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Culture Clash in Helmand
I got the heads up on a battle brewing in southern Afghanistan a few months ago. Not a battle between Marines and insurgents, mind, but one over the appropriate tactics to fight the Taliban. Specifically, I heard the staff of Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson's MEB was getting frustrated by being forced to essentially camp out on the population and, Marines being Marines, wanted to go chase the bad guys. Now this from today's Washington Post:
"I'm not a big fan of the population-centric approach. We can't sit still. We have to pursue and chase these guys," said Col. George Amland, deputy commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand province. "I haven't seen any evidence it's working. The only thing that's working is chasing them."
I've heard Col. Amland is a thoughtful officer, but I wonder if he's thoughtful enough to recognize that a) his decades-long education as a Marine officer might have prejudiced him toward a preference for violent offensive operations and b) many counterinsurgents through the years have been in exactly the same spot where Col. Amland finds himself today -- and have pursued violent offensive operations, like battalion sweep-and-clears, that have brought no lasting security. But as the author of the Post article notes, "hunkering down to the slow work of improving governance" is a lot less sexy than killing bad guys. But you have to do both, and if given the option of choosing between the two, the operational and strategic culture of the U.S. Marine Corps will lead its officers to do the former at the expense of the latter.
I think we sometimes focus too much on trying to understand the culture of the enemy without first recognizing our own cultural quirks, norms and biases. The individual services within the U.S. military are especially effective at conditioning their officers to believe that the service's preferred theory of victory is the one most appropriate for a conflict. As a remedy for this, I wish Marines would be more conscious of their "Marineness" -- and all the assumptions, biases and norms (most of them good) that entails. (The same goes, of course, for Air Force officers, Army infantry officers, Naval aviators, Army armor officers, Army Special Forces officers, submariners, etc., etc., etc.)
In the end, though, I'm left with this image in my head of Col. Amland as Daniel-son wandering why the hell he's been waxing Mr. Miagi's car.
Interesting that this is
Interesting that this is coming from a MEB one of whose battalions, 2/8 in Nawa, has been held up by ISAF and in the press as a shining population-centric success story. Wonder if the MEB feels that there has been less success in Nawa than advertised, or that that success came from something other than the tactics 2/8 has been publicized as implementing.
Might it also be that the MEB is in a phase of COIN where what the colonel is saying is true -- where rooting the enemy out of strongholds is a necessary first step? As AM noted, shouldn't both of these things be going on at the same time?
The criticism from the colonel also sort of suggests the same thing Bing West wrote in his last field report: that in the current ISAF strategy and climate, offensive operations are being left to SOF (both JSOC and the commando kandaks and their SF) and line battalions and brigades are being directed to do "pure" pop-centric COIN -- when many of the most successful examples from Iraq 06-08 are all about brigades' being able to meld the holding and outposting with offensive operations -- not just doing the former while SOF and a handful of mobile reserve battalions do the latter.
The frustration, as I
The frustration, as I understand it, is at its most acute in the brigade staff.Just curious: was your
Just curious: was your "heads up" about Marjeh from Greg Jaffe openly reporting this back in November?
The frustration comes from
The frustration comes from thinking they have 'cleared" and area to find out a few weeks later that the Taliban have come back or never left. There are shuras and pep talks from senior commanders and visits to schools and everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid...all the while the Taliban are watching and taking notes. There tends to be an initial euphoria when the locals and especially the kids come out to talk to the troops which soon disappears as the Afghans grow frustrated with the pace of "build" and the troops get frustrated that they are getting IED'd. The troops soon get fed up with "hold" because it's boring and they're still taking casualties so it's time to plan another sweep and leave the old area to the ragamuffin ANP to hold at which point the Taliban "retake" the area.
But who cares? The units that took the area the first time have rotated out, the new commanders need to make their mark by planning a big operation and most journalists will only quote the "rah rah" they're told by the military and won't notice that the latest "big op" is the third time a particular valley has been "cleared".
Muqawama, you can be Mr.
Muqawama, you can be Mr. Miagi or Red, take your pick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsiFanovOSI
Help: Trying to build an
Help: Trying to build an idea on Marjah and can't recall who (Trinquier, Kitson, Galula, Kilcullen etc etc) makes an argument for using a local COIN success an example for insurgents in the AO to consider. Read this stuff a long time ago so don't recall who makes the argument, and whether I interpreted the idea correctly. I want to go back and re examine the idea, but can't remember who to read. Ring a bell for anyone??
Have to practice keeping my
Have to practice keeping my comment to less than 140 characters to see if I can speak TWITTER.
"What did you expect?"
