... Waging a successful counterinsurgency campaign with current force levels could prove impossible. The 10,000 Marines deployed to Helmand province and the 4,000 Army soldiers in Stryker armored vehicles who were sent to Kandahar - all among the 21,000 troops authorized by Obama this year - may be able to improve security in the towns and districts where they are operating. But those are just a few spots on the map; there would still be plenty of populated areas in Helmand and Kandahar with few or no NATO troops. It is to those places, districts to the north of where the Strykers are, and to the west of where the Marines are, that the Taliban fighters have retreated. And it is from those places, military officials believe, that the insurgents will seek to destabilize whatever gains the new US forces make.

In theory, once the districts with the Marines and the Strykers become more stable, and once Afghan police and soldiers become capable of ensuring security, US forces can move on to the next trouble spots. The problem is that creating effective Afghan security forces takes time, and it will not be solved by adding a few thousand more trainers. Without more US troops, those sanctuaries will remain unchallenged and will pose an ongoing risk to McChrystal's protect-the-population effort.

All of which brings some here back to the extremes: Either you go all-in, or you fold...

More at The Washington Post.

What's the Right Strategy for Afghanistan? - Washington Post's Topic A opinions.

The Post asked foreign policy experts whether President Obama should maintain a focus on protecting the population and rebuilding the country, or on striking terrorists. Below are contributions from Jane Harman, Kurt Volker, Gilles Dorronsoro, John Nagl, Ronald E. Neumann, Meghan O'Sullivan and Carl M. Levin.

Topic A at The Washington Post.

By Colonel David Maxwell

The re-emergence of counterinsurgency (COIN) theory has been important and necessary for the development of US military doctrine in the 21st century and has contributed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in critically important ways. However, COIN seems to have evolved into a strategic doctrine and perhaps has itself become the basis for US Grand, National Security, and National Military Strategy. This begs some questions.

Is COIN theory the basis for 21st Century US Grand, National Security, and National Military Strategy?

Should COIN theory be the basis for 21st Century US Grand, National Security, and National Military Strategy?

Assuming that COIN theory in and of itself should not be the basis of 21st Century US Grand and National Security Strategy what should form the basis for it?

What if anything could form the basis of Grand, National Security, and National Military Strategy?

I think there needs to be an underlying strategic theory to form the basis for strategy development - but is there a replacement for George Kennan's Containment theory? We seem to have replaced containment of the communist threat with the theory that we can change the conditions (on a regional and global scale) that give rise to terror and insurgency. We have developed a mindset (either knowingly or unknowingly, I cannot be sure) that we think we can change nations, tribes, and cultures to cause them to act in our interests.

Assuming that COIN theory alone should not be the basis for US Grand, National Security, and National Military Strategy in the 21st Century is there an overarching strategic concept for the employment of the US military in the post 9-11 world that will support a US Grand and National Security strategy vice drive the strategy?

It appears the COIN theory of dealing with national security threats is driving the employment of the US military in ways that might not be sustainable -- particularly because COIN theory is forming the basis for the training and employment of the bulk of the US military and the fact that this requires huge manpower levels that must be sustained over long periods of time.

Additionally, the COIN theory of the US military may be fundamentally flawed because it presupposes US forces being in charge whenever COIN is conducted. Though FM 3-24 discusses the importance of host nation legitimacy and even our Security Forces Assistance and Irregular Warfare definitions discuss the importance of legitimacy and the "relevant population" we continue to employ US military forces as battlespace owners which drives the mindset among US military commanders that we are in charge of operations because we "own" the battlespace (despite being in a sovereign country!) De facto we make ourselves the occupying force. Even GEN McChrystal's assessment calls for integrating Afghans into the command and control structure -- those very words imply that we are in charge and not the Afghans.

In the post 9-11 world the US has developed a military employment concept that envisions US military forces, including large numbers of its General Purpose Forces (GPF), deploying around the world conducting a myriad of so-called Security Force Assistance missions to train, advise, and assist (or TEA -- train, equip, and advise to put it in LTG Caldwell's new acronym) and build partner nation capacity and capability and conduct counterinsurgency operations. A host of new doctrinal and not yet doctrinal terms are being introduced to provide guidance for the GPF to conduct missions perceived to be beyond the scope of traditional warfighting activities. (However - it is ironic that both the Army and the Marines have been heavily engaged in irregular warfare and activities throughout their entire existence.)

