Abu Muqawama retains its autonomy and the views and beliefs expressed within the blog do not reflect those of CNAS.
Chandrasekaran reports on the ongoing Marine operations in Helmand province. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise, but I found this troubling:
"The Marines have also been vexed by a lack of Afghan security forces and a near-total absence of additional U.S. civilian reconstruction personnel. Nicholson had hoped that his brigade, which has about 11,000 Marines and sailors, would be able to conduct operations with a similar number of Afghan soldiers. But thus far, the Marines have been allotted only about 500 Afghan soldiers, which he deems "a critical vulnerability."...Despite commitments from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development that they would send additional personnel to help the new forces in southern Afghanistan with reconstruction and governance development, State has added only two officers in Helmand since the Marines arrived. State has promised to have a dozen more diplomats and reconstruction experts working with the Marines, but only by the end of the summer."
I'll just repeat my earlier suggestion that the Administration ensure it has all the resources it needs if it intends to carry out population-centric counterinsurgency in southern Afghanistan (or anywhere else). The lack of Afghan government forces and civilian reconstruction experts doesn't bode particularly well for any lasting effect from this operation, and it's deeply disappointing that we've known about these shortfalls for so long and still can't seem to do much about them.
UPDATE: Attackerman digs up a bit more on the civilian contribution to the Helmand operation.
"Despite commitments from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development that they would send additional personnel to help the new forces in southern Afghanistan with reconstruction and governance development, State has added only two officers in Helmand since the Marines arrived."
So, this is all due to inadequate funding? Or bureaucratic 'glitches'? Or, what?
No surprise here. Any guesses on how long the Marines will stay in the valley and how long after they leave that reports of Taliban controlling the villages will start? If there were 11,000 competent and willing Afghan soldiers and police available they wouldn't need the Marines.
This major problem with pop-centric COIN is the resources it would require. To follow the doctrine you need so many people and so much cash that the taxpayer will get fed up well before the failed state in question can look after itself. And that's assuming the loyalty of the locals can be bought in the face of fear of the insurgents, loathing of armed foreigners and lack of confidence in the staying power of the occupiers.
"Despite commitments from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development that they would send additional personnel to help the new forces in southern Afghanistan with reconstruction and governance development, State has added only two officers in Helmand since the Marines arrived."
So its official, then? The US Statedepartment is broken? This should have been the time to call in NATO expertise ASAP. If anyone had thought about such contigency planning.
Only 500 ANA? Wtf? Someone explain? Does this mean that no local mullahs have been recruited either? Argh.
PS: It might be time to take a leaf out of the Chinese book and make private-sector subdivisions funded by the US. Your own engineering Blackwater, with competitive payrates. Just saying. But its too late now, anyways?
So, this is all due to inadequate funding? Or bureaucratic 'glitches'? Or, what?
Great question.
I'll add a possibility-- buy-in from the State Department?
What does diplomacy like in counter-insurgency climates? Enterprising graduate students and think tanks are hopefully looking at that question right now, if they haven't already published something already. Any links or information is appreciated.
I'm with RWL on this one. Twelve people, with 50 more promised? If State had any interest in going to Afghanistan, they could iron out all the problems in a week.
There ought to be a thousand people from State deploying to Helmand. If they want a joint military civilian effort, they're going to have to send a noteworthy number of civilians.
The reality-disconnect continues. Apologies for ego-manifestation, but Ive been looking for the enginner-corps for well nigh three years now and counting. Just doesnt manifest. Wtf?Its like going in without ammo, in a COIN perspective.
I got back from a trip to that part of Helmand (Lashkar Gah and areas south) last week, and was struck by the absence of ANA troops. In particular, at each Afghan police position that I visited, I would ask the cops when the last time they saw ANA troops was, and very often they would say "Three months ago," "Six months ago," or "Here? Never."
@M Shannon-
"Any guesses on how long the Marines will stay in the valley and how long after they leave that reports of Taliban controlling the villages will start?"
Typically the fighting season in the mountains lasts from May to September, and the winter and snow seems to curtail modern, mobile helicopter or mechanized infantry operations. But there are other factors. Usually the Afghans just move to where we are not. So we would then follow. And then there is the fact that Americans have an extremely short attention span.
So I say August.
