America thought it had won the war in Afghanistan six years ago, but a recent escalation in violence and instability -- including the death of nine U.S. soldiers last weekend -- has given rise to the question: Have we allowed the Taliban to come back?

NOW Correspondent Bill Gentile reports from Afghanistan's southern Helmand Province, where he was embedded for nearly three weeks in May and June with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24th MEU). The 24th MEU are among 60,000 foreign troops on the ground in Afghanistan -- more than half of them American. They face an ominous challenge as the Taliban attempts a return to power, in some cases merging with other insurgent groups, and potentially providing safe haven for Al-Qaeda and other anti-American terrorists.

Reporting from the front lines, NOW provides a soldier's-eye [Marine's-eye] look into what some consider America's "forgotten war." Are we still winning it?

Breakfast has not yet arrived by the time we roll out on our first mission of the day. Another foot patrol into the village Abar Layla. This time we are to provide security and muscle power for a civic project, building a barricade around the town's soccer field. A mounted (motorized) convoy provides security for the truck hauling plywood and steel posts, while we, the dismounted patrol, provide security for the captain to walk over to the site. He greets the mayor and soldiers start unloading and putting up the fence. While this goes on, it's the responsibility of our platoon to keep an eye on things in the village and surrounding area. We are also accompanied today by members of the Iraqi Army, who help secure the perimeter.

Things go fine until the mid-morning call to prayer, which is interrupted by someone taking over the PA system and inciting some members of the village to demonstrate. The interpreter with our group is the first to know something is wrong. He simply says to the platoon leader, "We should go." And so we do. The guys nearest the center of the village fall back to near the truck, which is quickly loaded up and moved out. Meanwhile, villagers march and chant. There is no violence, and we don't stick around to further provoke any. The fence around the soccer field will have to wait.

Some Random Thoughts on COIN Today

I have to respectfully disagree with the assertion that "counterinsurgency is the graduate level of war."

Despite being an avid believer in and advocate of COIN (and FID and UW) for most of my nearly 30 year career I still believe that that the graduate level of war has to be full spectrum and those that are practicing the graduate level of war are those that can shift between major combat operations and stability operations and when necessary assist a friend, partner, and ally in the conduct of COIN. Now that everyone is chasing the shiny (but not really) "new" thing (COIN) and calling it the graduate level of war I it think is disparaging to our great general purpose forces out there who are still going to be required to conduct major combat operations in some form or fashion and will have to be able to combine those operations with stability operations once the battle is won.

The graduate level of war is any form of war because war is as complex in major combat operations as it is in stability operations. The real "PhDs of war" are those that are able to recognize that the actions they take in the beginning of conflict (e.g., March-May 2003) are going to have effects on the outcome and the post conflict phases (e.g., May 2003 to the present). All war has to be people oriented -- it is always war among the people (Clausewitz still holds true, war is a duel, it is to impose one's will on another: that is just as true in major combat operations as it is in COIN -- and in the end it is always about influencing human behavior whether it be the behavior of the enemy leadership (political and/or military), soldiers, and the people (whether enemy, friendly, or neutral)). Yes, I have always quoted T.E. Lawrence that "irregular warfare is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge" but I will always believe it is necessary for the US military to operate across the spectrum of conflict. We have always recognized the need to be able to conduct post-conflict operations (stability operations, Phase IV or V or VI operations or whatever we have to decided to call it as we are always sticking new names on old doctrine, e.g. Security Force Assistance for FID, etc) but in the past we have paid lip service to it and have always focused on the "maneuver phases". Instead of letting the pendulum swing too far to one side (as we did post-Vietnam when we discarded everything we learned for the most part) we have to be able to strike the right balance.

One of the problems I continue to observe is I think a carryover from our strong historical emphasis on maneuver warfare, is that we continue to look at COIN from the perspective of the US winning (I know I continue to beat this horse). But this idea of the US winning can have detrimental second and third order effects for the US strategically.

