Center for a New American Security

Whatever the outcome of our conflict in Iraq, Kip is certain that the no-longer-so-secret history of the "Joint Task Force" will merit writing. Untold in the basic narrative of the surge, the Joint Task Force described this Saturday in the Washington Post has been a model of innovation, transforming among other things the response rate to "actionable" intelligence.

This and other tales like it reflect an often overlooked discussion on Abu Muqawama--the incredible importance of innovation in organizational design. What has characterized our recent efforts in Iraq is spectacular innovation, which has cut the Gordian knot on bureaucratic infighting, e.g., cutting a service-which-will-not-be-named out of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle loop to develop an incredibly potent offensive counter-IED force. Kip believes that without this innovation, the basic "hammer" of the modular US Army could not have turned all the "screws" it confronted in Iraq (and continues to encounter--Kip knows it ain't near over yet).

Kip is also certain that we will learn more from and better resource similar efforts in Afghanistan as the next President, regardless of party, focuses significantly more attention on that vital arena. While efforts to eliminate the political and military infrastructure of the Taliban are vital, however, the most urgent attention must now be given to a far less sexy problem in which no one will get to kill things and break sh*t.

Kip has no idea what happened in some of the key incidents in which civilian casualties have been alleged in recent months. It is all very confusing. Carlotta Gall, the UN (disturbingly out-of-sink with the UN Security Council mandated effort under ISAF to provide security), and the Afghan government (in an investigation led initially by the Minister of Religious Affairs of all people) say that 90 civilians were killed in Shindand, and the shaky cell phone video released to the Associated Press among other things shook up GEN McKiernan's confidence in the official version enough to request a more independent investigation. On the other hand, reporting by Ollie North who was embedded on the scene reports that US and Afghan forces took fire, and a military investigation, which Kip would not underestimate as readily as the media, found similarly.

To be frank, Kip also doesn't care what happened on the ground. What matters it that the Afghan people believe we killed civilians and are now covering it up.

The United States and its Allies are losing the fight to influence the Afghan population, and that no one in Afghanistan has believed our version of events from the get-go. We have been losing for a long time (just look at the decline in poll numbers of support for our efforts over the past several years and the increasing criticism of Coalition air strikes by President Karzai since 2006).

At this point, it is no suprise that we are going to use airpower at times in Afghanistan. It is also no surprise that civilians at times are going to be killed. It is even less of a surprise that regardless of how many Taliban are killed, the Taliban will release significant estimates of civilian casualties and claim their fighters were not involved. Indeed,this all seems like deja vu. A year before the current incident in Shindand, the Taliban claimed large numbers of civilian casualties in a similar strike in the same valley, causing President Karzai to go on TV and condemn aerial bombing of Afghan villages. In fact, ISAF wrote an unclassified assessment outlining the attack as a tactical success and information operations failure.

So why do we look like a deer in the frieking headlights...again?

Well, the first step is acknowledging you have a problem. It's a vital step, and everyone has acknowledged the problem. But it can't be the only step--and we have fallen far, far off the wagon.

Our efforts to inform the Afghan populace, to respond to events, and to execute influence operations within the enemy's decision cycle require the kind of organizational innovation akin to these task forces that so successfully eliminate our enemies with great violence. It requires organizing the best, brightest, and most capable people, developing SOPs, and developing "actionable" information initiatives, just as surely as we would respond to "actionable" intelligence. How many uniformed spokesmen are speaking in Pashto and Dari to the Afghan press? Why don't we have a press release released at the same time we have a bomb released? Where is the footage from the scene on iReporter, YouTube and a half-dozen other places (vetted just as rapidly to protect OPSEC)? Where is the reporting on Taliban intimidation, moral corruption, and civilian casualties? How many Pajwok or Tolo reporters embed into Afghan Army or Police units? Where is our effort to influence the mosque? Where are the Afghan National Security Force DVDs to counter the Taliban-produced propaganda? How much effort and responses is expended on an ISAF newspaper generally used to wrap kebabs in lieu of tackling these far more difficult issues? How are we coordinating tailored messages for each of the ISAF contributor nations? What's our influence strategy into FATA, Baluchistan, and Waziristan?

Kip doesn't have all the answers, but he is certain that if we don't make developing these answers our most urgent priority, we may rapidly reach a tipping point with the Afghan population, regardless of our best (and increasingly meaningless) efforts to ensure we don't kill civilians.