Center for a New American Security

I am about to board a plane this afternoon that will take me to East Tennessee and a week or so spent with friends and family. I’ll be visiting friends in Memphis and Nashville in addition to doing a little climbing and kayaking. My dissertation, ever-present, will be along for the ride.

Before I go, though, I wanted to link to this pithy criticism of population-centric counterinsurgency that was posted on The Monkey Cage. I recommend you all take the time to read it, because it is both short and elegantly summarizes some of the recent scholarly research on counterinsurgency. (I think the post fails to recognize that population-centric counterinsurgency could include strategies that both seek to protect the population as well as strategies that seek to control the population, but this is a minor quibble. I do not think that Kalyvas, though, was writing about control of terrain so much as he was of control over the population.)

I think advocates and practitioners of counterinsurgency get unfairly tagged as an insular bunch closed to competing theories or criticism. This strikes me as unfair for any number of reasons. First, the earliest theorist-practitioners of counterinsurgency in this particular era never claimed to have the blueprint for the way counterinsurgency should be practiced. Gunner Sepp and Dave Kilcullen both published articles on best practices based on historical evidence mined from previous successful (and unsuccessful) counterinsurgency campaigns. Both authors never claimed to have cracked the code: they basically said to the junior officers who were reading their articles, “Hey, dude, I’m not going to tell you there is only one way to skin the cat, but here are some things that counterinsurgents have done through history that have proved useful.”

Second, if counterinsurgency as practiced by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps has developed into some kind of rigid step-by-step process, we’re not correctly applying the doctrine. Even tactical light infantry doctrine, like FM 7-8, allows for leaders on the ground to shape their tactics and operations depending on variables such as the mission, enemy, time, troops, terrain, civilians on the battlefield, etc. FM 3-24 is no different and in fact stresses the need for leaders to remain flexible and to adapt the doctrine to the war – not to try and force the environment to fit the doctrine.

Third, I think some academic critics of counterinsurgency doctrine and strategies mistakenly assume that many of theorist-practitioners who write about counterinsurgency will be as fiercely protective over their theories as, say, the political scientist Robert Pape is about his theory on what causes suicide terror. I’m not trying to pick on Pape – he is a brilliant guy, and I admire him professionally and personally (we debated on CNN once, and afterwards, he was really gracious) – but you would be hard-pressed to find any evidence that could convince him that his particular theory about what causes suicide terror is incorrect. Theorists and practitioners of counterinsurgency are not, for the most part, trying to get tenure or to get published in the American Political Science Quarterly: they are trying to win a war. Contemporary counterinsurgency doctrine developed as a pragmatic response to the operational difficulties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As I explained recently to my friend Chris Preble, who disagrees with me on most things, counterinsurgency – population-centric or otherwise – cannot afford to become some unfalsifiable theory like Marxism or supply-side economics. If we lose the war in Afghanistan and ten years from now, you hear me saying, “Oh, if only we had thrown more troops into the equation, we would have been successful,” you would be well within your rights to wonder whether or not I am more a charlatan and counterinsurgency “evangelist” than social scientist and pragmatist. Afghanistan, like Iraq before it, is not about whose theory is the most elegant – it is about what works on the ground.

No serious theorist or practitioner of counterinsurgency does not welcome the scrutiny that has been applied to existing theories, doctrine and strategies. The recent research on counterinsurgency conducted by political scientists, economist, historians and others is of uneven quality but exciting in its scope and scale. My boss John Nagl may seem pretty enthusiastic about counterinsurgency doctrine, and the two of us have our disagreements on a regular basis about how counterinsurgency might be applied in Afghanistan, but believe me when I say that John is not trying to defend FM 3-24 in front of a tenure committee: he is trying to find pragmatic solutions for political and military decision-makers. Here’s one example: A few weeks ago I told John how I thought a lot of recent research – including my own research in southern Lebanon and Afghanistan – had really called into question some of our earlier assumptions about the utility of social services in counterinsurgency campaigns. I told John how on second thought, the provision of social services probably benefited the insurgent in a way it does not benefit the counterinsurgent. John nodded his head, said, “I think you’re right,” and walked back to his office. This is not a man held slave to things he wrote or believed years ago.

