Center for a New American Security

"McDonald"?

For better or for worse Andrew, and rightly or wrongly (and I freely admit that perhaps I still don’t get it and may very well in fact be on the wrong side myself), you have fully consummated with the religion of Coin. The idea of accepting the automatic symmetry that is demanded by population centric coin theory and practice is baffling to me. At the tactical level the symmetry is for us to give up protection and go native, or as you suggest in so many words getting off of our armored vehicles and mixing happily with the locals to somehow protect them by the magic of our presence. At the strategic level the symmetry is accepting attrition and protraction as our driving strategy in that place even when we have choices to do otherwise. Remember what Sun Tzu said: “Speed is the essence of war.” Why as a matter of strategy especially when we have choices do we accept the slow to no motion nature of population centric counterinsurgency?

How about this as a radical tactical alternative? General McChrystal in his leaked assessment of a few weeks ago called for the regaining of the initiative in the next year with increased troops and a better approach to Coin. In the assessment, however, there is really little to no guidance of how to go about gaining the initiative at the tactical level except for acting on the catechisms of coin by “protecting the people.” Can some Coin expert out there, perhaps you Andrew, translate this catechism into a tactical task for an infantryman or cavalry scout to carry out on the ground? What does such pixie-dust like phrases actually mean on the ground. Does a rifle company commander assign “protect the people” as a tactical task to his rifle platoon leaders?

It is all smoke and mirrors to be sure.

So if we want at the tactical level to regain the initiative per General McChrystal’s guidance it seems perfectly logical to me to take an enemy centric approach and focus on killing the Taliban enemy. Instead of doing Galula in Khost, Korrengal, and Helmand we should be doing Callwell. We should concentrate on larger bases and carry out an extensive series of small unit raids, ambushes, and offensive actions to kill the Taliban enemy with the idea that suppressing their ability to attack and kill us will in turn allow for the regaining of the initiative and then once established the operational method of nation building can resume. Now if you believe in the precepts and dictums of FM 3-24 then of course what I am saying will appear to you to be foolhardiness to the point of heresy and you might as well stop reading my words now if you haven’t already done so.

It just seems to me to be pure folly at the tactical level to be allowing the catechisms of Coin to replace the imperative to kill the enemy in order to regain the initiative with the hope and dreams that “protecting the population” will somehow work because we establish local outposts and use rhetoric that says that it will.

Not a good way to fight a war in my mind.

COL Gentile,

We have argued back and forth at some length on the comments section of this blog in the past, and so I will not make the mistake of invoking social science to try convince you that you're mistaken. Instead, I will appeal to your sense of historical example.

During the Rhodesian counterinsurgency, Rhodesian forces faced a relatively lightly armed ZANLA with sanctuaries and support from across the border in Mozambique, and a somewhat heavier force in ZIPRA largely stuck on the other side of the Zambezi River in Zambia. Despite being vastly outnumbered, the Rhodesian security forces imposed a kill ratio of somewhere between 10:1 - 23:1 on the insurgents (sources differ). They effectively and frequently raided across borders into the insurgent sanctuaries, established enormous mine-fields to try to sever cross-border access from Mozambique, and generally made killing and disrupting ZANLA and ZIPRA their priority (although there were some anemic attempts to implement pop-centric measures such as protected villages).

If your model were accurate, could you explain why the Rhodesians failed? Most accounts of the Rhodesian effort point to both internal and external illegitimacy of the political regime, with internal illegitimacy exacerbated in significant part by inattention to the civilian casualties that resulted from enemy-centric ops (to somewhat over-simplify for the sake of brevity).

Secondly, given that McChrystal commanded JSOC in Iraq - an organization that, as I understand it, was entirely devoted to killing and disrupting the enemy - under Petraeus (generally a champion of pop-centric COIN), what makes you think that pop-centric COIN entirely excludes such actions? Most people I've spoken to assume both dimensions are required, but that in pop-centric COIN the imperative to kill enemies doesn't trump the imperative to ensure security for the civilian population.

