With a full-throated roar, 2,000 proud new Afghan soldiers swung across a parade ground in an enthusiastic if imprecise goose-step formation. The latest graduates of the Afghan army's basic training course, they will soon head off to fight the Taliban, as their commanding general announced, "in the name of Almighty Allah.''

These new troops, smartly outfitted with American combat boots, uniforms and M-16 rifles, are the result of a determined push by the U.S. and allied command to "surge'' more Afghans into in a stalemated war in which American and European troops currently are doing most of the fighting.

By Aug. 1, the Afghan army will have grown to 134,000. That milestone is being reached two months early, thanks to an Afghan army pay raise that attracted new recruits and the injection into the basic training course of hundreds of battle-hardened American infantrymen as trainers and mentors. Training for Afghans has become tougher, stricter, more condensed. Fresh, well-equipped troops are charging out into the fight at a rate of a new 800-man battalion every 15 days...

Much more at Politics Daily.

Executive Order 13434, issued in direct response to lessons learned from 9/11, Katrina and other disasters that have threatened our national security, calls for the establishment of a corps of National Security Professionals (NSPs); leaders who will be called upon to work across the interagency in response to various domestic and international crises. Past responses have proven that working across departmental boundaries requires leadership capabilities derived from an interagency perspective. To effectively serve in this capacity, NSPs must be prepared - trained, educated, and experienced. They must be able to work together to respond quickly, efficiently, and effectively.

To aid in readiness, the DoD NSPD Implementation Office is conducting the first National Security Professional Development symposium, hosted by the National Defense University August 4 -- 5, 2010. The symposium, entitled, "National Security Professionals: Forming an Interagency Community," is intended to lay the foundation towards the development of a community of National Security Professionals. Enhanced awareness, expanded cultural acuity, collaboration and developed networks are critical characteristics demonstrating readiness and key outcomes of this symposium.

The DoD NSPD Implementation Office formed an interagency symposium working group responsible for developing the content. Representatives on the working group are from participating agencies including Department of State, Energy, Justice, Commerce, Agriculture, National Defense University, Defense, NSPD Integration Office, and the United States Institute of Peace.

Please visit the National Security Professional Development Symposium web site for more.

by Andrew Garfield

General Petraeus, in his recent Senate Confirmation Hearing, reminded everyone that in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, "the key terrain is the human terrain." Taking and holding the human terrain is the essential prerequisite for ultimate success in Afghanistan, as it was in Iraq. This battle for control of and support from a contested population can only be won if we understand the Afghan people, whose cooperation, trust and support we are trying to secure. Armed with this understanding, we can navigate the human terrain successfully. Without it, we continue to be confused by the complexities of their culture, faith and society; oblivious to their desires, grievances and opinions; distracted by the lies and distortions of our enemies; and blind to opportunities to enhance our reputation.

In much of Eastern and Southern Afghanistan today, the Taliban hide, recruit, train, prepare and attack from safe havens provided by the local Pashtun population. They remain hidden for extended periods simply by hiding in plain sight; well known to elements of the local population who are un—or unable to challenge their presence. If we are to challenge the Taliban in Kandahar and elsewhere in Afghanistan, and enhance the influence and effectiveness of the Afghan Government, our soldiers and diplomats must understand fully the society and culture in which they operate.

To develop an in depth understanding of the human terrain, one must first conduct comprehensive, systematic, timely, and ethically appropriate social science research and analysis. In order to do so, one must operate in the field and conduct primary face-to-face research, utilizing all available sources. One cannot learn how to navigate the human terrain in Afghanistan from the Internet.

Social Science research, which is primarily face to face research, helps our military understand why so many Kandaharis support the Taliban or are —to turn a blind eye to their activities. It tells them what Afghans' expect from their Government and what they need to survive and prosper. It tells our military how to avoid cultural missteps and explains the narratives that they must understand and utilize in order to communicate effectively with the population. It identifies Taliban behaviors and excesses that the population rejects and can be exploited, while providing Afghan perspectives on how to exert pressure on, and reconcile with, the Taliban.

Yet, far too little effort has been dedicated to the systematic, on-the-ground collection of this essential socio-cultural information. This type of human terrain data is being collected, however the budget for its collection is minuscule in relation to its importance. In addition to budgetary constraints, such research collection is attacked regularly by ivory tower academics that falsely question research ethics and methods based on personal ideologies, instead of defending the lives of Afghans, and U.S. military and civilian personnel.

Our military and diplomats must be given direct access to the full range of Social Science field research capabilities as a means to protect themselves and the people they engage and support. If this access is denied for budgetary, ideological or methodological reasons, many more Afghan civilians, and American and Allied soldiers will die, allowing the Taliban to prevail.