I know the current COIN aficionados will say that when you have to conduct COIN in ungoverned spaces it is not FID because the HN does not govern there so the US has to be the main effort and win the COIN fight there and ultimately pacify the area. But we have to ask ourselves who does that ungoverned space or territory belong too? I can be pretty certain that it does not nor ever did belong to the US. If and when we embark on a COIN fight in an ungoverned space we sure better understand to whom that territory belongs and while we may be the main security force operating there for periods of time, all of our operations need to be focused not on us winning but on getting the rightful "owners" of that ungoverned space to be capable of once again being the legitimate government in that region. The idea of winning the hearts and minds cannot be about winning the hearts and minds for the US, it has to be about helping the legitimate authority win the hearts and minds of its population. That is where I think many of the current "COIN experts" have it wrong and I think this is a carryover of the maneuver mindset that we have to win. It ends up manifesting itself in such things as the SOFA proposals where we want to be able to conduct independent operations without host nation approval (or worse where we say that the Iraqis were wrong to launch the Basra and other operations without our "permission" as some political leaders have said) Our need to always be in charge can be very counter-productive in a COIN operation (think sovereignty!)

Sometimes we have to take the lead in tactical (security) operations we have to remember to practice operational art and understand the end state we are required to achieve (e.g, operational art: "the employment of military forces to attain strategic goals through the design, organization, and execution of campaigns and major operations", thanks to Dr. James Schneider of SAMS.) Operational Art is and will always be the graduate level of war and applies to all forms of conflict from major combat operations to stability operations to COIN. What has become apparent today and what makes all forms of war the graduate level is that so many of our tactical operations and actions have greater potential effect on strategic outcomes and the understanding of strategic effects is required by all our forces down to the very junior levels. I would say that warfare is the graduate level of human interaction because of all its complexities. The real essence of our operational art today is to be able to design the campaign not only to achieve success in battle but to see it through to success in the stability operations, post-conflict phase and ultimately the ability of the legitimate government to govern its people.

On that last point we are also still living in the past in some ways. We have always said that after the battle someone else (e.g. DoS or some ad hoc organization) would have responsibility for the post conflict phase (e.g., an assumption by some in 2003). Today we say that the inter-agency will take care of the post conflict phase -- but we forget that DoD is a full partner in the interagency community as well, i.e., it is part of the "whole of government". It is wrong to say "DoD and the Interagency". We are the interagency. But today we want to establish a stabilization corps or nation building corps as well as an advisory corps and I am afraid that we will paint false expectations and continue to plan in a stovepipe manner because we think someone else will deal with the aftermath. GEN Powell's adage of "you break it you buy it" still holds true and there is always going to always be a large DoD requirement as part of the "interagency or whole of government solution" so we need to plan for it from the beginning. Again the key is to conduct planning (and execute operational art) to ensure that all elements of the campaign are designed/orchestrated to contribute to ultimate success in post-conflict vice just victory in the battles and engagements. Of course ideally we will not need to execute future Afghanistans and Iraqs and we won't have to depose regimes and develop security forces from the ground up. Then we can get back to advising and assisting our friends, partners, and allies, behind the scenes and help them be successful at solving their internal and trans-regional challenges (e.g. Colombia) without large scale US military intervention!!

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. The opinions he expresses in this paper are his own and represent no U.S. Government or Department of Defense positions.

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Discuss here (comments) and at Small Wars Council

In a recent Small Wars Journal article entitled "The Demise of Secretary Wynne," Jon Compton offered some observations about the role of airpower in counterinsurgency operations. The article has received a good deal of attention and spurred some debate. Like most other readers, I agree with some parts of the article and disagree with others. However, since Jon cited me and my name has been linked to his in what has become a contentious discussion, I would like to offer some thoughts of my own.

I should begin by saying that I have no intention of laying out a complete summary of counterinsurgency theory here. I will talk mainly about the role of airpower, and particularly airpower in an ISR and strike role. Except where these subjects are concerned, I am generally in agreement with John Nagl on transforming the Army for the COIN mission and with James Corum on the role of airpower. I will leave it to the reader to determine the delta.

