Small Wars Journal

The Next Fight: Time for a Change of Mission in Afghanistan

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 4:43pm

I really don't know what to say about this because I asked Exum to study FID, Colombia, Phillipines, and El Salvador back in 2008-09 when he was advising on the A'stan Surge.  Now, I guess he finally studied these conflicts.

The Next Fight: Time for a Change of Mission in Afghanistan

by Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Dr. Andrew M. Exum, Matthew Irvine

With a 2014 transition looming in Afghanistan, U.S. and allied military leaders must recognize that U.S. and coalition forces will not defeat the Taliban and its allies in the next three years. "The Next Fight: Time for a Change of Mission in Afghanistan," a report authored by Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), Dr. Andrew Exum and Matthew Irvine, calls for a change of mission in Afghanistan and offers policy recommendations for the Obama Administration, the ISAF/U.S. Forces Commander, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and the U.S. Special Operations Command.

The authors write, "U.S. and coalition forces must shift away from directly conducting counterinsurgency operations and move toward a new mission of "security force assistance:" advising and enabling Afghan forces totake the lead in the counterinsurgency fight." They conclude that by continuing to place its forces in the lead in counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, the United States is ultimately working against its long-term security interests. Because U.S. units can execute counterinsurgency operations better and faster than their Afghan counterparts, they are continuing to do so despite the looming transition. Afghan forces must move more rapidly to take the lead in Afghanistan while the United States and its coalition allies still have significant numbers of troops and enablers in the country. U.S. commanders need to assume greater risk in the near-term if the Afghan forces are to succeed in this task.

 

Comments

The report spends a great deal of time suggesting how the Afghans can be helped to better deal with the conflict but it spends no time advising how the Pak Army/ISI can be made to butt out. That is like having a big hole in the boat and spending all your time talking about which bucket is best to bale with rather than talking about how fix the hole. No matter how proficient the Afghans get at baling or how good their bucket, it is for naught if the Pak Army/ISI doesn't stop warring on them through Taliban and company. Talk about strategic myopia, nope make that blindness, willful blindness. The Afghan state can't beat the Pak Army/ISI, the army with a country, on its own. They might have a chance if we removed Pak ARmy/ISI from the equation but we haven't ever tried. And we never will if reports like this one are the best the inside the beltway crowd can do.

At least Gen. Barno now recognizes that the Pak Army/ISI supports part of Taliban & Co. That is a long way forward from his position as described in Operation Dark Heart.

gian gentile

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 7:31am

Peter: Agree with your point about strategy, but to understand the failure of strategy in Afghanistan one must also understand the operational tool--pop centric coin--that strategy sought to employ to achieve policy aims there, no? It is in this way that I inquire with Exum et al as to their recommendations of doing just that three years ago, and now this flip. I ask what changed? Did coin achieve what they thought it would in 2009? If it didnt then at least have the ability to acknowledge that it did not and that recommending such a course (remember that people like Exum and others were close advisors to McChrystal on strategy) may have needlessly burned good blood and treasure when there were, not only now in hindsight but so too at the time (Biden plan, flushed out by people like Austin Long),operational alternatives.

Bill W: An old friend of mine, a coin expert who has written a good deal and favorably toward pop centric coin and a lot of it posted on this blog, once told me that he thought Westmoreland should be held "criminally liable" for US failure in Vietnam. This i have always thought to be naive, a-historical, and actually downright preposterous. With people like Exum and their flipping i am simply looking for an understanding that links their role in the development of this broken strategy and then a realization that it has not worked and why now a change is needed. I guess the tough part in this might require think tank personnel to admit that perhaps they were wrong about certain things. That may be anathema for good think tank business in the beltway but good intellectualism demands it.

Alas though the other troubling thing I have seen by many of these flippers (e.g., Kilcullen, Nagl, Exum) is a withdrawal from these vital discussions on places like Prine’s LOD and SWJ. Whereas before as I recall in 2007 and 2008 it was not uncommon at all to see these people pop up and offer opinions and thoughts in these discussions, now I cant remember the last time I have seen them involved in this way. It is curious to me why this has happened.

Peter J. Munson

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 5:51am

As I said on another related post, this is no case study for the COIN v not-COIN deathmatch. No one will be convinced either way. COIN didn't work, we didn't implement it right or enough or long enough, the strategic situation wasn't ripe, etc. What it does offer is a case study in poor strategic decision-making, I'd argue more on the mil than the civ side, and a look at the unintended negative outcomes created by bureaucratic bartering between those two sides. These two conflicts will provide grist for argument for a long, long time. That is, unless the spending spree they unleashed doesn't cause us more important problems in the mid-term that distract us.

omarali50

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 12:41am

Holding them to account will just trigger defensive stubbornness...if they are moving in what you consider the correct direction then it may be best to cheer them on...

Bob W.

Tue, 12/06/2011 - 4:13am

In reply to by gian gentile

Gian, well said.

I'd also argue that at least in Eastern Afghanistan, most conventional forces are not practicing anything that could be remotely considered Counterinsurgency. The overwhelming majority of forces are FOB'ed up, surge for combat operations in some place where they "clear" the area, then they return back to the FOB, where their interaction with Afghans of any stripe (save for camp workers) is marginal. Any Afghan unit participation in the "clear" is token, and rarely is there any sort of follow up in the area "cleared".

So sure, hold Nagl, Exum, and the rest of the lot accountable intellectually; but at the end of the day, they're just a bunch of guys hanging out enjoying the ambiance in the national capital region. I'd rather see people responsible for the war, in the NCR as well as the battlefield itself, held accountable, too.

gian gentile

Mon, 12/05/2011 - 5:03pm

Building on brother Mike's lead post to this newest piece from CNAS, Exum et al says this in the essay:

"The primary weakness of the current model is its unsustainability"

Say what? Are you gosh darn kidding me? Why did it take people like you nearly three years to figure this out? Why could you not figure it out (when many others already had back in 2009) that FM 3-24 type coin was in fact unsustainable from the angle of sensible American strategy. Now three years later you finally figure this out.

Another flipper joins the club. When will these people be held intellectually accountable for the sudden, wrenching changes of position? At least offer up an explanation as to why you were so confident with the promise of Coin in Spring 2009 (arrival of McChrystal), and now you are skeptical of it.

What changed?

gian