Andrew Garfield is the Founder of Glevum Associates, a Massachusetts-based social science research and analysis company that conducts extensive multi-disciplinary face-to-face research in Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of the Department of Defense and other clients.

Tribal engagement in Afghanistan is an increasingly hot topic among U.S. Government,

academia, the think tank community and the blogosphere.  Articles, blog posts

and papers on tribal engagement written by authors with recent experience in Afghanistan

collectively ignited a heated debate on the efficacy of pursuing this kind of sub-national

strategy -- a debate that many in the national security community are watching closely. 

With this in mind, Small Wars Foundation hosted a two-day

Tribal Engagement Workshop

(TEW) focused on Afghanistan from March 24-25, 2010 in Fredericksburg, VA. 

The TEW was cosponsored by Small Wars Foundation,

the U.S. Joint Forces Command

Joint Irregular Warfare Center, the U.S. Marine Corps

Center for Irregular Warfare, the

U.S. Army / U.S. Marine Corps

Counterinsurgency Center, and

Noetic. The workshop was

designed to address conceptual issues associated with tribal engagement and explore

the considerations that operators and planners would have to address in order to

implement a tribal or local engagement program.

The

TEW Summary Report is available now.  We are working to organize and present

additional material via the TEW

Event Page. In the interim, there is a good amount of background information

there now.

The workshop was made possible in the first place through the vision, support

and engagement of Noetic.  Small Wars Foundation extends its sincere thanks

to Ben Fitzgerald and team.  The co-sponsors (Noetic, JIWC, CIW, and COIN Center)

all brought interest, expertise, and a variety of critical capabilities and support

to the table; their decisive engagement along with a diverse and expert group of

participants made the event a success.  We would especially like to express

our gratitude to our speakers, facilitators, and analysis team:  (list

of bios)

• Dr. David Kilcullen,

  Caerus Associates

• Mr. Ben Fitzgerald,

  Noetic Group

• MAJ Jim Gant, SF, AFPAK Hands
• Mr. William McCallister
• Col T.X. Hammes,

  Institute for National Security Studies

• Dr. Seth Jones,

  RAND

• Dr. Amin Tarzi,

  Marine Corps University

• LCOL John Malevich, Canadian Forces,

  US Army and USMC COIN

  Center

• Ms. Kathleen McInnis,

  Caerus Associates

• Mr. Mark Vinson, Institute for Defense

  Analysis

• Mr. John Caldwell, Institute for Defense

  Analysis

• Mr. Andrew Exum, CNAS
• Mr. Jason Fritz,

  Noetic Group

As more outputs from the event become available, they will be posted on the

TEW Event Page.

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2010 -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has approved a program that will set up local police forces in towns and villages where the Taliban are attempting to infiltrate and intimidate the population.

The local police forces will bridge the gap until fully trained government forces can step in, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said at a news conference today.

"While we are simultaneously operating at a far higher tempo and degrading the Taliban so they are less of a threat to these local communities, we can utilize a willing, local, armed population to do community policing," Morrell said.

The local police forces are not militias, Morrell explained. Karzai approved a plan to put up to 10,000 community police in place, to be paid by the government and to operate under the control of the Afghanistan's interior ministry.

"This is about putting locals to work, so that they can be on watch in their communities for people who shouldn't be there, and then work with the established security organizations -- the [Afghan] army, the police, the coalition -- to make sure they don't menace their communities," Morrell said.

Though the preferred solution in the country is a fully trained police force, a Defense Department official speaking on background said, "the recent discussion and decision is an encouraging sign of Afghan officials taking serious, detailed interest in both their short-term security needs and the long-term sustainability of security programs."

Officials said examples of Afghan villagers banding together to deny the Taliban access to their towns have been encouraging.

"We clearly have seen examples of local communities repelling attempts by the Taliban to infiltrate and intimidate their communities," Morrell said. "We have also, though, seen examples where there are communities that may not have stepped up in that demonstrable a way, but clearly want to and are looking for help in doing so."

Since June 1, the Taliban have killed 89 percent of the civilians killed in Afghanistan. Morrell pointed out that if the coalition and Afghan government forces kill civilians, it is inadvertent. "By contrast, we know that the Taliban [are] deliberately targeting civilians," he said. "And they are doing so at an increasingly high rate."