@schmedlap,
Did you use hesco barriers to isolate the market and to assist in setting up checkpoints ?
Did you use photos and retinal scans to identify the residents?

I wonder if policing helped turn the corner in Iraq. But how to get to the point that policing can be used in Afghanistan?

The taliban/Taliban act as mafia gangs in Afghanistan. And fight differently in the south, east, north and west. Using the term "population centric counter-insurgency" gives a false impression that the foreign USA / ISAF can straighten things out in Afghanistan simply by using the proper standard combat method. A very western idea.

The solution will have to be an Afghan solution.

But if I had to fight in Afghanistan, I would wish for Col Gentile, MikeF, and Schmedlap in my chain of command.

What Mike DC said, with the added comment that Gentiles approach seems awfully much like the Israeli approach wich is gradually and oh so slowly going all to hell.

Schmedlap: I think one of the main differences in Afdghanistan is the force to pop ratio. In Baghdad you had a real forceconcentration, while in Afghan you have a dispersed population. Wich is a pretty big variant. Wich is why I think moving out of Nuristan FOBs seem like a good idea.

Mike's World of COIN

First, my heart goes out to the unit and the families of the Fallen in Nuristan. I have been in that situation before, and I understand the psychological and morale effects of everyone involved.

Second, we have the opportunity to effect the IO war with this battle. Back in 2007, my sister company experienced an attack on their patrol base in Sadah, Iraq. Nine paratroopers died and another 20 were wounded. I wrote about the events leading up to it in "Love and Hate" for SWJ. Seventy-two hours prior, I had lunch with the AQ leadership and offered an ultimatum: 1. Peace, 2. Destruction. They chose the latter and answered with that attack.

Sadah was unimportant in our scheme of maneuver. It was a mere foothold into the DRV so I could seize Zaganiyah, the military key terrain. C Troop was one week from leaving that patrol base in order to prepare for further clearance up the Diyala River. We were a shaping effort to a supporting effort, and our force ration was 300 paratroopers for a population of 100,000.

Immediately after the attack, COL David Sutherland, CDR 3/1 BCT, and LTC Andrew Poppas, CDR 5-73, rushed to the scene. I sent a platoon plus to secure the scene and dig through the ruble trying to recover anyone still alive. For twleve hours, we listened as battle rosters were called. Every once in a while, a medic would think that he had found a pulse or the hint of breathing. We would hold our breathe and pray until the casualty was finally pronounced dead.

Simultaneously, I took my remaining platoon and we tracked down the videographer killing him in a late night raid- My biggest fear was a video hitting the web of an American Patrol Base getting destroyed.

The command team made a decision. F*ck the plan, things changed, and we were staying. We rebuilt the patrol base, reinforced the area with two american platoons and an Iraqi battalion. Our actions were our IO message.

In the short term, attacks soared up to twelve a day on my troop. Sixty days later, we pacified the area and violence went to almost zero.

Sometimes, we have to allow the events on the ground to help shape our actions. This battle could be one of those moments. For a moment, we could forget the debate on A'stan strategy, COIN v/s CT, and make a stand in Nuranistan.

Send a battalion or brigade there. Let everyone in the province know you are staying the course. Taunt the enemy. Send broadcast proclaiming that AQ/Taliban are weak. Challenge them to come to Nuranistan to die.

Be the biggest Tribe.

v/r

Mike

MK,

Thanks for the response. I'm actually in the process of writing a memoir about my troop during the Surge. To date, I've only published a couple of days worth of events in a rather long and exciting fight. I've asked each one of my guys to write a paragraph or two to include so I can provide a more comprehensive account of the fight other than my own. So hopefully, I will eventually publish a pretty good account from a paratrooper's perspective. The part that I'm most excited about is using the profits to establish a fund for the wounded and fallen families of the squadron (24 KIA, 100 WIA).