I'll begin with what I consider the two pillars of counterinsurgency. First, counterinsurgencies are not won by U.S. armed forces, ground or air; they are won by indigenous governments. Our goal must be to increase the strength and legitimacy of the indigenous regime. Anything we do that reduces the power of the government to develop legitimate and stable institutions moves us further from victory. Second, the most serious threat we face is strategic, not tactical. Insurgents generally win by wearing down an occupier's political will to fight over a prolonged period, not by defeating them on the field.

Nevertheless, one of the main ways an occupying power can contribute to stability is by suppressing enemy forces. The objective is not to wrack up a Westmorland style body count; it is to weaken and deter insurgents long enough for the indigenous government to get on its feet. The usual argument is that it can best do this by providing a large occupation force. A ratio of 20 troops to 1000 population is often recommended.

Large occupation forces make good tactical sense, however, there are two serious problems with an outside power like the United States injecting tens of thousands of troops into a foreign country. First, foreign soldiers are often viewed with mistrust and their presence has a tendency to stir up nationalist hostility in the local population. The more visible the occupation forces, the easier it is for insurgents to use their presence to discredit the indigenous government. Thus, a large force can undermine the legitimacy of the government it is there to support. Second, large expeditionary armies are expensive and hard to maintain. As a rule, the larger the army, the shorter the period the United States can maintain it in the field. Thus, increasing the size of the force used in a counterinsurgency operation has a tendency to decrease the amount of time Congress will be —to dedicate to the war.

There is no easy solution to these quandaries. In the Vietnam War and the British occupation of Mesopotamia, the major power occupier erred on the side of a large ground force—50 per 1000 population in South Vietnam and 60 per 1000 population in Mesopotamia. In each case, the population saw the foreigners as invaders and the major power could not kill or suppress insurgents fast enough to overcome enemy recruiting. In each of these cases the population of the occupying power tired of the war before the insurgents and withdrew its army.

The usual answer to this problem is to make the ground force more effective and less obtrusive using classical COIN techniques such as those described in the Small Wars Manual and FM 3-24. The idea is that troops using these techniques will be more effective at suppressing the enemy, because they have better relations with the local population, and more capable of helping the population build their own institutions.

The problem is that is that it is difficult to force a conventional army to adopt these methods. I have heard a number of senior U.S. Army leaders argue that in Iraq today between 5 and 15% of the Army is engaged in types of operations suggested by this approach. They point out that a large part of the U.S. force in Iraq is "tail" and that a large portion of that force is engaged in tasks that can be irritants to the indigenous population. Abu Ghraib, highly publicized rape trials, and reports of collateral damage are dramatic examples but the simple presence of large U.S. bases and heavily armed U.S. troops engaged in force protection are also problematic. While we are making progress in transforming our ground forces I have not encountered much optimism about transformation coming from Army leadership outside of the public press.

A second solution to the problem is to use airpower technology to make up for numbers. The idea is that technology might be able to allow the occupier to maintain stability with a smaller and less obtrusive force than would otherwise be necessary. This was tried by the U.S. in Vietnam, the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan and the French in Algeria. In each case, airpower greatly increased the occupying force's tactical capability and decreased the pressure to send more ground troops. However, far from making the force less obtrusive, the general view was that imprecise bombing was extremely obtrusive and acted to turn local opinion against the occupying force. In each of the above cases the negative effects of imprecise weapons and collateral damage appears to have more than counteracted the tactical advantages derived from greater battlefield effectiveness. These experiences form part of the basis for the truism that COIN is about boots on the ground and that airpower is counterproductive in COIN in a strike role.

When General Petraeus took command in Iraq, the new counterinsurgency doctrine he was presented with reflected these experiences and this history. The doctrine as a whole says nothing about airpower. A short appendix does, however, describe the utility of airpower in a non-kinetic role and, importantly, discourages its use in a strike role.