The past few weeks have seen a rash of newspaper pundits dismiss counterinsurgency out of hand while simultaneously failing to consider the costs, benefits and risks of alternate courses of action. That really annoys me. But I certainly do not begrudge the scholars who have tested our existing doctrine, assumptions and strategies through historical research, economic models, new or ignored case studies, etc. Some have even gone the extra mile and have proposed alternate courses of action for Afghanistan – which may come in handy should the president at some point decide to abandon his current policy or strategic goals. I consider it part of my job as a researcher employed by a think tank – with one foot in the world of academic research and one foot in the world of contemporary operations – to translate a lot of this new research for policy audiences and military officers. Which, I must admit, is a pretty sweet gig.

For now, though, I am off to God’s own country, where for the next 10 days counterinsurgency theory and operations will only be discussed over a grill and with a PBR tall boy in hand. I trust the readership will hold the fort down both here in Washington, abroad in Afghanistan, and wherever else you may be.

UPDATE: Prof. Nagl weighs in: "The twin pillars of FM 3-24 are "protect the population" and "learn and adapt", in that order for a reason. The doctrine is doctrinaire about the first pillar for a reason; a representative democracy cannot adopt the Roman method of destroying the province to save it. Other than that first principle, everything is up for discussion -- and in fact, the "Paradoxes of COIN" highlight the requirement to continually learn and adapt!"

Now that Gen. McChrystal is gone and consensus has formed that Preisdent Obama was well within his rights to have fired him, it's worth going back and looking anew at the Rolling Stone piece that got him fired. On the one hand, David Brooks in today's New York Times and Schumpter in the Economist lament the fact that public figures are now all the less likely to actually open up in front of journalists and speak freely. I don't think this excuses the mistake of thinking you could speak freely to a reporter from Rolling freaking Stone whose opposition to your strategy had already been established, but I take their points. On the other hand, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Greenwald and others seized on a comment in the Politico that this would likely not have happened had Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone reporter, not been a free-lance. The logic is that a reporter from the New York Times or the Washington Post would have been more servile to the people they cover because they do not want to burn their sources. After enduring some members of the White House press corps who do, frankly, seem to exchange favorable coverage of the administration for access, I can understand their complaint.

But -- and I have not worked in the newspaper industry since I was, oh, 19, so I am simply an amateur observer here and do not approach this subject with any claim of expertise on media-government relations -- I think there surely must be some kind of balance to be struck between honestly reporting a story and allowing public officials to speak their minds freely from time to time. A friend of mine, a brave journalist who has reported from such warzones as Afghanistan, Iraq and the District of Columbia (and is not afraid to drop the hammer on military officers or politicians who screw up), wrote in to the blog with his thoughts on the Rolling Stone article. Worth reading, even if you disagree:

Forget background and off the record stuff: that piece reeks of a violation of the 'beers on the table' rule. When sources are socializing with reporters, if you're smart and want to keep sources or even get future ones, you don't print drunk riffs that could be heard in any office in Washington -- or actually in any city where stressed-out powerful people battle rivals.

 

I'm not saying he did anything wrong because I wasn't there, but I sense that Hastings had heard a bunch of shit-talking, reported his story about soldiers hating COIN and then used the quotes as a way to sex up an otherwise understandable debate among military guys over tactics. Most guys join the military precisely in order to drop giant bombs on shit, not to play pretend mayor of Spin Assrape. That they don't like it might be a story -- but it's a better one if the French get to be 'fucking gay' at the beginning.

 

A few of the scoops in Hastings' article:

 

1) That Joe Biden is a blow-hard? I know him a little and respect him a lot. Look me in the eye and tell me POTUS doesn't wince when the man talks in public. Or private.

 

2) Colleagues aren't always excited to receive emails from Ambassador Holbrooke? Ever talk to the guy? Goodness, Milosevic found him so irritating that he actually stopped a war. There could be a reason the Taliban don't want to talk to us.