Here's some quick notes on the seizure of Zaganiyah. By July 2007, we were one of the first units in Iraq to 1. Clear AQ, 2. Bring Violence down to minimal levels, 3. Start reintegrating displaced families, 4. Start Re-establish governance and services, 5. Start Reconciliation talks. The boys did some great work.

1. Initial Entry. First, three weeks of covert/overt reconnaissance and shaping efforts to define the situation immediately followed with a massive deception operation to mask the timing/route of our clearance. Second, one weeks of squadron plus clearance of Sadah, Qubbah, and Zaganiyah.

2. Seize of Zaganiyah. I established a patrol base in the middle of town and blockaded all the roads in and out. We instituted curfews and limitations on both mounted and dismounted movement as population control measures.

3. Patrol Flooding. My boys spent 8 hours outside the wire on patrols. We flooded everything. It got so busy that for the first time, I could not go out anymore. My job was Command and Control or being a zombie running off caffeine and nicotine while holding two hand-mikes talking to CAS, AWT, the platoons, and squadron.

4. Killing the enemy/Defeating the IED Network. I would send small teams into hide sites for 48-72 hours. We would kill emplacers. Eventually, the enemy countered by having women and 10 year old children emplace the IEDs. I restricted our fires. We would just watch them. Later, our intelligence collection helped us kill the Bomb-maker and capture two AQ LT's. That ended the IED problem- 1. We took away the expertise. 2. We made it too costly to emplace.

5. Coercive Civil Affairs. Once a week, I would assemble all the elders and show a wad of $5000 to them. I would let them know that there was more where that came from, and I wanted peace. As soon as the violence stopped, we would build the town. The elders refused and would start complaining. I'd kick them out telling them we'd try again next week.

6. Humanitarian Support. We identified that many infants were dying from cholera. We'd conduct patrols to teach the women simple ways of hydration to save their children and provide food. Finally, the women got frustrated with the men and started telling us where the IEDs were emplaced, where the caches were hidden, and who the culprits were.

7. Iraqi Army. I fired the first IA company there b/c they were Shia locals fighting a civil war with the Sunnis. They were replaced with MAJ Aziz and his boys from the Udaim. We partnered together, lived together, patrolled together, and became one unit. By July, he was working unilaterally in Zag with me helping with CAS, intelligence collection, and Medevac.

Just some of the things that worked for us. It was COIN- not enemy-centric, not pop-centric.

v/r

Mike

MK,

The Rhodesians lost because of a young man named Dimitri Tsafendas, who assassinated Hendrik Verwoerd in the South African Parliament, bringing to power the significantly weaker John Vorster, who thought he could curry favor with USG by making a deal with Henry Kissinger to force Rhodesia to surrender to the terrorists by cutting off Rhodesia's oil supply. (This is the "internal and external illegitimacy of the political regime" to which you refer.) The full story can be found in Ian Smith's autobiography.

If there's a lesson in this story, it's that if you practice PI-COIN (politically incorrect counterinsurgency), you need to make sure your energy supplies are secure. Rhodesia should have pursued its own coal-to-liquids program, rather than relying on the treacherous, hairy-backed Boers. Not sure what this has to do with Afghanistan, though.

What if there is no way to win in Afghanistan?

Instead of picking apart COL Gentile's advocacy of what is, after all, a defensible approach, especially as it applies to the self-styled "greatest fighting force ever," I'd advise the COIN supporters to ask their spokesmen—Exum, et al—to mount a defense of what they advocate, particularly the numbers and the host country political situation.

First, the numbers of troops McChrystal asks for, the numbers that Exum and company say are vitally needed to prevent collapse, don't add up to anything near what the undergirding doctrine that the COINdinistas cite suggests is actually needed. Frankly, although I don't favor their approach—to me, COIN is usually foolhardy, but in Afghanistan, it's madness—I think it's irresponsible on the part of the COINdinistas to recommend a force structure that's woefully inadequate according to their own doctrine.

