Abu Muqawama: Post
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Triage: The Next 12 Months in Afghanistan and Pakistan
June 5, 2009 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 1:24pm | 17 Comments
I was hoping to roll out the new CNAS report on Afghanistan and Pakistan with the new and improved Abu Muqawama. Alas ... the new and improved Abu Muqawama is still dealing with a few glitches. Expect that online later today or over the weekend. (I will just say this, though: Old Abu Muqawama is to Blue Steel what New Abu Muqawama is to Magnum.)
In the meantime, digest the new report -- authored by me, Dave Kilcullen, Nate Fick, and Ahmed Humayun -- on Afghanistan and Pakistan that will be formally released next week.
When I arrived at CNAS, I was a bit hesitant to lead the team working on this report. As you all know, I last served in Afghanistan in 2004 and have spent most of the past five years in the Arabic-speaking world. One of the great things about developing expertise about one region of the world, though, is that when you look at new regions, you more quickly -- to borrow a favorite phrase of Donald Rumsfeld -- know what you do not know.
So with the blessing of CNAS, I hired Christian Bleuer, Josh Foust, and Nick Schmidle as consultants and to make sure I got my facts straight. I am not the "pro's pro" on Afghanistan, but luckily, I know plenty of people who are. This report, then, benefited greatly from the many readers -- some in the United States, some in Europe, some in Central Asia -- who took the time to provide suggestions and tell us where we were getting things wrong in earlier drafts.
The second reservation I had about this project was that the administration, U.S. Central Command, and the Joint Chiefs had already conducted three strategic reviews on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it looked as if the president had already settled on his policy and a strategy. How, then, to be useful?
What we agreed to do was to offer four operational recommendations -- two for Afghanistan, two for Pakistan -- and to then provide metrics for gauging whether or not the U.S. and allied strategy was succeeding or failing. In the end, I think we have managed to write both a provocative and useful policy paper.
This next week, LTG (Ret.) David Barno will lead a discussion on this paper at the CNAS annual conference. Andrew Bacevich and COL Chris Cavoli will also be there to provide critiques and to contribute to the discussion. I tried to recruit co-panelists who would both provide a balanced assessment of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the tactical, operational, strategic, and political levels. I also tried to find people who might disagree with parts of our argument. It should be a lively discussion. In the meantime, read the report and sound off in the comments.
In the meantime, digest the new report -- authored by me, Dave Kilcullen, Nate Fick, and Ahmed Humayun -- on Afghanistan and Pakistan that will be formally released next week.
When I arrived at CNAS, I was a bit hesitant to lead the team working on this report. As you all know, I last served in Afghanistan in 2004 and have spent most of the past five years in the Arabic-speaking world. One of the great things about developing expertise about one region of the world, though, is that when you look at new regions, you more quickly -- to borrow a favorite phrase of Donald Rumsfeld -- know what you do not know.
So with the blessing of CNAS, I hired Christian Bleuer, Josh Foust, and Nick Schmidle as consultants and to make sure I got my facts straight. I am not the "pro's pro" on Afghanistan, but luckily, I know plenty of people who are. This report, then, benefited greatly from the many readers -- some in the United States, some in Europe, some in Central Asia -- who took the time to provide suggestions and tell us where we were getting things wrong in earlier drafts.
The second reservation I had about this project was that the administration, U.S. Central Command, and the Joint Chiefs had already conducted three strategic reviews on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it looked as if the president had already settled on his policy and a strategy. How, then, to be useful?
What we agreed to do was to offer four operational recommendations -- two for Afghanistan, two for Pakistan -- and to then provide metrics for gauging whether or not the U.S. and allied strategy was succeeding or failing. In the end, I think we have managed to write both a provocative and useful policy paper.
This next week, LTG (Ret.) David Barno will lead a discussion on this paper at the CNAS annual conference. Andrew Bacevich and COL Chris Cavoli will also be there to provide critiques and to contribute to the discussion. I tried to recruit co-panelists who would both provide a balanced assessment of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the tactical, operational, strategic, and political levels. I also tried to find people who might disagree with parts of our argument. It should be a lively discussion. In the meantime, read the report and sound off in the comments.
Wow. Your mascot there is just a wee bit, umm, kinetic, no? Or is he just trying to secure the civilian population?
-Cynic
I think it would be nicer if you put the links on the right side of the page. It is more natural than the left hand side.
Yikes. This is creeping me out. And I take it there will come a time when we're able to somehow attribute our comments (or does it already exist and I just haven't figured it out yet)?
On the bright side: at first glance from across the cubicle, the new color scheme and layout looks more to the passerby/boss like something I ought to be reading at work.
Mewett
You do realise that this blog will reflect much more on CNAS as a institution now?
You need a "sound off here about my new site" post stat. And where the hell is the log in...
While everybody's kvetching about the site layout, you should know your RSS is coming in truncated entries. I doubt you or CNAS want that.
Vietnam was an
unusually statisticized war, precisely because everyone was groping for understanding
SNLII, quoting Thomas Thayer
Agree with Chris. But, good lord, what the hell is this? It's like an attempt to stiffle the comments section! Tell John he needs to stop being so cheap and buy real software and programmers to make this useful. I might as well just have email conversations with everyone. I guess I'll sign this comment now.