 

3) The thing about M4's reaction to meeting Obama is thin. From an off the record source who works for, to be fair, in a house full of ego maniacs. JSOC guys, for better or for worse, often do think the president should be pretty stoked to meet them. But even in this case, it's a harmless claim.

 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that all of these things could probably be said in front of a reporter who knows the difference between important rifts and office bitching AND recognizes that 'beers are on the table' and guys might not be saying them in an effort to make them public but rather because they like and trust you to know what's important. It's ambiguous. But it can suddenly become unambiguous (for some lesser men) when you need some hot-ass quotes to please an editor.

 

M4 absolutely had to go because these things were published and the team in place wasn't going to be able to function well in a new era of 'emotional honesty made public.' And maybe it showed an attitude or cockiness that POTUS decided were wrong for the job. And maybe it should be OK to regularly can generals who fail or even annoy. But I'm not sure Hastings didn't just buddy-fuck some guys who'd never seen Capote or Almost Famous. And in doing so, he just made my job a lot harder.

UPDATE: There are already some great comments from readers. Keep it up, gang.

UPDATE II: Well, this makes things more interesting for the debate raging in the comments section of this post.

UPDATE III: I have just been reading the comments, and David Quigg's comment at 5:45 strikes a chord. I really think the quotes sadly distract from the bigger issue that should have been discussed.

I challenged the folks who follow my Twitter feed to come up with a proper sports analogy for Stan McChrystal. We were trying to think of a brilliant athlete who had a meltdown. @alexlobov won, by a country mile, with Eric Cantona. Cantona, the brilliant Frenchman who played for Manchester United, lost it in 1995, ran into the stands and -- I am not joking -- karate-kicked a fan in the face and was banned for nine months and lost the captaincy of the French national team. (Yeah, they have a history of craziness.) He then followed that up with the greatest press conference in the history of press conferences. Ron Artest had nothing on Le Roi.

Cantona went on to score some wonder goals and even beat the Devil, so perhaps there is hope for McChrystal after his humiliating exit from Afghanistan. Anyway, happy World Cup, everybody.

UPDATE: Uh... some of the folks in the comments section need to remember they are reading a blog with a Lego jihadi as its mascot. So while I do write serious commentary from time to time, and often on this blog, a sense of humor is recommended if not required for the readership.

It appears as if I will have to leave for the airport (for a conference on Afghanistan no less!) before either USA-Algeria or McChrystal's fate is resolved. So you are best turning elsewhere for instant analysis today. That said, many thanks for the thoughtful comments yesterday. Mama Muqawama reported from East Tennessee they were the most mature and incisive comments on this blog in quite some time. Thanks.

Amongst the furore generated by Gen. McChrystal's slagging off of his bosses and colleagues in Rolling Stone Magazine, everyone seems to have missed the fact that Britain's highest representative to the AfPak party has resigned.

It seems Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the British government's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, resigned over differences concerning talks with the Taliban.

The Guardian says:

While insisting Britain should support the US, he was quoted as saying in the Canard Enchaîné: "We should tell them that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one." The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said his remarks had been distorted.

As for the Washington Post:

He had pushed for a political solution in Afghanistan and for higher priority to be given to talks with the Taliban and other insurgent groups, while expressing skepticism that increased military force could prevail.

Quite a few officials in Afghanistan have said Sir Sherard did not see eye-to-eye with Ambassador Holbrooke, the NATO representative Mark Sedwill or Gen. McCrystal.

"Cowper-Coles has been more downbeat, warning that the current battle in Afghanistan was "a civil war" and that the international community had "backed the wrong side", according to one non-British diplomat.

"He had increasingly come to believe that "sod-all can be done" about turning round the fortunes of the nine-year war, a top diplomat said, and is believed to have pushed strongly for the withdrawal of British troops as soon as possible."

I heard Sir Sherhard speak at a dinner organised by the Pakistan Society in London a couple of weeks back. He didn't say anything telling in terms of policy, but it was easy to see from what he said and how he said it that he had figured out exactly how to strike a chord with the kind of people who run Pakistan. I'm not qualified to speak about Afghanistan policy, but Sir Sherard seems like the kind of official I'd want to listen to.