And then there is the political situation. Again, their own doctrine emphasizes the importance of a stable host nation government. A cynic would say that Petraeus and company emphasized this as a requirement specifically because the odds of finding a stable government in a likely COIN environment are slim; this then becomes the way out. ISTM Afghanistan is the poster child for an unstable host nation government and I wonder why it is the COINdinistas disregard this unfortunate fact of life.

To me, the numbers and the host nation environment don't equate to success under any circumstance. Domestic political considerations and military force structure realities militate against ever getting the numbers to a favorable balance. Furthermore, the odds of the host nation political situation improving seem pretty long.

Frankly, one has to conclude that this dog won't hunt, whether one employs enemy- or population-centric tactics, and that may actually be a good thing. A whole lot of folks don't view the Taliban as a threat to the security of the United States, so we wonder just why it's so important to wipe 'em out. Sure, they're a threat to the security of what passes for a government in Afghanistan, and it's therefore vitally important to that government, but one's not sure why U.S. forces should be in the business of keeping that particular set of locals in power. We shouldn't care who's in power, just so long as it's understood that they're to see certain matters our way.

It just might be that the best way to neutralize criminal threats—and that's what terrorists are—might not be through the use of conventional military forces. And it just might be that the U.S. would actually pose a more credible deterrent to all sort of bad behavior if its ground forces hadn't been bogged down in questionable military adventures for years now and if it weren't going bankrupt from doing so?

The problem wasn't Iraq and it isn't Afghanistan. And having the U.S. Army focused on Iraq and Afghanistan isn't going to solve the problem.

Gulliver,

I'd caution against using my example as a counter-point to COL Gentile. Yes, I was damn-good at COIN, but you have to look at what followed after I left. The whole Cost-Benefit Analysis thing.

Yes, my boy's actions were impressive. Yes, we stopped the violence, but what happened after that? It had nothing to do with us. In the end, "Success" or "Victory" is ultimately left up to the Iraqis.

In this case:

- The US became the gov't.
- Villages, tribes, and families were fractured from the civil war and AQ rule
- Non-religious women volunteered as suicide bombers out of rage, anger, and hatred
- The Sunnis and Shias could not reconcile
- Some of the training camps were re-established.
- Unemployment remains over 50%

Taking a step back, two years after The Surge, one question that I've often asked is "was it worth it?" I still don't have that answer. My personal thoughts are that Diyala will be one of the last provinces in Iraq to simmer.

I provided the tactical course of action of what I would do in Nuristan. This action has nothing to do with the strategy. Those decisions are far above my level, and they are the subject of COL Gentile's arguments.

v/r

Mike

Publius:

Please disregard my post. They're not questions *I'D* feel comfortable answering, so please don't feel *AT ALL* compelled to answer them yourself. I regret having asked - sincerely.

Respectfully,
ADTS

Very interesting commentary, I enjoyed reading almost every single comment. Thank you for your time, guys.

ADTS: I have no problem whatsoever in answering your question. I am a retired regular Army officer, now fully retired, with my last working years being spent in doing things on a consultant basis for the government. I've never had any affiliation with any academy other than as a student and as a name on a mailing list. I've also never had any affiliation with any think tank and don't expect that I ever will.

The smoke and mirrors are a two-way mirror in a larger struggle to find solutions. It's not about winning the hearts and minds. We forget that sometimes. I'm still good friends with my Shia and Sunni counterparts. In private, we longed for the day when I could visit with my daughter. I pray that day will happen. In public, they took up the sides of AQ, 1920's Rev BDE, JAM, and BADR insurgencies. In private, most encouraged me to be the strongest tribe. In public, they denounced me. That's just Iraq.

It is what it is.

That's something that we forget in our social-science theory. In the end, it's all game theory. Tit-for tat- games for political and economic control.

It's just different from what we know.

v/r

Mike

MikeF has even provided the ultra-abbreviated version of his recipe for success. Five words:

"The US became the government."