Then something changed. After a short time in Iraq, Petraeus began to increase air strikes. As the surge commenced, he increased the average daily weight of ordinance dropped by the Air Force by 1000% (at my request this number has been independently verified by several organizations). This increase in air strikes represents a sea change in tactics.

Why did General Petraeus defy doctrine and increasingly call on airpower in a kinetic role? The answer is that air and space technology have come a long way since Vietnam. New communication technology allows air and ground forces to work together much more effectively than in the past. The synergy that joint forces derive from this interaction vastly magnifies the power of the force. Soldiers and Marines' situational awareness increases dramatically when married to airborne ISR and their firepower increases by orders of magnitude when combined with precision guided munitions.

The effect of this increased air-ground synergy has been to make the surge far more effective than the 20% increase in ground forces or even the increase in the number of forces employing COIN tactics would suggest. The actual tactical increase in the joint force's ability to suppress insurgents has been enormous. Thus, although the media generally portray the surge as entirely about an increase in ground forces this characterization misses the bigger picture. One of the most important factors contributing to the success of the surge has been the integration of airpower technology into joint operations.

An effect of the increased use of airborne ISR has been to decrease collateral damage. The ability of ground troops to call on airborne ISR has increased their ability to find and track insurgents. This has the effect of making U.S. forces less conspicuous and more precise in their ability to engage the enemy without causing collateral damage. It has increased the ability of the joint force to follow the enemy back to their safe houses and to confront them at the time and place of our choosing rather than theirs. Rather than engaging them in populated city streets, we use eyes in the sky to follow them out to less populated areas and fight them there.

PGMs have had a similar effect. Unlike the imprecise bombs of the 1960s, modern bombs cause little unintentional damage. When linked with good human intelligence and eyes on the ground that can identify targets as hostile, they are a radically effective way of applying firepower without killing noncombatants or putting U.S. troops in harms way. Evidence of the unobtrusiveness of this form of military power is that the press has remained almost entirely ignorant of the tenfold increase in the amount of air launched ordinance used in the surge.

How effective is this new air-ground synergy? Since the surge began, the vast majority of enemy dead have been killed by air strikes. The vast majority of noncombatants killed have not been killed by air strikes. More importantly, insurgents have become increasingly reluctant to mass or to take action in the open. Put succinctly, the answer to why General Petraeus disregarded the new doctrine's advice on the use of airpower in a strike role in COIN is that the doctrine got it wrong. Airpower technology has changed and General Petraeus recognized those changes and acted on them.

The new air-ground tactics have a number of strategic implications for U.S. policy toward Iraq. First, by weakening insurgent groups they are making it easier for indigenous troops to fight and win and, consequently, for the Iraqi government to get on its feet. Second, by reducing U.S. casualties they are providing the American population with strong evidence that the surge is working and reducing pressure for an early withdrawal. Together these outcomes are increasing the chances of victory in Iraq.

Until now, the new role of air strike in COIN has gone unheralded by the services and unrecognized by the media. Militaries are slow to accept change and too often inter-service rivalries interfere with mission analysis. This is a problem. Lesson that are not recognized and disseminated are often lost. Unless a lesson is ingrained in the public consciousness it may not survive till the next war. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appears to agree and has increasingly cited ISR and air strike statistics in recent speeches.

In a commentary on Jon Compton's original article, a poster to the Small Wars Journal blog compared my rhetorical style to Ann Coulter. The comparison is not entirely off. For much of the past half decade I have beat the drum for less obtrusive ground forces in Iraq and greater use of airpower as a means of making this possible. This has not always been a popular argument. I am pleased that MNFI has come to many of the same conclusions and more pleased to see they have contributed to the success of the mission.

Professor Richard Andres is a Special Advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of any other individual or institution.

Soldiers to Learn Nation-building - Chris Smyth, The Times

The head of the Army will today (Thursday) call for creation of a new class of soldier specialising in nation-building and development to reconstruct the Iraqs and Afghanistans of the future.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, will say that the Army should consider creating "permanent cadres of stabilisation specialists" so that soldiers can deliver "civil as well as military effects within areas as diverse as governance, town administration, finance and banking, law and order and sanitation".