Pakistani 1: "Western countries are trying to destroy Islam. They fear us more than the Chinese. We are the only people who have a system that challenges theirs. They know their system has failed, so they are trying to destroy us before everyone becomes Muslim. They have always hated us. They want to keep us poor. Our rulers have been bought by them. Our rulers sold us for big houses in London and New York. Now Western soldiers and contractors roam around our country looking for ways to steal from us and control us. We are paying the price. If we don't fight, they will rob us and leave us to die in the gutter."

Pakistani 2: "Peace is a good thing. You are a Muslim, right? We are all about peace. We love it. Fighting is not the answer. Peace is the answer. Just take it easy, be good and everything will sort itself out."

Presenting your ideas as part of a bigger picture is much more persuasive than just chucking them randomly out there. The ideology of Islamist extremism has a very effective big-picture story. On the other side, the narrative is a bit.... well,.. lacking. That's not to say the ideas aren't soundly based or the approach isn't right, it just means that there's no bigger picture that captures the imagination, presents the prospect of things being different or generally inspires to action.

Quilliam Foundation director Maajid Nawaz has an editorial in the Pakistani daily Dawn newspaper that tackles the extremist narrative in Pakistan. Maajid, who used to be a high-level member of UK Islamist outfit Hizb ut Tahrir, very neatly illustrates the point that actions by Western government's inadvertently feed the view of the world painted by extremists.

"I remember trying to convince people that the UN is against Islam, and I remember being laughed at. That is...until Srebrenica. I remember trying to convince people that Yasser Arafat and the PLO would ‘betray' the Muslims of Palestine because they were not ‘Islamic'. I remember being laughed at. That is...until Oslo. I remember arguing that Muslims would never be tolerated in Europe, and Bosnia would spread everywhere. I remember being laughed at. That is...until Chechnya.

"I remember arguing that western freedoms are tools for colonialism. I remember being laughed at. That is...until the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. I remember arguing that human rights are used to keep us weak whilst our ‘enemy' grows strong. I remember being laughed at. That is...until Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. People eventually stopped laughing."

So, not only is there a failure to provide another attractive, alternative vision, the actions that emanate from Western capitals seem to boost the vision promoted by extremists. It makes me wonder whether extremist PR people only need to work part time. Couple of hours a day, maybe? I bet the holiday entitlement is pretty generous. They probably just go do some training on uploading videos to the net, then it's feet-up time again.

But despite the popularity of the extremist world view, "...it does not take much to pick holes in this simplistic, pseudo-intellectual and paranoid perspective," says Maajid.

So, maybe it's time we started.

My post mourning the death of Marcel Bigeard attracted some lively commentary, so I am going to up the Algeria ante by linking to this fascinating 1970 debate between Roger Trinquier and Yacef Saadi, old adversaries in the Algerian War. My friend Judah Grunstein passed this along, noting the way Trinquier and Saadi dispassionately discuss, among other things, the use of torture. U.S. readers will recognize Saadi as having played one of the lead characters in The Battle of Algiers, a film in part based on Saadi's wartime experiences. [via Ultima Ratio]

P.S. Yes, this is in French. Sorry.

These past few weeks have brought a fresh torrent of bad news from Afghanistan: a governor in a key district assassinated, U.S. and allied operations in flux, Afghan leadership in question. Policy-makers in Washington and allied capitols are wondering if the U.S. and allied counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan can succeed. These are reasonable concerns. Tony Cordesman, one of the U.S. defense analysts who has advised the command in Afghanistan, wrote today that “There is nothing more tragic than watching beautiful theories being assaulted by gangs of ugly facts. It is time, however, to be far more realistic about the war in Afghanistan. It may well still be winnable, but it is not going to be won by denying the risks, the complexity, and the time that any real hope of victory will take. It is not going to be won by ‘spin’ or artificial news stories, and it can easily be lost by exaggerating solvable short-term problems”.