USG's only problem in Afghanistan is a psychological disorder. I don't believe this neurosis is listed in in the DSM-IV, but if it was it might go under the name archophobia - the inexplicable fear of ruling. USG wants to govern Afghanistan - it wants to control what happens there. It just doesn't want to rule Afghanistan - the way MikeF ruled Zaganiyah.

Therefore, it sets up a puppet pseudo-government of kleptocrats whose only possible justification for position is their race, creed, color or national origin. (Imagine what Afghanistan would look like with MikeF in charge. But alas, his skin is the wrong color, he was born in the wrong place, and he probably even believes in the wrong religion.) The last thing these kleptocrats want to do is win the war, as this would cut off their sugar supply. Ridiculous elections - a concept entirely comical in Afghanistan - are then held to "legitimize" this "government." The whole affair would belong only to the annals of farce, were it not so costly in American blood.

This archophobia is a distinctively American, 20th-century disorder. It is not found in other periods of history. For instance, if you asked Colonel Callwell about what happened in Wanat, I suspect his first question might be: the village chiefs were obviously collaborating with the Taliban. Have they been hanged yet? If not, why not? Somehow I feel that the Washington Post is unlikely to address this matter.

From the historical perspective, one interesting question is: when did this neurosis originate? An interesting answer is supplied by George B. Davis's 1908 textbook of international law, which records this budding conflict:

Two views have been advanced as to what constitutes military occupation. One, maintained by England and the smaller European states, regards a portion of territory as occupied only when it is held by a force sufficient to maintain, at all points, the authority of the invader, and to suppress uprisings against such authority. The Swiss delegate to the Brussels Conference properly compared this view of military occupation to a valid blockade; both, to be binding, must be maintained in sufficient force to be effective. The other, and opposite view, is supported by some of the more powerful Continental states; hey regard occupation as complete when the principal armies of the enemy have been defeated and the authority of the legitimate government has been displaced or overthrown. Obedience then becomes the duty of the population, independently of the force by which such authority is maintained. Risings against the authority of an invader are by them viewed as illegal; subjecting persons, districts and towns who favor them or who take part in them to severe punishments.

The "Continental" position is consistent with the classical international law of Grotius and Vattel. The "English" position, while still far to the right of modern international law, is clearly the ancestor of the modern or American position - in which the "right of revolution" is the greatest of all human rights. Davis continues:

The right of revolution is now recognized to exist even against the regular government of a state, which rests upon the presumed consent of the governed. Still more does the right of armed resistance exist against an authority which not only has no basis in the consent of the governed, but which is enforced and maintained against such consent by superior military force.

This right of revolution (a concept very convenient to the British Empire, in the century when it was the friend of "everyone's rebels but its own" - as John Bright put it) is easily seen in the philosophical subtext of PC-COIN. USG is unable to suppress the Taliban because the Taliban is exercising its righteous right of rebellion, against a government which is incompetent, illegitimate, alien, etc. Therefore, more righteousness is the only solution. If only we could convert our B-52s to drop Bibles, the war would be over in no time. If we act wrongtiously, however, we can never win. From these principles can be derived PC-COIN.

It is certainly unimaginable that USG would ever punish anyone for rising up against it, betraying and killing its soldiers, etc, etc. Perish the thought! Why, the very fact that the Afghans rise up, proves their rising righteous.

Moreover, in terms of modern international law, none of Davis's discourse even applies, because the US presence in Afghanistan is not legally an occupation. Oh, no! Rather, it is a liberation. We are simply there to help the self-governing Afghan people govern themselves. So, incidentally, was the USSR. Notice a pattern?

Thus Afghanistan becomes a mirror in which we see our own institutional mendacity. Or a machine whose food is lies, and whose product is death. If history proves anything, it proves that you can always make death out of lies.