However, the perception of the US military being in charge has led to sometimes counter-productive activities or actions by military forces and causes further conflict.

When US forces take the lead role using today's COIN theory and doctrine in actuality they are not conducting COIN since the insurgency is "not theirs to counter" because the responsibility to counter it should belong to the sovereign nation that is faced with insurgency. While the US can and must support the activities by correctly applying applicable COIN theory (adapted and adjusted for the unique culture and traditions and the conditions that exist in the conflict area) to support that sovereign nation, when the US takes the lead and pushes the host nation to a secondary role in its own country then the US takes on the role of occupier. They are conducting "pacification operations" causing the perception of being an occupying force more along the lines of the Captain Pershing in the Philippines at the turn of the 20th Century. The calls to read Brian McCallister Linn and his works on the Philippines perhaps have led some astray. The "Pershing model" in the Philippines is somewhat ironic because one of the goals of an insurgency can be to rid a nation of an occupying power and certainly by not granting the Filipinos their independence as had been promised made the US an occupier and the Philippines a US colony. This turn of the 20th Century model must be considered for updating and possibly replaced with a new more modern model for supporting the conduct of COIN by a sovereign nation vice the US conducting COIN in a sovereign nation. And perhaps we should be looking for a balance between Pershing at the turn of the century and Lansdale and Magsaysay in the middle of the 20th Century.

A debate has evolved between those who appear to espouse "COIN as the solution to every military problem the US faces" and those who believe that the military should get back to and protect its ability to conduct "traditional Warfighting" so the US military can fight and win its nation's wars. There are those who believe the focus should be on countering hybrid and irregular threats and those who believe that "full spectrum operations" will provide the military the ability to train for and conduct operations across the spectrum of conflict including the ability to counter irregular or hybrid threats and conduct state on state warfare when necessary.

This has been a fierce debate and has caused much confusion within the military as officers and men of all ranks seek to prepare for the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan while attempting to maintain and hone traditional warfighting skills. Yet the reemergence and general acceptance of COIN theory has benefited the development of military doctrine and the transformation of the Army in many ways to deal with the myriad of irregular and hybrid threats that will likely continue to evolve in the 21st Century. The fundamental issue comes down to how do we "win" the wars we are in without mortgaging the future of the US military capabilities. I put "win" in quotation marks because defining winning in COIN is something that we must consider. Can there be victory in the conventional sense in COIN? Or is it more along these lines: "Someday, if you are successful, the mission will disappear, like a river flowing into a swamp."

Which leads me to my final random thought: If you have to win a fight you send the Army and the Marines. If you have to help someone else win a fight without taking over the fight (and if it is going to take 10 or more years to reach a satisfactory conclusion), then perhaps another type of force is needed.

Colonel David S. Maxwell, U.S. Army, is a Special Forces officer with command and staff assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany, the Philippines, and CONUS, and is a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth and the National War College, National Defense University. The opinions he expresses in this paper are his own and represent no U.S. Government or Department of Defense positions.

You will find complete instructions for your homework assignment at this link.

This is your chance to influence U.S. Army doctrine. Time is running out and woe unto those who fail to complete this assignment ... ;)

Troops In Afghanistan Keep Nightmare At Bay - Scott Simon, National Public Radio (text and audio).

It was the crime of al-Qaida terrorists, whom the Taliban let use Afghanistan, that brought the US and NATO there. But even if al-Qaida now hides in the hills of Pakistan, for many of us who saw the Taliban's brutal and bloody abuse of their own people, it would seem another crime to let such murderers take power again.

US Forces Move Into Central Afghan City - Kevin Maurer, Associated Press.

The event showed how these dozen Special Force soldiers have joined in the daily life of the town's 95,000 residents since they moved in a month ago. The team is among only a few US troops to live in the midst of Afghans, but there will likely be more. The hope is to push Special Forces teams into villages throughout Afghanistan, giving them the mission of rebuilding and training Afghan police and soldiers.

Iran's acknowledgment that it is developing a second uranium-enrichment facility does little to dispel the view that the regime is developing a weapons program. Israel must consider not just whether to proceed with a strike against Iran - but how.