Related Sites:

Transcript - U.S. Department of Defense

Tribal Engagement Workshop - Small Wars Journal

More:

Pentagon Defends Afghan Local Police Plan - Voice of America

President Karzai Approves Plan for Local Defense Forces - Washington Post

Afghans to Form Local Forces to Fight Taliban - New York Times

Afghan Gov't Says OK to Local Defense Forces - Associated Press

Local Afghan Security Forces 'Temporary Solution' - Agence France-Presse

"General David Petraeus is settling in as President Obama's top man in Afghanistan. Petraeus and his commanders are pushing a plan to help Afghan villagers fight the Taliban on their own but Afghan President Karzai is said not to like the idea much. David Kilcullen talks to Mary Louise Kelly about adapting counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. Kilcullen was a senior advisor to Petraeus during the Iraq surge in 2007."

No one knows yet what the new NATO Strategic Concept will look like. However, it is likely that NATO will continue to be involved in complex operations: military missions that are not traditional interstate warfare yet require the use of military forces, almost always in collaboration with civilian partners. There is no consensus definition, but the range of activities included are generally agreed to include counterinsurgency, stability operations, and humanitarian assistance.

The new Forum Paper by the NATO Defense College takes a broad look at this topic and explores the differences and similarities between complex operations and high-intensity combat operations, particularly regarding the use of force/level of force, governance/economic development components, and civilian protection. It includes a wide range of articles—some of which may not be consistent with today's official policies—related to the problems that complex operations pose for NATO.

Download the full Forum Paper at the NATO Defense College.

DNI had a ten year run, closing its doors at http://d-n-i.net last November. There's a site of loosely the same title there now, but it's not the same site.

The Project on Government Oversight was involved with the start up of DNI, and is behind its Lazarus reincarnation. No new content is being posted, but the archives are alive again now for those who want to explore them. The new site is http://dnipogo.orghttp://dnipogo.org.

Hamkari Baraye Kandahar aka Deepwater Horizon

Containing both will be slow, but doable

by Jonathan Pan

The upcoming Kandahar operation "Hamkari Baraye Kandahar" reminds me of the Deepwater

Horizon oil spill. Concerning all the efforts that BP is exerting at containing

the oil spill, Chris Gidez, a former oil company public relations man,

has the following to say,

"At the end of the day, the best public relations and advertising in the world cannot

compete with that live video stream of that oil coming out of the bottom of the

sea." The similarity to Hamkari is that the combined political, economic, and military

might of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has not been able to

stop the Taliban's influence (the oil) from spreading to the population (the sea).

The reason for this failure begins with "strategic communications." ISAF should

worry about stopping the oil rather than talking about it; it needs to immediately

follow a "underpromise and overachieve" strategy rather than worrying about "strategic

communications."

For starters, "Hamkari Baraye Kandahar" means "Cooperation for Kandahar" in Dari.

Rahimullah Yusufzai writes,

"It is not the first time that a non-Pashto term is being used in the Pashtun-populated

southern Afghanistan." The previous major operation in Helmand was called Operation

"Moshtarak," or Together or Joint in Dari. What was also not learned from Moshtarak,

or the Marjah offensive, goes beyond semantics. While the Marjah offensive was touted

as a military success, it is viewed by many to be a governance failure. Of the 400

men from Marjah, Lashkar Gah, and Kandahar City that were

interviewed

by the International Council on Security and Development, "61% of those interviewed

feel more negative about NATO forces than before the military offensive." Even Major

General Nick Carter, the commander of the volatile Regional Command South, conceded

that the three-month old Moshtarak

was

about three to four months away from success. By hyping up Moshtarak, the Afghan

people felt promised to a certain level of security and governance. While the security

aspect has mainly been achieved, the governance aspect has not been able to keep

up with the pace. Make no mistake- capacity building takes time in a country torn

by war for over 30 years while the best and brightest study and work abroad or work

for international organizations. However, the idea of successful and quick governance

did not just enter the minds of Marjah residents- there was a failure in the message.

The primary goal of Moshtarak was supposed to win the support of local residents.

That was why before Moshtarak even began,

ISAF "said publicly for weeks that an invasion of Marja was imminent." Aside

from possibly displacing some Taliban with the message, the message also created

expectations. ISAF is a conglomeration of the world's powers, led by the United

States. Many Afghans are frustrated by the fact that a world hegemon capable of

sending a man to the moon cannot fix governance in a few months. As the Kandahar

surge begins this fall, ISAF needs to worry more about actions than about the media.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommends "to worry

a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions

communicate." ("Strategic Communications: Getting Back to Basics." Joint Forces

Quarterly. Issue 55, 4^th Quarter, 2009)

Even before the Marjah offensive finished,

anonymous US

officials were talking about Kandahar as a "future kinetic area."  With

the leak that a Kandahar "offensive" on the way, it took ISAF approximately eleven

weeks to start promoting the offensive not as a military operation but rather an

extension of local governance; President Karzai recently called it a "process."