Fnord @ 10:31am...
Schmedlap: I think one of the main differences in Afdghanistan is the force to pop ratio. In Baghdad you had a real force concentration, while in Afghan you have a dispersed population. Which is a pretty big variant. Which is why I think moving out of Nuristan FOBs seem like a good idea.

I get your point and it is sound. But, I was not referring to Baghdad. Other commenters (forget if I read it here or elsewhere) have wisely pointed out that Afghans in Nuristan don't take as kindly to outsiders as Iraqis in a small city, so comparisons might be tough either way. But, I would also add that proximity is important, too. In Iraq, units were living within the cities. In Afghanistan, you've got bases near villages. How much interactions is there? Does this "presence" really send a message that the troops are there until the job is done? Not likely. That's my impression - not sure if it's correct. Hopefully I'm wrong.

I agree that moving out of Nuristan is a good idea, but I also recognize that I don't have many of the facts in front of me. I don't think any of us can make a judgment one way or the other without knowing the facts on the ground. Lots of folks have lots of good ideas. Until the ideas are matched up with the facts, there's no way to choose a COA. I'm confident the guys on the ground will make the right call on this.

MikeF,

Empire works. These days you can go on Google Books and download a giant stack of memoirs by British lords in funny hats about how they did your job, with 1/100th the technology, on a national scale. In fact, there's no excuse not to. And unless one of us is crazy, your conclusion will be the same as mine: empire works. For both the ruled and the rulers. It certainly works a hell of a lot better than the Third World, which is what we've replaced it with.

I am especially partial to Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt (vol. 1, vol. 2). Not only did Cromer turn Egypt into a country where Eurotrash bohos like Lawrence Durrell moved just to live and hang out, like Prague, but the whole thing paid for itself. Afghanistan under Zahir Shah was once a hippie hangout - when will the hippies return to Kabul?

But, you know, I am quite confident that if you could pump some formaldehyde into Lord Cromer and get his opinion on the question, his advice would be the same as the Huffington Post's: leave. It's not even that America can't do empire, because we did a pretty good job of it in the Philippines. It's that you go to war with the USG you have now, and the USG we have now can't do empire. It should not be congratulating itself on this disability.

That said, I am also confident that the negative consequences of leaving Astan will be just as Londonstani describes. A huge shot of joy juice in the butt of all the nasty vicious punks from Fez to Jakarta. Who will now have no place to fight Americans without coming to America. Yes, actually, I do appreciate the efforts of all the people who for some reason have felt that it is their calling to live and die fighting these assholes in the ass end of nowhere.

USG can't do empire, but it also can't do isolation. It doesn't know how to rule the world, but it doesn't know how to stop controlling the world, fence off Astan and let Astan be Astan - an unimportant, backward, barbaric, quaint and beautiful country in the middle of nowhere, mostly worthless and entirely harmless. Who do we call to get Zahir Shah back? Geeze, man, I wish I knew.

Visitor,

No - someone with MikeF's ethnicity, etc, etc, is not required. IMHO the best government in the area since the British left was provided by a fellow name of Ayub Khan. Whose ethnicity, being Pashtoon, could not be improved on for these purposes. In a normal historical context someone like Khan would have founded a monarchical dynasty of the sort typical in the Indian subcontinent for approximately the last bazillion years.

Khan of course was a Pakistani army man, and the Pakistani army preserves many traditions of the Raj era. Moreover, the Raj itself was a much more indigenous form of government than the subsequent "independent" regimes in both Pakistan and India. As Seeley observed in that bible of Victorian imperialism, The Expansion of England:

Such bewilderment our Indian Empire produces. It is so different in kind both from England itself and from the Colonial Empire that it requires wholly different principles of policy. And therefore public opinion does not know what to make of it, but looks with blank indignation and despair upon a Government which seems utterly un-English which is bureaucratic and in the hands of a ruling race, which rests mainly on military force, which raises its revenue not in the European fashion, but by monopolies of salt and opium, and by taking the place of a universal landlord, and in a hundred other ways departs from the traditions of England.