Jason Fritz
Dear god....it's beautiful.
Just skimmed through the paper and perused the section everyone wanted to see, metrics. I was happy to see that you put forth a real portfolio of metrics in Afghanistan beyond just civilian casualties, although I think by limiting the "key metrics" summary to casualties and elections you limit the impact of such welcome data points such as firefight "aggressors" and IED removal rates.
(Stream of Consciousness: Would average distance traveled per month by merchants/produce-selling farmers be a useful indicator? Hypothetically, a more secure area would allow them to go further afield in search of buyers. Even in relatively insular areas, you might expect travelers to make more frequent trips within the province)
Just skimmed through the paper and perused the section everyone wanted to see, metrics. I was happy to see that you put forth a real portfolio of metrics in Afghanistan beyond just civilian casualties, although I think by limiting the "key metrics" summary to casualties and elections you limit the impact of such welcome data points such as firefight "aggressors" and IED removal rates.
(Stream of Consciousness: Would average distance traveled per month by merchants/produce-selling farmers be a useful indicator? Hypothetically, a more secure area would allow them to go further afield in search of buyers. Even in relatively insular areas, you might expect travelers to make more frequent trips within the province)
T.E. Shaw
Interesting paper, though.
Im struck by the absence of a couple of issues, such as logistics and cost-benefit analysis. Why is this a no go? I would guess logistics is the main parameter for what is possible to do, no? And also one of the overriding argument for getting serious in north Pakistan?
I was also a bit surprised by the part on the Pakistani police. WHile training Rapid Response groups is all well and good, wouldnt it be a better idea to focus on the lashkars up north and turning them around/empowering them somehow? WOuld propably be much better info-sources, etc.
Third, Im amazed to understand that in the US Army, everything is free. Why is there never any economical estimates or time-frame estimates in US reports like this?
But very good, and interesting metrics.
PS: Your text-links dont look different from the rest of the text ;-)
fnord
Yeah, the hyperlinks being the same color and the truncated RSS feeds are pretty hard to deal with.
Two points
-Regarding the civilian surge: the last thing needed is to just put more mentors at the Ministries in Kabul. For the Ministry of Interior alone it’s taken the IPCB years to get the numbers of mentors under control, ie the Minister himself no longer has 3-6 mentors all with different agendas. Several Afghan ministries got together released a joint paper mid April detailing the technical expertise and skill sets they required. It’s not perfect, but it’s a starting point, and includes provincial/district level needs which I feel are much more important to making progress the average Afghans can see. It is crucial that the civilian surge actually be a surge of needed expertise placed in the areas it will be most valuable. Throwing more “mentors” at the ministries without doing significant work as to matching individual expertise with government needs will only exacerbate all of the existing problems. Additionally, the surge needs to be coordinated at all stages with the entire international community presence, not just NATO countries. There is a sense on many fronts that the U.S. is moving unilaterally in Afghanistan despite lots of talk to the contrary. The implementation and execution of the civilian surge is an opportunity to counter this.
-Please don’t give the Senlis Coucil (now known as the International Council on Security and Development) any stature by referencing their documents in the future. The methodology they used in the paper you reference was questionable at best. Two quick examples - "Heavy Taliban presence" is deducted from one or more attacks per week. This is arbitrary, and applied on the level of one province means that even if there would be only one attack in one district of the province per week they would declare the whole province "heavily Taliban present". The report also simplifies by defining provinces as equally large units. Coming to call three provinces eight percent of Afghanistan regardless of their population or area is wrong. The current national level ANSF threat map regarding the elections has ten “Enemy Controlled” districts. Assessments produced by the Regional Commands tend to have fewer.
oh it's magnum all right....."it's beeeauuutiful!" and i dig the lego man.
Andrew,
Congratulations on your success. I've been a loyal reader of the blog for months now, and follow CNAS closely.
A couple of concerns with your paper:
1.) You state, "...U.S. and allied operations in Afghanistan must be focused on protecting the population even at the expense of U.S. and allied casualties." I don't think there is anything factually wrong with that, but I do worry that it won't play well with the American public. Our soldiers will die in order to make Afghans feel secure? Are you saying that our (US citizens) security is directly tied to the security of Afghan citizens?
2.) As far as the endemic corruption in Afghanistan--I spent a little over a year in Kabul with the military and with a small trading firm, and the corruption doesn't start and stop with the Government. I was hit up for bribes from a wide range of Afghans: from everyone at Kabul International Airport (from the bag guy, to the security guy, to the cop that was willing to let me cut the customs line) to police officers to business owners to the customs officials overseeing cargo clearance. Everyone was involved in the corruption, so I wonder how a couple of hundred or thousand coalition civilians are going to address the Afghan corruption problem. Are they going to stand next to the bag throwers at the airport, go on ride-alongs with the police, or sit in the office next to the low level customs guy?
Anyway, again, love your stuff, and congrats on your success.
Keith
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