The mismanagement of Kandahar operation on the media front has led to an artificially

created endgame scenario.

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post writes "There is no Plan B." This

is grossly unfair and unwise as the incoming U.S. brigade combat teams have to deliver

near-impossible results with near-impossible timelines. All the while, casualties

are mounting. ISAF had 51 casualties in May, 24 more than last year. The months

from June through October 2009 had the most casualties. Furthermore, the Taliban

will seek to derail the upcoming elections, especially of the district councils,

to prevent governance from reaching down to the district levels where the Taliban's

shariat court reigns. If recent history can serve as an indicator, ISAF will have

a tough fight this summer.  

While the media portrayal of Hamkari has been negative, battles and skirmishes

in the governance war are being won every day by Kandahar government officials while

being coached by the recently relevant Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team.

The influx of new U.S. brigades should immediately adopt a "underpromise and overachieve"

strategy. Are there any PowerPoint slides or Excel spreadsheets that can guide them

in this pursuit? Nope. Admiral Mullen sums it up quite nicely, "Americans simply

showed up and did the right thing because it was, well, the right thing to do" ((JFQ

Iss 55, Q4 '09). So what is the right thing to do? Enable the Afghan government

to build governance by providing Afghan officials with up-armored vehicles and armed

security groups, focusing on small projects below $10,000 that prevents commercial

warlords from trying to get a cut ($10,000 goes a long way in Kandahar), and have

a responsive Afghan government response after every "spectacular" attack by the

Taliban.

It's tough and dangerous job being an Afghan official these days. Is maintaining

a fleet of up-armored vehicles and private security sustainable in the long run?

Of course not -- but this isn't post-conflict reconstruction, this is war -- war requires

stabilization, not development. The focus on smaller projects prevents the common

complaint that most Afghans echo, "Where is the money going?" Well, at least $3

million is accounted for- it was spent by one Afghan contractor in Las Vegas.

As of June 5, 2010, there have been 736 projects totaling $41,125,838 spent in

Regional Command South with the U.S. military's Commander's Emergency Response Program

during Fiscal Year 2010. 19 of those projects constituted $22,964,967, or 55.8%

of the expenditures. The other 717 projects are all under $200,000, and accounted

for 44.2% ($18,160,870) of the total (Thank God that the Military loves Excel because

civilian spending is a black hole). I will argue that it is the 717 projects that

are really going to the Afghan people.

To that end, I question whether the Kandahar Electrification project, which costs

$569,914,757, is really going to help win the war. That project reflects more than

the

military-civilian tensions or the development versus stabilization argument

that the media loves to highlight. It exhibits the fact that the "better try than

not trying at all" strategy is deeply embedded within the American psyche.

Aaron David Miller thinks that "this is an appropriate slogan for a high school

football team; it's not a substitute for a well-thought-out strategy for the world's

greatest power." Capitalizing on the football analogy, it is time to stop quarterbacking

the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and give the Afghans the win.

Recently, the Deepwater Horizon has eclipsed Exxon Valdez as the worst oil spill

in U.S. history. Afghanistan has just exceeded Vietnam as the longest war. However,

both oil spills are slowly being contained. The new Deputy Provincial Governor of

Kandahar Province, Latif Ashna, has stepped up and became relevant, unlike his predecessor.

Arghandab is still going strong even after the assassination of the beloved Haji

Abdul Jabar. The incoming US brigades have a real shot at getting to the tipping

point if they immediately follow a "underpromise and overachieve" strategy focused

on letting the right actions deliver the message. ISAF must protect the few and

the brave who will serve in critical Afghan government positions with up-armored

vehicles and private security, focus on projects $10,000 and under to channel wealth

and stabilization to the people rather than the commercial warlords, and finally

have a responsive response for every "spectacular attack" by the Taliban, i.e. Governor

Wesa should have personally went to Nagahan after the wedding suicide attack in

June. If Hamkari follows this strategy and avoids the mistakes of Moshtarak, not

only will a "bleeding ulcer" be avoided but ISAF will have a chance of helping the

Afghan government deliver the elusive governance victory.

Captain Jonathan Pan is serving in Afghanistan. The views in this article

are solely of the author and not those of the Department of Defense.

The Afghan environment is like no other. Being able to address problems in multi-dimensional terms has never been more important. Do your homework. The Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) elements vary from location to location, unit to unit, and person to person. Levels of discipline, training, leadership, capacity and capability range the full spectrum. The following information is to provide you and your unit with recommendations that may or may not work in your area of responsibility (AOR). So, use what is appropriate at your location and develop the ANSF to support the success of the mission.

A Time for Sergeants: COIN Success at the Company and Platoon Level

in Afghanistan.