell a good paper or book here.

History Lessons And Counterinsurgency

Marine Capt. Mark Trouerbach, left, and United States Army soldiers heard insurgents’ fire in Nuristan Province on Oct. 24. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

From The New York Times:

In his second “A Soldier Writes” column, Capt. Tim Hsia considers the United States military campaign in Afghanistan against the historical backdrop of Britain and Russia’s experiences there. In today’s New York Times, Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane look at the divided opinions among counterterrorism experts on whether the United States needs a growing ground force in Afghanistan to prevent another major attack on American soil.

United States military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have often been criticized for ignoring the lessons of history. It is frequently commented that the United States is following a well-traveled deadly course that Alexander the Great, the British and the Soviet Union have paved. While there are important lessons to be learned from history, it seems the frequent use of historical analogy occasionally leads into a different kind of trap. As a history instructor of mine at West Point was fond of saying, “history does not repeat itself, historians do.”

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My Comment: I find that the milblogs have been far more effective in examining and analyzing history lessons and counterinsurgency than the New York Times.

Having said that, this article is still a must read .... even though the New York Times is a year late in examining this issue.

Lessons from Sri Lanka: Brutality Can Help Win Small Wars

Sri Lankan military checkpoint Deshakalyan Chowdhury/AFP-Getty Images

From War Is Boring:

Sri Lanka’s victorious offensive against the rebel Tamil Tigers this spring is a model of “hybrid” warfare, where states must contend with high-tech insurgent enemies. Small Wars Journal culled the major lessons of the war from an Indian journal. Defeating hybrid enemies requires:

• Unwavering political will
• Disregard for international opinion distracting from the goal
• No negotiations with the forces of terror
• Unidirectional floor of conflict information
• Absence of political intervention to pull away from complete defeat of the [enemy]
• Complete operational freedom for the security forces — let the best men do the task
• Accent on young commanders
• Keep[ing] your neighbors in the loop

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My Comment: When the communists were constituting the Soviet Union right after the revolution, they had low level insurgencies in many of their regions. The bloodiest ones were in the Caucasus and in the Muslim Republics of Ccentral Asia.

To defeat them .... which they did .... they also used the same tactics that are outlined above. It took them a number of years, but they eventually won.

COIN Air Wing Looks Likely

The Super Tuc is a popular COIN platform in several South American countries.
Photo Army Rumor Service

From DoD BUzz:

Michael Vickers provides the Pentagon one of the most creative brains around, especially in his area of expertise — irregular (hybrid etc. etc.) warfare. What’s really nifty about Vickers, who largely ran US operations in Afghanistan when we were working with the local insurgents against the Soviets, is that he gets to use that experience as the Defense Secretary’s top advisor on special operations and low intensity conflict. Vickers had breakfast with Christian Lowe and a small group of defense reporters and told them that OSD will probably support the idea — first offered publicly by the Air Force CoS Gen. Norton Schwartz – of a COIN air wing during the QDR. Of course, that would mean the Air Force will have to buy one or more versions of an increasing slew of propeller planes designed for counter-insurgency operations.

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My Comment: Everyone is focused on counter insurgency and irregular warfare .... why not air force. These plane may not be sexy .... but they will be necessary for air to ground support when UAVs and other aircraft cannot provide it.

How We Are Being Out Maneuvered By Our Enemies

PACIFIC OCEAN (March 29, 2008) The guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67), front, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and the guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) steam in formation during combined training exercises in the western Pacific Ocean. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kyle D. Gahlau (Released)

COIN Is The New Conventional -- New Wars

To project its military power and enforce its political will on other nations, the US insists only $6-$10 billion supercarriers and their equally pricey airwings and escorts, along with sizable Marine amphibious groups will suffice. The USAF will also deploy its giant airwings consisting of stealth bombers fighters and bombers that are individually as pricey as a naval frigate, the purchase of 7 more of which are currently rocking the foundations of the Congress.

Lets now look at what our enemies are doing to force their will on us and their own surrounding neighbors:

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My Comment: New Wars hits it on the nose. Our enemies are making us run like a dog in a circle going after its tail.