Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations
Serving Pork Chops at a Bar Mitzvah:
Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations
by Colonel Gary Anderson
Download the full article: Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations
Some observers call the American led counterinsurgency efforts, past and present, in Iraq and Afghanistan, “a strategy of tactics”. They argue that the American effort on the ground was and is too focused on doing population control village-by-village and district by district, that they forget the big picture of eliminating corruption nationwide and solving the big social and political problems that plague those countries.
I have no argument that, to date, we have failed to create the kinds of reforms within the Karzai regime that will cure wide ranging corruption and poor governance that have allowed the Taliban to make a comeback. However, counterinsurgency (COIN), like politics tends to be local.
Just as a mid-term election in the United States can force an American president (as well as Congress) to change course, many American soldiers and State Department civilian officials in Afghanistan believe that a large number of local successes against the Taliban will force change within the Karzai regime — that Karzai and the national government will feel pressured by rising local stars to reform from the bottom up.
Until then, the most our tactical commanders and Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) leaders can do at the local / tactical level is use combat power to provide security and buy time for the Afghans to create effective security mechanisms and use aid in a way that best enhances the COIN fight by convincing the population that there is a viable alternative to what the Taliban offers.
Download the full article: Some Thoughts on Aid in COIN Operations
Colonel Gary Anderson is a retired Marine infantry officer. A a Marine and as a civilian he has seen service in Lebanon, Somalia, and did research for several Defense Department studies in Afghanistan; he also did humanitarian service in Bangladesh. He recently returned from a tour with an embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq. He teaches at the George Washington University’s Elliott School.