War.............. define that word. Can you? In WWII we fought to win, period. Now we fight to placate terrorists and world opinion. Fu** em we put OUR men there we win or lose. IF the limp dick politicians leave us to do our job. Instead they make us pay for the same real estate 20-30 times. Massive waste of lives, and for what? To placate either one terrorist regime or another...... diplomacy................. sound's like the "Nobles" of Scotland in the 1350's They had as many estates in England as they did in Scotland and willingly betrayed their own for those "estates"
@RWL
"What does diplomacy like in counter-insurgency climates? Enterprising graduate students and think tanks are hopefully looking at that question right now, if they haven't already published something already. Any links or information is appreciated."
-- Not exactly related but I'll be doing my grad thesis on COIN.
http://gringolost.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/my-internal-thesis-debate-coi...
Any suggestions/comments are appreciated.
yeah, were just stupid f&cks.
Al-Qa'eda's Wind(s) of Paradise 4, The Martyrs of "AFPAK"
I'm with RWL on this one. Twelve people, with 50 more promised? If State had any interest in going to Afghanistan, they could iron out all the problems in a week. There ought to be a thousand people from State deploying to Helmand. If they want a joint military civilian effort, they're going to have to send a noteworthy number of civilians.
There simply aren't huge numbers of spare FSOs--indeed, the US Marine brigade currently undertaking operations in Helmand is about the same size as the entire US foreign service world-wide. Asking the DoS to send a thousand personnel, in relative terms, like asking DoD to deploy 300,000 military and civilian personnel there.
Moreover, flooding an area with aid workers and diplomats (and with that the implicit promise of aid to come) doesn't actually help if you can't deliver useful assistance in a timely fashion, and secure that assistance from Taliban attacks once the bulk of the Marines withdraw. Indeed, over-promising aid and then under-delivering has hugely corrosive effects on international and central government legitimacy, and can potentially do more harm than good. This is pretty much Stabilization Ops 101. Indeed, from a Taliban point of view an over-extended, under-protected development program would be pretty much a political godsend.
This isn't to say that there ought not to be substantive political and developmental follow-on to the kinetic ops. There absolutely needs to be, and AM rightly flags a potential shortcomings in this area. But lets not be silly about what's possible, or how much can be done.
M Shannon: "If there were 11,000 competent and willing Afghan soldiers and police available they wouldn't need the Marines."
The vast majority of competent and highly motivated applicants to the ANA (Afghan National Army) and ANP (Afghan National Police) have not been hired since 2001 because of a massive ANA and ANP funding shortage. The ANA and ANP continue to experience large funding shortages. In 2006, the combined ANA + ANP budget was about $500 million. By contrast ISAF will probably cost more than $70 billion this year.
All of Afghanistan only had 3,000 trained ANP in the beginning of 2008 to "protect" a population of 31 million Afghans.
ANSF situation in RC-South:
30,000 ANA + ANP. Most of the ANP are slightly or untrained. They are being retrained through FDD, but this will take time.
ANA has one corps, the 205th "Hero" Corps in the South. The Corps is quite a bit behind the 203rd and 201st Corps. 205th ANA has 4 combat manouver brigades; one of which is brand new, possibly CM-3, and probably not yet ready for prime time. The remaining 3 brigade HQs have been rated CM-1. They have 9 combat line battalions between them, of which 6 are reported to be CM-1. I have doubts as to whether these forces are really CM-1, or whether their NATO/Australian OMLTs overstated their capabilities. In the 1980s, only a tenth of the Soviet army was rated C-1.
Needless to say, the ANA needs a lot more forces in the South. Next year, each brigade in 205th ANA will get a fourth combat line battalion (increasing the number of combat line battalions in the south from 4*3=12 to 4*4=16.) But that probably won't be enough either.
If it were up to me, over time I would assign all 205th ANA to only Helmand and Kandahar, transferring the other provinces in the battlespace to 207th and 203rd Corps. Unfortunately the ANA lacks the battalions and the brigades to execute that right now.
The entire ANA only has 5 Corps HQs, 1 division HQs, 14 combat manouver brigades, and the ANA commandos (at least 6 of its 8 combat battalions are operational.)
People don't join the State Dept to go get shot at in Afghanistan. FSOs tend to be well-educated liberals from well-off families. Most opposed both wars and have zero interest in getting shot to help out the Marines. Some adventure with a hint of danger is ok, and makes for good stories at the family beach house. But Afghanistan offers more than a hint of danger. The result is predictable -- State can only find a few employees willing to go.
"State can only find a few employees willing to go."
So basically what you are saying (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the new Obama/Jones strategy is DOA and maybe we should stop thinking about clear, build, and hold and start thinking about leaving.