Beard, snow, blizzard,
Beard, snow, blizzard, "silver bullets"? Hmmmmmm anyone seen AM lately after dark?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPieOzIA7NM
Just sayn'
Wonder if the country is ready for significant casualties (again) if this pans out. Just from taking a long look a week ago via google earth its an interesting 40ish square miles to deal with.
The irony of this post is
The irony of this post is that in fact "Slam" Amland is a naval aviator himself....a category you indentify as being seperate from "marineness".
Ha, no, Josh, it was not.
Ha, no, Josh, it was not. You jerk.I can't help myself!
I can't help myself!
Well kids why does this
Well kids why does this remind me off all the debates back during the '60s. Where's John Paul Vann, the Hack and WEB Griffin when you need 'em?
"I've heard Col. Amland is a
"I've heard Col. Amland is a thoughtful officer." But I guess he's just not thoughtful enough to notice the fine, silky texture of the Emperor's new garments. Another round of Lasik, comrades!
You know, when you get a brilliant, counterintuitive policy, composed by brilliant, counterintuitive public-policy scholars, which tells you that everything which seems obviously true is false, and everything which seems obviously false is true, and that policy brilliantly, counterintuitively works... that's one thing.
And when it doesn't work, the answer is obvious. You're not trying hard enough! More eye surgery for Col. Amland. He is obviously seeing reality through the filter of his crude, peasant preconceptions. Perhaps we could remove his eyes entirely, replacing them with advanced digital sensors that detect the true, real, counterintuitive CNAS reality.
It's nonsense that shooting
It's nonsense that shooting people...er...kinetic...doesn't work. Bullshit.
So I guess the good COL needs to polish up the resume, cuz he's out? Right?
To name two personages of note - although neither was an Ivy Leaguer - both Alexander the Great and Temur (Tamerlane) handled business nicely in Korenistan. It was ...uh.. straight up mass murder. But it worked.
How many people are we going to ruin to prove that this fails? For one thing by your own religion there isn't a fraction of the time necessary. We're outta there in a couple of years. Maybe we should impress upon them that forcing a return isn't a good idea.
Earth to Nancy Pelosi. They aren't buying it.
But that's cuz their not trying hard enough. It can't be that it doesn't work. Convict of heresy and burn at the stake!!
"I've heard Col. Amland is a
"I've heard Col. Amland is a thoughtful officer, but I wonder if he's thoughtful enough to recognize..."
Nah, he's probably an idiot with no understanding of history or the situation on the ground. Good thing you were able to set him straight in between blogging and tweeting.
I've been out of the system
I've been out of the system for a few years now, but been trying to keep up with news from Afghanistan.
Recently I've read two books on British operations in Helmand. One was written by a veteran author of modern military histories, based on hundreds of interviews with paras from 3 Para. The other was a written by a British WO Apache pilot who served there immediately prior to retiring.
And the upshot of both of them was that British military effectiveness in Helmand was being strangled by politically driven policies that resulted in nearly all the available troops being continuously bogged down in "population centric" garrison duties, leaving the Taliban with complete freedom of action.
The problem is that the politicos understand, correctly, that the population is the key to counter-insurgency, but then try to micro-manage that broad policy by making specific tactical decisions which they are not competent to make.
Idiotic things, like thinking that "in order to protect village A, we must physically occupy the old police fort in the middle of village A." No, you may not patrol through the village every 24 hours, you may not dig in on a nearby hill, you must occupy the nineteenth-century fort. And not just the fort in village A, but also B, C, D etc so that in the end each fort is an isolated outpost defended by a platoon minus, à la Beau Geste. Notwithstanding that:
(Apart from all that, there was no "hunkering down to the slow work of rebuilding governance" because any such efforts by the troops were forbidden on the grounds that it was a civilian DfID responsibility, while the civilian DfID did little and what little they did was, through lack of actually visiting the region, totally unrealistic.
For example at one point 3 Para found that a local hospital had no supply of clean linen, despite having been given a washing machine by USAID, because there was no plumbed water supply. The BGs engineers could have sunk a well and plumbed it in within a couple of days, but they were forbidden on the grounds that a contract to do so had already been let to an NGO. The whole time they were there, no such water supply work was ever undertaken by the NGO nor anyone else.)
"...but I wonder if he's
"...but I wonder if he's thoughtful enough to recognize that a) his decades-long education as a Marine officer might have prejudiced him toward a preference for violent offensive operations and b) many counterinsurgents through the years have been in exactly the same spot where Col. Amland finds himself today -- and have pursued violent offensive operations, like battalion sweep-and-clears, that have brought no lasting security."
And this is the problem we (active duty Marines) are dealing with - Commanders who are stuck in the past and too bull-headed to accept change.
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