Researchers – whether in think tanks or in the academy – are loathe to admit error or display genuine humility. But as the preacher-king in Ecclesiastes warned us, “Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer knew how to take advice”. Humility pays, which is why John Calvin instructed us all to have a “teachable spirit”.

I cannot think of any place where humility pays as much as in Afghanistan. One of the smartest military analysts I know arrived in Afghanistan this past spring having never been there and promptly announced he could not understand how anyone who had not spent at least a year in Afghanistan could say anything of consequence about the country. And the longer I spend time away from Afghanistan, the less confidence I have that I can even understand operations there or the challenges facing U.S. and allied officers, diplomats and aid workers – to say nothing of ordinary Afghans. This is one of the reasons why I have been reluctant to say anything in the media or in a policy paper on the tactical and operational levels of war in 2010. And having spent a good many years of my life studying one sub-region of the Arabic-speaking world, I have always been quick to point out that my lack of Dari and Pashtu language skills or time spent in Afghanistan as a civilian researcher really means that I am confined to observing and offering comment on NATO/ISAF operations and U.S. and allied policy and strategy rather than on Afghan culture or society.

Judge what follows with that massive caveat emptor in the back of your head.

The purpose of this post is to revisit some assumptions we – to include this analyst – have made about the environment in Afghanistan as well as U.S. strategy and operations. A year on from President Obama’s “white paper” outlining U.S. policy and strategic aims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, what assumptions remain valid and what assumptions need correction?

Wags like to joke that when you “assume” you make an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. Very funny, sure, but the reality is that assumptions are necessary for strategy, the social sciences, and everyday life. The economist Greg Mankiw writes that assumptions help us “simplify the complex world and make it easier to understand … The art in scientific thinking – whether in physics, biology, or economics – is deciding which assumptions to make”.

In war, getting your assumptions right does not necessarily mean you win, and getting them wrong doesn’t necessarily mean you lose. As with all things, the ability to execute matters most, and in war, setting priorities and allocating sufficient resources matters quite a bit as well. In Afghanistan, it is unclear that the United States and its allies have allotted sufficient resources (time, troops, money) to execute a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. It is also unclear whether or not the United States and its allies can execute such a strategy in southern Afghanistan if given sufficient resources. We have to be honest about that, as well as about the possibility that we could somehow end up with a favorable policy outcome regardless of those concerns.

This post, though, is about assumptions. In Afghanistan, leaders at the political, strategic, operational and tactical levels of the war have made and continue to make assumptions that allow them to plan and execute a strategy and operations. Some of the assumptions made in 2009 have proven correct in 2010. Some have proven in need of correction, and that means leaders need to revisit their plan. Here are some of them:

1. "The United States and its allies will devote the time, money, and troops to execute a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan". Probably False. For a variety of reasons – some good, some less good, some having to do with massive oil spills that didn't exist in 2009 and a financial crisis that didn't exist in 2007 – the United States and its allies will likely not provide the resources necessary for a long-term counterinsurgency effort. They might have in 2003. But in 2009? In retrospect, it was always going to be unlikely, and I think I personally overestimated U.S. and allied resources available (including but not limited to political will).

2. "The United States and its allies have vital interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan". Probably True. Tony Cordesman is correct when he writes that we have no reason to maintain a long-term presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia. But disrupting networks of violent non-state actors is a vital U.S. interest, and allowing these non-state actors to establish a safe haven in Afghanistan is not in our interests. As with anything, the trick is weighing marginal costs versus marginal benefits. I do not have faith in my ability to accurately assess either.

3. "Afghanistan is a binary conflict between the government and the insurgents".* Certainly False. Take a close look at Helmand Province or read the chapter written by Tom Coughlin in this book. On the one hand, you have a binary conflict between insurgents and the government. On the other hand, you have inter-tribal rivalries layered on top of that conflict. And on someone else’s hand, you have the drug trade layered onto both. Try to imagine a battalion commander who speaks only English figuring all that out by June 2011. And if most counterinsurgency strategies are about extending the reach of the government, should we still do that if the government is known to be corrupt and predatory?

