Nation Building at the Barrel of an American Gun?
A Short Reply to the Dubik and Kagans’ Washington Post Oped

Lieutenant General James Dubik, Dr Kim Kagan, and Dr Fred Kagan, the three authors of a Sunday Washington Post oped titled The Afghan Illusion: Kabul’s Forces Aren’t Yet a Substitute for Our Own, conclude their Oped with this statement:

"Building Afghan forces dramatically is part of a strategy for succeeding in Afghanistan and permitting the reduction of foreign forces. It cannot, however, be the whole strategy."

And to ask this reoccurring question one more time, what is the "whole strategy"? Although the authors do not come out and say it, armed nation building is clearly the "whole" strategy.

Why do we think nation building at the barrel of an American gun can work in Afghanistan? The authors cleverly tell us at the end of the article that the building up of the Afghani National Forces will allow the Americans to "begin" to reduce their footprint in 2011. But then again, that statement is followed by the idea that building Afghani forces is part of a larger strategy of (implied) nation building which I infer from the piece actually requires a generational effort. Realistically and being blunt and honest how could building an Afghanistan Nation up from what it is now take anything less than a generation?

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Gaining the Initiative in Afghanistan
by Colonel Gian P. Gentile

Gaining the Initiative in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

A very recent article in the Washington Post says that the enemy in Afghanistan has improved its tactical fighting abilities when confronting American forces there. The article stated that the enemy has figured out “gaps” in the current American tactical and operational approach of population centric counterinsurgency. And the article added the tactical improvement on the part of the enemy in Afghanistan, according to “American military officials,” has taken us by “surprise.” This means in effect that the enemy has the initiative.

Afghanistan is war, right? In war there has to be fighting or the threat of fighting for it to be war, right? If there is no fighting or threat of fighting then it cannot be war, right?

The answer to this tactical problem in Afghanistan provided by the Counterinsurgency Experts is better population centric Coin tactics and operations; just try harder at building schools, roads, local security forces, establishing government legitimacy, and population security through dispersion of forces to protect them. Once we get better at these processes and try just a bit harder, with a just a few more troops, then voila (just like we think happened in Iraq) victory is achieved, triumph is at hand. But where in this formulation of scientific processes are the enemy and the killing of them?

Gaining the Initiative in Afghanistan (Full PDF Article)

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