... Iran has all of the technology and production and manufacturing capabilities needed for fission weapons. It has acquired the technology to make the explosives needed for a gun or implosion device, the triggering components, and the neutron initiator and reflectors. It has experimented with machine uranium and plutonium processing. It has put massive resources into a medium-range missile program that has the range payload to carry nuclear weapons and that makes no sense with conventional warheads. It has also worked on nuclear weapons designs for missile warheads. These capabilities are dispersed in many facilities in many cities and remote areas, and often into many buildings in each facility - each of which would have to be a target in an Israeli military strike.

It is far from certain that such action would be met with success. An Israeli strike on Iran would be far more challenging than the Israeli strike that destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. An effective Israeli nuclear strike may not be possible, yet a regional nuclear arms race is a game that Iran can start, but cannot possibly win. Anyone who meets regularly with senior Israeli officials, officers and experts knows that Israel is considering military options, but considering them carefully and with an understanding that they pose serious problems and risks.

One of the fundamental problems dogging Israel, especially concerning short-ranged fighters and fighter-bombers, is distance. Iran's potential targets are between 950 and 1,400 miles from Israel, the far margin of the ranges Israeli fighters can reach, even with aerial refueling. Israel would be hard-pressed to destroy all of Iran's best-known targets. What's more, Iran has had years in which to build up covert facilities, disperse elements of its nuclear and missile programs, and develop options for recovering from such an attack...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

US Military Leaders Discuss Troop Needs for Afghanistan - Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, held an unannounced meeting with senior US military leaders on Friday to lay out his needs for additional troops for the war, as the Obama administration engages in intense deliberations over the strategy there, according to a defense official. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for the meeting, held in Germany, "to get a better understanding for himself of McChrystal's troop requirements," the official said. Given growing public concern over the mission in Afghanistan, Mullen wanted to sound out McChrystal face to face on the troop request in preparation for upcoming discussions in Washington, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The meeting lasted about half a day and was held at Ramstein Air Base. Gen. David H. Petraeus, chief of US Central Command, and Adm. James Stavridis, the supreme allied commander for NATO, also attended at Mullen's request. The meeting came as President Obama faces a decision soon on whether to deploy thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan.

Afghan Troop Request Simmers - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, is expected to formally ask the Pentagon for up to 40,000 additional US troops this weekend, military officials said, despite a plan to delay the request. Gen. McChrystal has held off on the request for several weeks at the direction of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Pentagon's civilian leadership, while the Obama administration conducts a broad reassessment of its strategy in Afghanistan. Aides to Mr. Gates say the defense chief won't forward the request to the White House until that review has been completed - and if its conclusion is to maintain the current war strategy. On Friday, Gen. McChrystal flew to Germany to deliver a briefing on the request to Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other senior military commanders. Adm. Mullen, the nation's top military officer, requested the half-day meeting at an American base at Ramstein, "to gain a better understanding of the pending resource requirements," according to a military official familiar with the meeting. "He wanted to talk about it face to face with Gen. McChrystal, to really hear him out."

Top Officers Weigh Need to Increase Troop Levels - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal met secretly in Germany on Friday with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss the general's anticipated request for more troops for the war in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said. A Pentagon official said that Admiral Mullen had asked to meet face to face with General McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, "so that he could get a better understanding from General McChrystal directly about the resource requirement." The official said Admiral Mullen - who won Senate confirmation on Friday for a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs - did not deliver any specific message to the general at the meeting. The men met at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, which is roughly halfway between Washington and General McChrystal's headquarters in Kabul, the Afghan capital. The meeting occurred as General McChrystal's formal request for a specific number of troops was expected to arrive at the Pentagon. As of Friday evening it had not, said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, who held out the possibility that the request would be on the desk of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates by Saturday.

McChrystal report unwittingly slays counterinsurgency doctrine

This summer the U.S. government has faced a deteriorating crisis in Afghanistan. Such crises tend to force policymakers to face up to the facile assumptions they have previously made. Gen. Stanley McChrystal's report to his civilian masters on the faltering counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan has caused President Barack Obama and his advisers to face up to their basic assumptions about U.S. objectives and strategies for perhaps the first time. Obama and his team seem very likely to conclude from this long overdue examination of first principles that it will be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan. McChrystal's assessment has unwittingly tossed the U.S. military's counterinsurgency field manual into the shredder.