4. "The provision of social services leads to a reduction of violence". Mostly false. Theorists and practitioners of counterinsurgency had long argued, as Galula did, that “the counterinsurgent should … seize every opportunity to help the population with his own resources and equipment”. And as Eli Berman and David Laitin demonstrated, insurgent groups do in fact benefit from providing social services. But how about counterinsurgent forces? There the evidence is weaker. Berman & Co. have demonstrated that CERP funding – and CERP funding alone among aid and development spending – likely had an effect on the drop of violence in Iraq. But Andrew Wilder argues that even CERP funding is destabilizing in Afghanistan. Whether or not any of the $70b the United States and its allies have spent on aid and development has had a stabilizing effect seems to be unproven. This has, I think, some serious implications for U.S. aid and development strategy going forward.

5. "What we do is what matters".** Mostly false. I think we drew some false lessons out of the Baghdad security operations of 2007, thinking it was what we did that caused the dramatic drop in violence that allowed for a political process to take place and allows us to consider the Surge to have been a success. As I have pointed out several times here on the blog, there was a lot of stuff going on in Iraq in 2007 – a Jaysh al-Mahdi ceasefire, the effects of a brutal civil war, the Sahwa, etc. U.S. military operations most certainly had an effect on levels of violence, but correctly portioning out causal responsibility for the drop in violence among all those factors is impossible. One lesson from the Surge, though, might have been that in order for us to be successful in Afghanistan, a lot of stuff outside U.S. and allied military operations was going to have to go right. Another lesson might have been that conditions might change on the ground without us having the ability to accurately explain why. Regardless, in Afghanistan, it is always worth remembering that we are waging a war on behalf of a host nation. What the leaders of that host nation do or fail to do matters more than what we do or fail to do.

6. "Population-centric counterinsurgency is appropriate for Afghanistan". Mostly true but perhaps false in one key way. The enemy in insurgencies can control his loss rate and is fluid – while the population is fixed. That’s why we’re population-centric. But does population-centric mean protecting the population or controlling the population? And if you do not have detention authority and the population is 70% rural, can you even do the latter? I’m not sure.

I still think, as echoed in this New York Times editorial, that "General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy still seems like the best chance to stabilize Afghanistan and get American troops home." But for a lot of the same reasons Tony outlines in his most recent paper for the CSIS, I am not sure we can pull it off. I think we need to reexamine our assumptions, reconsider our strategy, and do both with the requisite epistemological humility about the environment in which we’re fighting.

*I didn’t actually make this one, but as I read a lot of policy documents from 2009, I feel like the United States and its allies largely did.

**Okay, I didn’t make this either, and I do not know any operational decision-makers who did, but I think this most certainly applies to many legislators in the U.S. Congress and to much of the U.S. public.

Update: Cohen and Boot respond. I respect the heck out of Max Boot and consider him among the smartest of the thinkers often lumped under the label "neoconservative". (He has also been intellectually brave, unafraid to take on members of his own party.) But I think Boot, like many other neoconservatives, overestimates the importance of U.S. actions and downplays the agency of others. So Afghanistan will definitely be a success if we will it? Sorry, but that's not how third-party counterinsurgency campaigns work. The actions of others matter as much or more than our own. (Though Boot is right, to a degree, about political will.)

Update II: Now Spencer, with some kind words regarding my intellectual honesty. (Hey, if you don't have much intellect, you might as well have intellectual honesty.)

Update III: The military analyst I mentioned in the third paragraph wrote in to say that he thinks an intelligent analyst would have something of consequence to say about Afghanistan after as little as 90 days on the ground -- but agreed with me that knowledge is perishable. He also pointed out regarding Assumption #3 that we often assume both the government and the insurgents to be unitary actors. Not true -- neither in Iraq nor in Afghanistan. And Joe Klein wrote in to say that his worries -- only partially articulated in this column for TIME -- dovetail with my own.