This could mean placing soldiers under the command of the Foreign Office or the Department for International Development, General Dannatt will tell the centre-left Progress pressure group in a speech in Westminster tonight. This would have a radical effect on military career-paths, which could see "an officer spending a tour with indigenous forces, followed perhaps by an attachment to DfiD overseas, or a local council at home or a police force in Africa or elsewhere", he will suggest...

Troops Should be Trained as Nation-builders - James Kirkup, Telegraph

British soldiers should be trained to rebuild war-torn countries and not just fight conflicts, Britain's top soldier is expected to say. Military training should be broadened so that service personnel spend time working for local councils to learn how to establish democratic governments in developing countries. General Sir Richard Dannatt will say.

Sir Richard, the Chief of the General Staff, will use a Westminster speech to propose a shake-up of the way the Army trains its personnel and runs its operations, to put more focus on reconstruction and development work.

His suggestion comes amid concern in Whitehall about the way the British military mission in Afghanistan is fitting into the wider Western effort to develop that country's government and economy...

Government 'Careless' with the Military - David Byers, The Times

A former senior Army officer today accused ministers of being "very careless" with the military and of having "lacked interest" in improving resources.

Major-General Arthur Denaro, who has now retired, said that the country had also failed to play its part in backing the under-resourced Armed Forces due to the unpopularity of the war in Iraq.

His comments come as General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, was set to claim in a speech tonight that soldiers were finding that they had to add civilian skills - from town hall administration to banking - to their traditional combat capabilities.

The Head of the Army will demand that soldiers are in future assisted by a new squad of "stabilisation specialists" who spend their careers assisting the military in working to rebuild countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan...

Troops to Have Long-term Iraq Role - Deborah Haynes, The Times

The British military is likely to have a long-term role in Iraq, a top commander said today.

Major-General Barney White-Spunner, who is in charge of British forces in southern Iraq, said current troop levels will only be reassessed once the job of training Iraqi soldiers and setting up a new security framework in Basra is complete.

But he said that the transformation of Iraq's second city, which was wrested from militia control by the Iraqi security forces in April, had vindicated Britain's often-criticised military approach in the south.

The focus for Britain's 4,000-strong force, based at an airport outside the oil-rich, port city, is to conclude the training of the 14th Iraqi Army division, he added...

Sir Richard Dannatt: A" Great Service" - Allan Mallinson, Telegraph opinion

When the Duke of Wellington died, in 1852, his reputation in the Army was tarnished. As commander-in-chief, he had done next to nothing to prepare for modern war, or to ameliorate the conditions of the common soldier.

Three years later, the Crimean War exposed the extent of that neglect to a shocked public, in large part thanks to the war correspondent William Howard Russell. The surge of public sympathy brought material benefits to the men still in the trenches at Sebastopol, and the knowledge that the public was behind them has sustained many a later campaign in parts of the world where British soldiers still battle today.

There may be no need of a modern Florence Nightingale to sort out the field hospitals in Bagram and Basra, or an Alexis Soyer to take his patent stove and cooking skills into Helmand, but the extent of the shortcomings revealed by the Government's paper The Nation's Commitment: Cross-Government Support to our Armed Forces is of the same order.

The paper's recommendations are to be welcomed, as the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, has done. But it cannot be allowed to become just another government announcement. As Sir Richard said yesterday: "Twenty per cent is about getting the strategy right, but 80 per cent is about delivery."...

Dannatt's willingness to speak the truth aloud has reawakened that same public support that the scandals of the Crimea aroused, yet that had been dormant of late. And the extraordinary thing about his call for public recognition of the job that soldiers (and, indeed, sailors, marines and airmen) do in Iraq and Afghanistan is that it has decoupled opposition to the war from the business of honouring the Serviceman. In this, Dannatt has done Brown the greatest favour: the sting of anti-war rhetoric has largely been drawn (for the time being at least).