McChrystal's report is brutally honest about the troubles in Afghanistan. He describes a long list of problems in his own organization, how the United States and allied forces are failing to implement essential counterinsurgency tasks, and why the Afghan government's corruption and ineffectiveness are so crippling. McChrystal declares the need for more resources and the need to quickly seize the initiative over the insurgents. By stating these problems, McChrystal has fulfilled his duty to his civilian masters. But he has also properly shifted responsibility for the most fundamental decisions about war policy to where they belong, namely the Oval Office.

So why will it be impractical for the U.S. to successfully implement a counterinsurgency campaign plan in Afghanistan? McChrystal's report describes what must change in Afghanistan to increase the odds of success. However, neither the U.S. military nor the rest of the government can hope to do much about these problems before the political clock runs out in the United States. The problems McChrystal discusses include:

1. The election of a president Afghans (and Americans) will accept as legitimate,

2. Corrupt and ineffective Afghan governance at the national and local levels,

3. U.S. soldiers' lack of facility with Afghanistan's languages,

4. The U.S. military's inability to gain trust and credibility with the population,

5. The difficulty expanding the size and quality of Afghanistan's security forces,

6. The requirement to significantly disrupt Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan,

7. The requirement for U.S. and NATO countries to accept higher casualty rates over the medium term as they attempt to protect Afghanistan's population.

McChrystal also calls for gaining military initiative over the Taliban over the next 12 months. Since the Taliban can easily go to ground without penalty during that time, the United States is unlikely to be able to visibly achieve this condition either. In theory, a sustained counterinsurgency campaign could gradually improve these problem areas. But it is very likely too late in the Washington political game to sustain the effort required. Obama and his team are thus likely to conclude that the counterinsurgency campaign McChrystal calls for in his report is impractical and should be abandoned as an option.

If his report brings matters to a head in Washington, McChrystal will have done his duty. The result will be a painful period of introspection and bickering in Washington. But history will remember McChrystal's honesty favorably.

Abandoning a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan will mean that McChrystal's report will have unwittingly rendered a fatal blow to Western counterinsurgency doctrine. It will be hard for anyone to seriously recommend counterinsurgency elsewhere after it was abandoned in Afghanistan. McChrystal will be America's last counterinsurgency general for a long while. The United States will still have to endure a long era of irregular warfare. It just needs a new military doctrine for this era, and fast.

The Obama team doesn't understand irregular warfare

As McChrystal's report and U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine make clear, success against an insurgent movement requires convincing the indigenous population to support the legitimate government and to cut off support for the insurgency. The indigenous population will do this when it believes the legitimate government and its outside supporters (such as the U.S. military) are completely committed to the mission and will persist with the effort without hesitation until successful. If the indigenous population has any doubt about this commitment, it will not cooperate sufficiently with U.S. aims; if the locals miscalculate, they risk murder at the hands of the insurgents.

Regrettably, President Obama and his top officials have said exactly the wrong things on this score. Their remarks, designed to show a U.S. audience their pragmatism, flexibility, and open minds, are precisely what Afghans, calculating whether they should resist the Taliban, do not want to hear. And there is no way for the United States to succeed in Afghanistan without greater support from the Afghan population.

I have previously discussed the harmful effects of Defense Secretary Robert Gates's open doubts (see here and here). In an interview on The News Hour, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed proud of her flexibility and oblivious to how Afghans would receive her remarks:

[W]hat I'm very grateful for is that we're not coming in with any ideological, you know, presuppositions. We're not coming in wedded to the past. What we try to do in this administration is to sort out all of the different factors and come to the resolution based on the best information we have, and then as soon as we do that we keep going at it. We don't say, "OK, fine, now we're set for the next five years." That's not the way the president works, that's not the way that any of us work.

On September 20th Obama discussed his own commitment to flexibility, welcome news to a U.S. audience, but not so welcome to Afghan listeners:

"Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy, I'm not going to be sending some young man or woman over there -- beyond what we already have," Obama said on NBC's "Meet the Press." If an expanded counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan contributes to the goal of defeating al-Qaeda, "then we'll move forward," he said. "But, if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or . . . sending a message that America is here for the duration."