Update IV: Max Boot has penned a very thoughtful response to my, er, response. I did not write that the United States and its allies will not be successful in Afghanistan -- merely that I am having my doubts, in part because I am not sure how much I can really "know" about the battlespace and that some of my earlier assumptions have proven either wrong or in need of slight revision. As far as the success rate of counterinsurgents fighting as third parties -- that is, not on their home turf and in the service of a host nation, like the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan -- is concerned, I would point Boot in the direction of the freshly defended doctoral dissertation of one Erin Simpson (Doctor Charlie to this blog's readers). Once you're done coding everything out, it turns out it doesn't so much matter whether or not you're a democracy or an authoritarian regime. But counterinsurgents are a whole lot less likely to be successful if they are fighting as third parties as opposed to on their home territory. Boot also references my service on Gen. McChrystal's assessment team last summer. Surely he remembers that we* concluded the United States and its allies were losing the war at the time, right? We found the overall situation to be deteriorating. What was needed, we felt, was a new strategy and more resources. In 2009 and 2010, the president has devoted many more troops and resources. But that changes the cost-benefit analysis I referenced in #2 above. I want to thank, though, Max Boot and all the others who have used this post to engage in some really good (and civil) debate.

*The report, of course, did not reflect the consensus of the group and only reflected the opinion of the commander. I largely agreed with everything that was written in the first 22 pages (which were the only pages I helped draft), but there were some really dynamic debates among the various experts and strategists (and one smart-ass blogger) that were not reflected in the final text.

I was not among those who criticized the article James Risen wrote about the $1 trillion mineral find in Afghanistan. I was content to fret about the conflict trap in which countries dependent on primary commodity exports often find themselves. But if James Risen -- one of the nation's leading national security journalists, to be sure -- seriously thinks those who criticized his reporting are simply bloggers "jerking off in their pajamas" he could use an extra dose of humility today. In this Yahoo! interview with John Cook, Risen is apparently oblivious to the fact that some of his pajama-clad critics include serious scholars and analysts who, while younger than Risen and hip to teh interwebs, have studied Central Asia and spent a lot more time on the ground there than he has. Just read what a self-important jerk he sounds like when asked to defend his reporting:

"The thing that amazes me is that the blogosphere thinks they can deconstruct other people's stories ... Do you even know anything about me? Maybe you were still in school when I broke the NSA story, I don't know. It was back when you were in kindergarten, I think."

What phenomenal arrogance. What a jerk.

I really respect the men and women who report on national security issues for our daily newspapers and still subscribe to an old-fashioned newspaper that arrives on my doorstep each morning. And I grew up in the newspaper industry. (My first job, at 14, was running text through the old wax machines at our family newspaper and pasting stories to the pages with an exacto knife and scissors.) But one of the things I love about the blogosphere is that instead of reading soundbites from experts in a 1,000-word story (cut down to 400 words to make room for an advertisement), I can read lengthy commentary by subject matter experts. Have a question about depression-era economics and their connection to the contemporary financial crisis? Click here. Want in-depth, informed commentary on what's happening in Kyrgyzstan? Click here. This may come as a shock to James Risen, but some of the people he is mocking know a hell of a lot more about minerals in Afghanistan than he does.

You want to hasten the end of your industry? Then by all means, keep doing what you're doing: consider yourself unaccountable and scoff at the blogosphere. Yes, I understand bloggers are changing the newspaper industry in fundamental ways. (Ezra Klein, to use one example, does not blog with the same tradition of objectivity in which the Washington Post's print journalists report. How that changes the culture of the newsroom, then, is interesting.) But if you think you don't need to answer to bloggers, some of whom have spent years doing field research or working in Central Asia and now blog as a hobby, the invisible hand of the market is going to find you out. And before you know it, you'll have taken a buy-out from the New York Times and be teaching creative writing in Maryland. And, let's face it, probably blogging on the side.

I was reading Ex's link to Chris Fair and Daniel Byman's piece about idiotic jihadis and thought some thoughts that I thought were probably fairly relevant. But more importantly, I saw a golden opportunity to link to a clip I've been wanting to share for ages (more on that in a bit).

