Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition

Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition by Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl in the January / February 2009 issue of Foreign Policy.

For the past five years, the fight in Afghanistan has been hobbled by strategic drift, conflicting tactics, and too few troops. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, got it right when he bluntly told the U.S. Congress in 2007, “In Iraq, we do what we must.” Of America’s other war, he said, “In Afghanistan, we do what we can.”

It is time this neglect is replaced with a more creative and aggressive strategy. U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is now headed by Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy widely credited with pulling Iraq from the abyss. Many believe that, under Petraeus’s direction, Afghanistan can similarly pull back from the brink of failure…

Much more at Foreign Policy to include a conversation with John Nagl and Nathaniel Fick and an exclusive interview with General David Petraeus on how Afghanistan is not Iraq, it’s harder.