They have no problem sending us though do they?
Well, the State people I know are super left-wing, so they wouldn't have sent anybody to Afghanistan in the first place. Like Obama. Obama doesn't want to be in Afghanistan, but he made his Afghan surge pledge to sound tough during the campaign. If he pulls out now he looks weak, which would undermine his domestic agenda. So Obama is willing to sustain and inflict casualties in Afghanistan for the sake of passing Cap & Trade, national health care, immigration amnesty, etc. Not very noble of him, but he's a practical guy, and will do what's necessary to enact his agenda.
"People don't join the State Dept to go get shot at in Afghanistan. FSOs tend to be well-educated liberals from well-off families. Most opposed both wars and have zero interest in getting shot to help out the Marines. Some adventure with a hint of danger is ok, and makes for good stories at the family beach house."
Dave - get rid of your old stereotypes about FSOs. They don't jive with the facts. As someone who has done both the military and the Foreign Service, I can tell you that the demographics are very similar. RB is right that lack of resources is a key issue. When you have approximately 6,000 FSOs spread across 280 missions overseas, it makes it difficult to "surge" into new areas. That being said, we all should expect State to use its budget increases this year and next to increase its impact in Afghanistan and Iraq.
There are some pretty legit FSOs out there. The PRT chief in Maysan used to be (still is?) an FSO who prided himself on being able to out-PT just about anyone in the Army battalion he worked with.
By far the coolest name for any US military operation ever.....
Operation Khanjar (Dagger).
You have to know urdu to really appreciate how poetic a name it is for an operation being conducted by US Marines.The term evokes so many connections to poems, classical movies, historical novels and so much more. It is a weapon that has starred in many historical accounts involving initrigue and assasinations in this region as well.
Dave,
Obama is willing to sustain and inflict casualties in Afghanistan for the sake of passing Cap & Trade, national health care, immigration amnesty, etc. Not very noble of him, but he's a practical guy, and will do what's necessary to enact his agenda.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave all the things you just mentioned are a travesty to America. They are clearly socialist in nature. This is abundantly clear so I must ask, do you support his socialist agenda?
I spoke with a USAID contractor yesterday who complained bitterly that his groups security people wouldn't allow him into the field (in the east) to do what he was being paid (including a substantial risk bonus) handsomely to do. He saw no point in the entire program. He had worked for years in Afghanistan with NGOs and being a contractor for the US gov was a new experience. So even if Obama was to find his 700 "experts" to go to Afghanistan the force protection regulations in place may well simply keep them and their expensive PSD teams or PRTs hiding in compounds.
The priority of the vast majority of government employees and contractors in Afghanistan is not assigned mission accomplishment but rather personnel safety, compensation, comfort, renewing the contract, entertainment, socializing, leave, and only then perhaps the mission. There is nothing odd, evil or surprising about the fact that most folks have their own set of priorities and that they are usually at odds with mission accomplishment but it would be nice if the people making the latest grandiose plans to send thousands of civilians into a war zone realized how futile their plans were due to the low morale and limited motivation of the folks they hope to send.
"Dave - get rid of your old stereotypes about FSOs. They don't jive with the facts."
Ummmm? Dude, you just threw out some facts and they seem to confirm what Dave was saying.
My parents are American. They met in Africa in the 60s. My mom was in the Peace Corps and my dad was in the Army. I'm just throwing that out there. I don't know what it might mean, but I do think about these things sometimes. We know how great Africa turned out after the US got involved. Team America, Fuck Ya!
Operation Khanjar In Da House! Boo-ya!
So this whole Afghan surge is just an evil ploy by Obama to kill off marines in order to pass socialism at home? Right. Glad we got that sorted.
Seriously, what worries me is the lack of ANA. I dont understand their absence. Anand, explain?
Please, Fnord. Let me assist in translation. I may be just a Rico, but I know what you are sayin.
Good Lord, who's linking to this place nowadays? The quality of commenters is dropping pretty damn fast.
I especially like the Obama mind reader. Lots of those psychic types in the Republican Party nowadays, remarkable how their political fortunes have collapsed so dramatically in spite of their abilities.
@Anand:
For the record, all "capability milestone" (CM) evaluations of ANA units are done for OEF by all-American validation teams. So the "NATO/Australians" won't be the ones who have overrated Afghan capabilities, assuming that's the case. In my experience, normally it's exactly the opposite, with mentors worried a unit's not yet ready and being overruled.