By speaking publicly, too, he has steadied the Army and its families. Two years ago, there was a palpable feeling among soldiers that no one was battling for them - not just for better pay, but for the right equipment and decent treatment, especially for the wounded - or if senior officers were battling, behind the usual closed doors, they were losing hands down...

Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt - SWJ Blog

Remarks at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Future Land Warfare Conference on 12 June 2008.

... We must also make the assumption that the British Army -- indeed all elements of Defence - of the future must remain relevant. By relevant I mean several things. I mean that we must have capabilities that are highly likely to be needed and used in the foreseeable future. We need relevant capabilities so that we can both intervene, and contribute to stabilisation. I also mean that we must be relevant to our Allies, and bring the kind of capabilities that they need. Our primary ally is, of course, the US with whom we have a bond forged through the blood spilled together in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan -- a bond which is stronger than any policy guidance -- but we must focus on operating with the US, and not necessarily as the US. It is my belief that the US looks to us to do two principal things in a Coalition of the Willing -- to bring a manoeuvre capability of some size under a Divisional Headquarters -- and to put boots on the ground until overall success in the Campaign is achieved! However, in addition to allies and partners, we must remain relevant to the needs of our own Government and across Whitehall. We, the military, do not own the Comprehensive Approach, we are but one element and we must ensure that we are organised to be able to help Other Government Departments deliver overall success. This, again, places a particular premium on the relevance of our Land capabilities...

Ahead of the Game? - Richard, Defence of the Realm

It would be entertaining to take a sarcastic view of the much-trailed speech to be given by General Sir Richard Dannatt this evening on the importance of reconstruction in the armoury of the modern soldier. We could so easily offer the jibe, "nice of you to catch up", remarking that we have been banging this drum for some little time, the work based on the gradual realisation that the war in Afghanistan will be won or lost not by the force of arms but by the success of the reconstruction effort. However, to do so would not only be unfair, but facile. As one of the pieces which trails the speech -- this one in The Daily Telegraph - points out, there has already been some "friction" between the military and civilian reconstruction teams, and there is and has been a genuine concern in the corridors of power about the lack of progress in this department -- an issue we highlighted yesterday.

Archive for the 'British Military' - Kings of War Blog

Analysis and opinion from the good folks at the Department of War Studies, King's College London.

Army Rumour Service - British Army Discussion Group

The Army Rumour Service is the British Army's unofficial community. A vast collection of information, humour and bullshit with forums, wiki, image library, blogs, kit shop, chat, jokes and more...

US Marine Corps Cpl. Johathan R. Segovia, personnel security detail, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, a ground combat element attached to Multinational Force - West, relaxes with Iraqi children in Sha-ban, Iraq, July 9, 2008. US Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Taylor J. Schulz.

Merv: I think the Marines are a better example to emulate than al Qaeda so I am all for these kids learning how to hold up a wall from a Marine.

Al Qaeda: Winning or Losing? - The Economist special report

These days in Peshawar, where al-Qaeda was founded 20 years ago, the only glimpse of Osama bin Laden comes on little green packets of safety matches strewn around town by American officials. They bear the portrait of the world's most wanted man, along with the promise that America will pay up to $5 million for information leading to his capture.

It is an appropriate image. Like one of these matches, Mr bin Laden caused a flash with the September 11th attacks on America in 2001, then vanished into smoke, leaving a burning trail of militancy stretching from Indonesia to Afghanistan, Iraq, north Africa and Europe. And despite the reward offered for his capture, now $25m, nobody has yet betrayed the whereabouts of "the Sheikh", who periodically emerges on the internet to deliver some doom-laden warning to the West.

Nearly seven years into America's "global war on terror", the result remains inconclusive. Al-Qaeda lost a safe haven in Afghanistan, but is rebuilding another one in Pakistan; Mr bin Laden is at large, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who masterminded September 11th, has gone on trial in Guantánamo Bay; many leaders have been captured or killed, but others have taken their place; al-Qaeda faces an ideological backlash, but young Muslims still volunteer to blow themselves up...

Al Qaeda: Winning or Losing? - The Economist special report