In this week's essay I have predicted that Obama will abandon a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. I may be wrong. As my FP colleague Christian Brose explains, Obama's long and public deliberation may actually be essential political preparation for a renewed commitment to the Afghan war.

A renewed commitment to counterinsurgency and nation-building in Afghanistan will have a (slim) chance of success only if Obama and his lieutenants can convince the Afghans themselves that they are completely committed to the mission no matter the time or costs. Of course that is not the message Obama's Democratic supporters or much of the American public wants to hear. The worst possible choice would be a half-hearted "temporary commitment" to a 12-18 month counterinsurgency campaign. Such an oxymoronic strategy would be unconvincing to Afghans and the Taliban and its failure would expose Obama and the U.S. military to a fruitless loss of prestige.

It is not possible for Obama to commit to the Afghan population and simultaneously remain "pragmatic" with his domestic constituents. He will have to choose one way or the other.

In his inaugural address in 1961, John F. Kennedy said the United States would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend" in defense of liberty. Less than three months later, he decided not to supply air support to US-trained Cuban exiles who tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. It wasn't a shining moment for American foreign policy. But JFK was right to turn off the spigot of American assistance if he wasn't committed to the fight. President Barack Obama now faces a similar tough decision. The war in Afghanistan is not going well. The rebuilding effort isn't going well. The effort to create a competent government isn't going well. So should he commit American support if he isn't committed to doing what is needed to succeed?

Mr. Obama owns the war in Afghanistan. He bought it, on credit. But he is fulminating at the cost now that the bill is coming due. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has made clear what the bill will be in terms of additional troops. And the president now wants a review to determine whether we're pursuing the right strategy. It is disappointing that this review comes after the president decided to keep 68,000 Americans risking their lives in Afghanistan. But Mr. Obama is right to give himself a chance to decide whether he is —to follow through on this war, given what it will cost in blood, treasure, and other things...

More at The Wall Street Journal.

Always there is the illusion of the easy path. Always there is the illusion, which gripped Donald Rumsfeld and now grips many Democrats, that you can fight a counterinsurgency war with a light footprint, with cruise missiles, with special forces operations and unmanned drones. Always there is the illusion, deep in the bones of the Pentagon's Old Guard, that you can fight a force like the Taliban by keeping your troops mostly in bases, and then sending them out in well-armored convoys to kill bad guys.

There is simply no historical record to support these illusions. The historical evidence suggests that these middling strategies just create a situation in which you have enough forces to assume responsibility for a conflict, but not enough to prevail.

The record suggests what Gen. Stanley McChrystal clearly understands - that only the full counterinsurgency doctrine offers a chance of success. This is a doctrine, as General McChrystal wrote in his remarkable report, that puts population protection at the center of the Afghanistan mission, that acknowledges that insurgencies can only be defeated when local communities and military forces work together...

More at The New York Times.

As many of you will know the UK MoD is at work now on the preparation of a Green Paper leading up to a full (and overdue) defence review next year. We have been discussing many of the key issues in British strategy here on this blog for two years already. I think it speaks well of the informed and thoughtful KOW readership that the MoD Strategy Unit is now reaching out to this little corner of the defence blogosphere to engage with us on such matters. Below I am posting a note from Vincent Devine, who heads the Strategy Unit, which is intended to kick off a debate here on these pages on issues of mutual concern. I am personally chuffed that we have been asked. More importantly, I welcome the spirit of openness to debate and alternative views which the gesture represents. Across the pond they have been better at this, see The Army Needs Your Help, for instance, and I think they have realized better policy and strategy in the doing. I could quote a bunch of clichés here about 'sunlight being the best detergent', or 'a problem shared is a problem halved' but, really, it's self-evident isn't it? Here in the UK we've ground to make up and not a lot of time and resource to waste and so I find this development highly encouraging.

Before I yield the 'floor' (as it were) to the Strategy Unit I'd like to affirm that neither I, let alone KOW corporately, are endorsing any of the views which the Strategy Unit may present; indeed, that would defeat the point of the exercise. Reader, be as critical as you like in the comments...

More at Kings of War.