David Brostrom:
Wanat, and a host of similar incidents in Afghanistan, are grim reminders that you can't fight a counterinsurgency war on the cheap. When a four-star Army general called to offer his condolences, I asked him about our strategy's shortcomings. He conveyed that the Army was not about to "knee jerk" more troops into a place like Afghanistan and upset the "dwell time" the Army had worked hard to schedule. He said that, unfortunately, Afghanistan had become an "economy of force" with no clear "end-state." But the goal shouldn't be to achieve success with less. Months before Wanat, Gen. David McKiernan requested that 30,000 more troops be sent to Afghanistan. The Bush administration shunned him. It shouldn't have - and the current administration should not second-guess Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for about 40,000 troops. As the president weighs his options, more soldiers and Marines die fighting without the resources and strategic vision they need.
John Bernard:
General McChrystal is too enamored with "hearts and minds"; hearts and minds is not a strategy. To be clear: I don't say this solely because my son was killed implementing this idea. Weeks before Josh's death, I sent a letter to the office of my congressman, Mike Michaud, outlining my worries about counterinsurgency strategy and the rules of engagement. The approach denies our men artillery and airstrikes when they need support. (For example, the day before Josh's death, his unit was fired on from a nearby cave. But an airstrike was denied because the rules of engagement were not met; the pilot couldn't see the enemy.) It encourages the Taliban to take up offensive positions in populated areas and attack from points off-limits to US forces.
Much more at Newsweek.
Comments
It always amazes me the spectrum in understanding of COIN within the general population and, for that matter, the military community (both active duty, retired or ETSed). These two articles express two sides of it rather well.
Varied understanding and support seem to span the entire rank structure also, from the E-1s to the Commander in Cheifs (plural since I think it spans administrations).
Does anyone else get the feeling that the education necessary to effectively prosecute a COIN strategy is not there?
If the citizens of the United States are expected to sign onto this war, it might help if some effort was made to assist them in understanding it.
Dwell time. Dwell time? Seriously?
Hey soldier, you can rotate in and out of theater every other year for the rest of time, or you can rotate in once for a year and a half, have six months off, go back for another year, and then possibly not have to go back for the rest of your career. Which do you pick?
In three words, Josh: "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/opinion/10dowd.html">Absolute moral authority</a>".