So, are jihadis cunning, resourceful, steel eyed shadow warriors, or are they a bunch of bumbling fools? Chris and Daniel make a great case for the idiot argument with tales of would-be suicide bombers hugging their comrades one last time and accidentally vapourising everyone, Talibs engaging in frolics with farmyard animals and - my personal favourite - the weed smoking Miami wannabe jihadis.

I've been drawn to the bumbling-fools line of argument since the time I attended a rally organised by al Muhajiroon in London. On the shared bus from the mosque to the site, I was stifling laughter when the teenage demonstrators started cracking open the neatly packed lunches their mothers had prepared thinking their sons were off on training courses. Followed by the full-on jihadi fashionista behind-the-catwalk bitch-fest when it came time to fix on the face-covering Palestinian scarves.

The point was only enhanced for me a few months later when I saw the video testaments of the failed airline bomb plotters...I mean seriously, I'm pretty sure at least two of them couldn't read the script. 

At about the same time, I interviewed a 15-year old in London who told me, "Amil, the war is coming. I'm a soldier. But, bruvver, you gotta pick your side." He then got stoned, tried to rap for me, forgot the words and asked to borrow money for the bus ride home."

This might all sound fairly reassuring, but I think the ineptitude is just one side of a wider trend. Keeping the argument to Britain for now; before 9/11, to become an extremist, you had to be fairly committed. There was none of the reflected glamour of being associated with people capable of scaring polite society. In those days, extremists were overzealous, a bit nerdy, waay too into religion and generally uncool. As Chris and Daniel's example of 9/11 lead attacker Mohammed Atta suggests, in such an environment, a potential recruit is more likely to possess a certain awareness, commitment and focus. Of course, there are examples of pre 9/11 Jihadiots, but in general terms, the cause was as cool as chess club and membership reflected that. 

Now that the cause is much more glamorous, many more people want some of the action. So the fact that there are numerous instances of idiocy means that extremists have been able to lots of idiots. And, just one idiot who manages to press the right button at the right time is a huge problem.

But more than that, if you are going to get lots of recruits, most will be idiots but you are also going to get a larger proportion of useful people. i bet something similar happens in conventional fighting forces like the British army. Thinking of which, I'm reminded of an occurrence related to me by an army guy I was hanging around with who told me of a young recruit from the north of England who after a session of learning about grenades put a live one in the pocket of his camo jacket and blew himself up. So, for every few dozen Sargodha type recruits you get someone who can devise complex strategies, hack computer systems or influence millions. In Pakistan, these types of recruits have been busy running double agents, expertly executing raids on Pakistani army installations and running circles around everyone else's communication efforts.

There are further differences amongst extremists than just their level of competence. Britain, for example, and Afghanistan are two totally different environments. The threat coming from them does not manifest itself in the same way. However, the general principle probably still holds; if porn-loving young Afghans have signed up to the Taliban, it suggests that the group is growing in popularity and attracting followers because it is successful and not because of whatever it is seen to stand for.

Daniel and Chris mention the importance of denying extremists havens to limit their capacity to train followers, and I'd totally agree. I'd also add if we accept that extremists can gather more recruits than before 9/11, and that some of these people have to be competent, that means that more safe havens will result in many, many more potentially lethal extremists.

So, should we laugh at the Jihadiots? Absolutely! I mean, sometimes, it's really hard not to. Check out this trailer for a recently released British film to see what I mean:

I got up at 0315 this morning and am about to head to the Burlington airport in order to be back in Washington, DC in time for the annual CNAS conference, which promises to be pretty awesome. There are lots of good speakers and panelists lined up, but if you cannot attend, fear not: you can follow the webcast live via the interwebs here. And if you are attending the conference and are a regular reader of the blog, do say hello at some point. I promised Gen. Barno I was going to get a haircut this morning once back in DC, but otherwise, I'll be my normal charming self. And I'll be wearing a nametag. Which should make it easier to pick me out. (Sorry, though, despite regular requests from readers, I will not be wearing regimental PT shorts. And neither will Fick be wearing UDT shorts. In both cases, this is a good thing.)