More on the problems of mentored-ANA manning and the reasons for lack of ANA in Helmand here: http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2009_07_02.html#006459
PS: Also, 4th Brigade 205 Corps (Uruzgan) is not "brand new". It's just small and underresourced due to its perma-location in a relatively quiet province. Whether it's "Ready for prime time" is immaterial: for reasons I show in the piece linked above, ANA brigades are tied to their ground.
BruceR: Thanx for the link, amazing stuff.
"Now obviously the number of Afghan police and soldiers worthy of the name continues to grow slowly, and that is eventually going to offset the kind of pressure the army's under right now. But we should also understand that a lot of the pressure the army is under, in places like Helmand and Kandahar, is an artificiality we've imposed on them. Because we don't allow them to move their forces around."
Oh my.
PPS: Don't get me started on the operational readiness of ANA commando units, either. Won't be pretty.
Re changing ANA corps boundaries, it's a good idea, Anand, but it won't work. There's no ANA presence in Nimruz (no people) and Daikundi (pure Hazara, quiet) now, nor likely to be in the future, so who controls them is irrelevant. No one in the ANA wastes a minute thinking about them. Uruzgan is manned at the bare minimum in any case (2 ANA kandaks only in that brigade at present, with Dutch and Australian mentors). The only potentially spare ANA capacity in the region is in Zabul, and the American ETTs there will tell you all their insurgents are coming at them through Kandahar Province, so putting a corps boundary between the two would likely only create another seam the insurgency could exploit. Plus there are a lot of synergies in having the western regional command and ANA corps boundaries congruent.
The better answer TOE-wise would probably be to deploy the bulk of the incoming troops you mention only in Helmand and maybe Kandahar and prepare to stand up a 5th brigade HQ down the road, with the intent of drawing a brigade boundary through Helmand some day.
That would help the Marines, but watch for when the Army part of the surge starts showing up in another part of the south and starts carving out their own AO in a couple months. The same ANA availability problem is set to recur for them, as well.
PPS: Don't get me started on the operational readiness of ANA commando units, either. Won't be pretty
Actually, I'd like to hear more - I was under the impression that commando kandaks were success stories. I take it that's not the case?
"Any combat operation in counterinsurgency must therefore be preceded by community engagement and IO, and followed by rapid targeted development assistance and permanent population security [I.e., indigenous] measures."
- David Kilcullen.
Don't see much of that going on here - and I haven't heard anything about additional State people. We'll see what happens I guess but that doesn't bode well for the long-term sustainability any gains made.
Lots of pictures of the air assault, but I see CH-53s; anyone know if Ospreys were involved? This would be their raison d'etre mission...
As far as the twits sounding off about liberal wusses in the Foreign Service, you sound like the Blackfivers or Ann Coulter raging about good old, conservative "real Americans" in the Armed Forces versus the communist/Islamist sympathizing traitors at State. America, the public and its elected leaders, worships its military and denigrates its State Department, everyone agrees to bitch about it without raising a finger to changing the situation. Asinine comments like those above are only the most obvious examples.
"Any combat operation in counterinsurgency must therefore be preceded by community engagement and IO, and followed by rapid targeted development assistance and permanent population security [I.e., indigenous] measures."
- David Kilcullen.
Why does State have this job? I can't think of any of the "career tracks" in the FS that would come close to what is required in Afghanistan. Can anyone point to an operation or project, in relation to the quote above, that was State lead and produced measurable results? As noted in the post above USAID is not very effective in this role either. Is the plan to hone one of these organizations? Create a new organization? Or run with what exists and call it a plan?
I think one issue you may well take up w the Euros is to allow for units to rotate to Europe for a time and undergo training in safe areas, separated from their reveryday culture, with real instructions. But all the anti-muslims will raise hell about it, as will the far left. So it goes. We should do it, anyways. But its not being done.
Those units could patrol the seams in the command-overlaps, like rangers, yes? ALso, a rotationing core should be built out of the best of the stationary ANA forces? So that you can reinforce units, etc.? I mean, seriously. 700 ANA is stretching the levels, and hurting other efforts? Sweet f.
I accept all charges of being an armchair general, but seriously, if the text Bruce R linked to is accurate, it sounds like we havent given them any depth at all.
No Osprey units deployed with the MEB.
Problem solved a couple months back:
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/04/ap_military_reservists_afghani...
"The Obama administration is having trouble finding the hundreds of civilians it wants to bolster its troop buildup in Afghanistan, so military reservists might be asked to do many of the jobs.
