Download the Full Article: Building Relationships and Influence in Counterinsurgency: One Officer's Perspective
It is well understood that to be successful in counterinsurgency, the real goal must be to influence the local population, not just destroy the enemy combatants. It is also clear that non-military elements of power can be as or more efficacious than guns and planes. The difficulty is how to apply those two maxims. More times than not, the application of these two maxims intersect in the position of the apparent host-nation leader, be it at the village, regional, or national level.
The following vignette explains how a U.S. team of advisors managed their relationship with a Provisional Director of Police (PDOP), MG Khalid, in a northern province of Iraq in order to convince the general to move decisively against terrorists and develop his 27,000-man police force so that it had credibility with the Iraqi population.
When the U.S. Infantry Division deployed to Iraq in October 200x, the Division leadership augmented one of its Brigades with a number of additional officers who the brigade commander tasked to develop the capacity of the Iraqi police force. The Army was employing what it termed a Stabilization and Transition Team (STT). That small group of officers, no more than eleven, worked closely with a number of U.S. civilian police advisors hired under a DoD contract, to train and mentor the Iraqi police force. The STT's focus was primarily on the Provincial-level staff, Provincial-level commander, and the subordinate District commanders, which had responsibility for the 27,000-man police force spread out over an area twice the size of the state of New Jersey.
Download the Full Article: Building Relationships and Influence in Counterinsurgency: One Officer's Perspective
Eric von Tersch is a retired U.S. Army colonel with service in Army Special Forces and as a Foreign Area officer.
Editor's Note: The names of most of the Iraqi officers mentioned in the narrative, as well as place names, have been changed since all of the Iraqi officials alluded to are still in positions of authority. Masking the names and locations does not take away from the essential arguments put forward.
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<i>"It is well understood that to be successful in counterinsurgency, the real goal must be to influence the local population, not just destroy the enemy combatants.</i>"
Sure; if we were the host-nation. Otherwise, no. Wrong. To be successful in a counterinsurgency, you have to be fighting in support of a host-nation who can provide (is dedicated to providing) basic services, rule of law, and has the mantle of legitimacy from it's populace. GIRoA? Not so much. This isn't our counterinsurgency, it's theirs, and by 2014, not much in the central government will improve. All we're doing now is angling for our exit through Transition. The Kabul Process and commitments are a joke. It doesn't matter at this point what the local population thinks; the war is being lost in Kabul. Does anyone really think int'l donors will continue aid on this scale past 2014 without GIRoA living up to its promises in the Kabul Conference, let alone ignoring issues like the IMF requirements and Kabul Bank?
And really, are we getting another example of.."well, it worked in Iraq"?? I don't see a lot of political corollaries between the PDOP, the POC, and Afghan provincial realities. ANP (MoI) would never be able to stand up to ANA (MoD) in that fashion.
"<i>... counterinsurgency demands a commitment of reconstruction resources at a level where the line connecting the beneficiary of the U.S. development aid and the local official who can take credit for providing the aid is very clear.</i>"
Again, not so much in AFG. The National Solidarity Programs implemented by Ashraf Ghani were 100% more effective than any USAID-funded and implemented development projects to date. Letting the Afghans get together at the local level, vote on their own requirements, and execute block grants is proven to be more effective than US-determined and contracted projects no matter who "takes credit for it" at the local level. Whatever success in Iraq PRTs or larger USAID development projects have achieved has, by and large, been an abject failure in Afghanistan. We cannot even understand (build metrics) of any relation to money spent on local development projects to effectiveness of the COIN campaign.
All in all, good recap of what worked in Iraq and why. Afghanistan is a very different place and a very different war. And the host-nation we're here to support doesn't have anywhere near the legitimacy to draw any comparisons.
Finally, in the conclusion:
<i>"Building a constructive partnership relationship is, in reality, an exercise in building up the capability of the host-nation partner by the judicious application of U.S. military resources and influence</i>"
The time is long past where GIRoA will accept our 'influence.' PRTs in AFG will *try* and build up minimally-sufficient GIRoA capability at the local level so they can disengage in 2014 and let the ministries take over basic service provisions. Beyond that, GIRoA doesn't want our partnership or influence. They want our money and they want us out. Constructive partnerships and all the <i>shona-ba-shona</i> lip service sounds good to ignorant American taxpayers but it doesn't mean anything in Kabul in 2011.
As far as SFA (and COIN?) being the focus of effort over the next few years....I hope we at least learned that strategy and national interest should play a role. At least a cameo would be nice. SFA requires a HN gov't dedicated to Rule of Law. Period. We're not even being net half-way here.