In India proper, this hybrid of England and the Moguls was replaced by a regime right out of the fantasies of Sidney Webb and John Kenneth Galbraith. With very poor results, at least as compared to the Raj. (When Seeley says "bureaucratic," he does not mean precisely what we mean today - the ICS was extremely efficient.) In Pakistan the result was considerably messier, but also did not work out as intended.

Of course in recent Pakistani history you have Musharraf, a sort of third-rate Ayub Khan. But just as Ayub Khan could never become Babur, Musharraf could never become Ayub Khan. Neither could ever really consolidate his control over the Pakistani state.

And why not? Because that state is not genuinely sovereign and independent, but exists in the context of the American order. When USG deals with a client state such as Pakistan, it doesn't just deal with El Maximo Jefe, even if there is an El Maximo Jefe. It builds relationships - often with money attached, and always with power and status - with a wide variety of actors within the state. Furthermore, USG itself is by no means a unitary actor. So various bureaucratic factions within Pakistan have various relationships within various factions on the Lower Potomac. All of whom, of course, are trying to improve Pakistan. For some value of the word "improve."

It should be obvious why this is completely inconsistent with the stability and sovereignty of the Pakistani state. One analogy is the astronomical concept of the Roche limit. As Islamabad becomes more closely involved with Washington, different parts of Washington pull Islamabad in different directions. This tidal force tends to disintegrate the Pakistani state.

Compare this to the foreign policy of the Farewell Address and the even more cogent, though generally overlooked, European corollary of the Monroe Doctrine:

Our policy, in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in all instances, the just claims of every power; submitting to injuries from none. [My italics.]

Now, Washington and Monroe didn't just invent this stuff. What they are saying is in accordance with then current textbooks of classical international law - Vattel, Grotius, etc. The subtext of both messages is that the US is not going to behave like Napoleon or the Soviet Union and try to export revolutionary democracy to the entire planet - an intention of which many already suspected it, obviously in retrospect with considerable cause.

So there is really one basic problem here, which is that the US decided that classical international law didn't apply to it, and it should be making its own rules. Ie, post-1945 modern or democratic international law (perhaps better called "transnational law.") This excellent body of work considers the old, Westphalian international law of Vattel obsolete. IMHO, in the 21st century, Vattel is more needed than ever.

The problem, however, remains unsolvable in practice. Because a USG that plays by Vattel's rules is simply not the USG we know and love. I can propose in theory that USG cede Afghanistan to Pakistan, and Pakistan to its army - which would be the practical result of applying classical international law in this case. And which I am pretty confident would, in a decade or so, surely nowhere near so neatly as the reign of MikeF, bring the hippies back to Kabul.

But what I am proposing here is simply a very different USG - one that is prepared to tolerate and coexist with extremely un-American forms of state. The USG that puts MikeF in charge is also a very different USG (perhaps not as different from the first as some might think). We might want this USG, but we don't have it. The closest practical approximation, with the real USG, is the cut-and-run approach of the progressives. This may (should - will) leave many feeling bitter on behalf of the many fine American soldiers who will be seen to have been killed or maimed in vain. However, perhaps there is a productive way to apply their energies domestically.

@ Gulliver
"When he contends that COIN has never worked, that 3-24 is a fraud, ...those aren't strategic arguments. In fact, they constitute a coordinated, relentless effort to discredit COIN tactics and operational methods as useless or incorrect, and the people who advocate in their favor as confused or dishonest."

Yes, but there's something to be said for consistency.

Honestly Mencius, I think we're on pretty much the same wavelength. I too have found myself missing Ayub Khan.

And Attaturk. (Whose legacy we're currently undermining.)

And Reza Khan. (Whose legacy we already have undermined.)

Bastards all, yet still better than the pipe-dream we're currently draining our treasury for.

The only thing good about this situation is its reducing the nonsense the politicians can inflict on us at home.

*Sigh*

-Same Visitor