"In announcing the new strategy for the war last month, the administration said it would send several hundred civilians — such as agronomists, economists and legal experts — to work on reconstruction and development issues as part of the military’s counterinsurgency campaign.
"Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell said Thursday that the military is trying to find ways to fill the gap. That would likely be with reservists, who often have the necessary skills because of the experience they have in their civilian lives, officials said."
It's a whole new paradigm: military handles the military part, reservists the civilian part. So just give the pipeline time to work its magic...
We ran up against something similar for Iraq '07, not enough volunteers from State. The answer then was to go with non-vols.
Times change.
BBC News on Somalia:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8132064.stm
"The al-Shabab militant leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said several hundred foreigners had joined their militia, many from Pakistan."
Question: We often speak of insurgents flowing away from Coalition forces like water in a bag being squeezed. Could this also be happening on an international scale? Could the offensives in Pakistan and Afghanistan be driving militants to Somalia?
Islam, Quran, & Debate about Violence
Came across an interesting vignette a few minutes ago...
Meanwhile, a U.S. military official told CNN that its forces are involved in a standoff with insurgents in the south of the country near the Helmand River.
He said U.S. Marines began taking fire from insurgents in the town of Khan Neshin, before they ran into a multi-roomed compound. Unsure of whether civilians were inside the compound, they had an interpreter talk to the insurgents, the official said. After some time, a number of women and children left the compound. When asked, the insurgents denied any more civilians were inside, the official said, but the U.S. soldiers held their fire anyway. At about 7:30 a.m. ET, in the midst of the standoff, another group of women and children emerged from the compound, the official said. As of 8 a.m. ET, the Marines were holding all fire and waiting out the insurgents, the official said. The Marines' restrained approach differs from previous hits on compounds when airstrikes were readily called in, the official said.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/07/06/afghanistan.marine.standoff/...
re: Marines in Khan Neshin
Such a friggin' relief to read something like that. Way to go, USMC.
As a follow up to that vignette I posted, it looks like the "women and children" weren't really women and children.
On Monday, images from a Predator drone showed a dozen fighters and at least 15 to 20 civilians inside a mud-brick compound in the village of Khan Neshin, about 60 miles north of the Pakistani border.
Because of the civilians, the U.S. troops held their fire, and instead used a military translator and village elder to persuade the militants to free women and children.
Two groups — children and what appeared to be women in burqas — left the compound. When the Marines entered, they found no one. The fighters had clearly donned burqas and slipped away among the civilians, according to Marines who took part in the mission.
The Americans didn’t have female Marines with them to search the robed figures and make sure no men were among them in disguise. And the new U.S. and NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has said he would rather see militants escape than for civilians to be harmed in battle; a declassified version of his new guidelines for troops were released Monday.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/07/ap_marine_afghanistan_talib...
Dagnab them consarned varmints...!
Thanks for the follow-up and link.
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13998770&s...
The biggest change under General McChrystal is the instruction to reduce civilian casualties. A “tactical directive”, issued at the start of Thrust of the Sword, says that winning the support of the Afghans overrides all else. “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories—but suffering strategic defeats—by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people,” he says. This may increase the danger to troops; but the greater risk is to push Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.
A classified passage sets out how air strikes will be curtailed. But on the ground, his officials say, the share of firefights involving close air support has already fallen from 35% to 17% in the past month. During the summer of 2007 an average of 22 tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Helmand every month.
the ANA pipeline is open and forces are being generated. The ranges are full up at their main training base and tacical training is on-going. Look to see a immediate infusion down S followed by the gradual build-up to Corps strength. Anbar is a pretty good anaogy in the sense that early USMC ops were largely relegated to joint US forces Marines augmented w sister service multipliers) with a transition over several years to the paradigm there now. UK casualties should serve as reminders that our allies are also operating in the battlespace of the FOB. Initial contact is always confusing. Expect to see some ins squeezed into surrounding provinces but many of the ins there are local and will either fight or turn political as was the case in Anbar.
oh, also watch IED activity. Right now, there are a fair number of SAF engagements. As they take losses, they will turn increasingly to IEDs. This is an indicator of their personnel strength and our success at engaging them. IEDs require a much more deliberate, intel-driven approach to closing resupply networks, factories, finance networks etc. All of this must be done in the background of the constructive engagement that will eventually yield locally-produced intel and decisions by local fighters to opt for a political approach or to fade back into the populace and return to work.
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