... So Odierno made a fateful move: He challenged his boss, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., to change the strategy. It was an opening salvo in the behind-the-scenes battle over what became known as the "surge."

And Odierno's challenge, though initially spurned, goes a long way toward explaining why he was nominated last week to succeed Army Gen. David H. Petraeus as the overall commander in Iraq.

The tall, intimidating artilleryman with a shaved head and a grave bearing was an early believer in what is now basic U.S. policy in Iraq. And he has proved he will stand up for it under fire.

Odierno's commitment to the new approach is all the stronger because he embraces it with the fervor of a convert. During his first tour in Iraq, in 2003 and 2004, critics charged that his dedication to overwhelming force and firepower was the antithesis of counterinsurgency doctrine.

As a result, although Petraeus has become the face of the war, it is Odierno who more truly mirrors the American military's experience in Iraq...

More at the Los Angeles Times.

By Robert L. Bateman

"Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."

~ T.E. Lawrence

Of late there are quite a few people who have taken to quoting T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia. The quote presented above is seen almost every day now, on military briefings and in State Department papers, in quotes in news articles and in public statements from people involved in all aspects of our effort. In the eyes of many Lawrence, it seems, holds the answer to our dilemmas both in our efforts to suppress an insurgency and helping develop a democracy.

Unfortunately, as seems to happen too often, almost everyone who uses this particular quote does so without understanding the context in which it was written. Many people, for example, assume that it comes from his 1922 classic, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Unfortunately, not so many of those who use the quote have actually read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom in all of its sometimes mind-numbing "Oh aren't these rocks and the shadows of the desert beautiful" glory. Even fewer realize that the quote is actually from a collection tidbits of advice Lawrence penned during the war in a British publication known as The Arab Bulletin. This particular quote was number fifteen (of twenty-seven) pieces of wisdom published under his byline on 20 August 1917. The salient points regarding the relevance of the citations are actually twofold. This is an issue is because, especially when quoting Lawrence, the context is important.

Today we are confronted with a unique set of problems. The regional strategic situation hangs in the balance upon the success, or lack thereof, of the mission of the Coalition and Iraqi government to gain positive control over the country against the opposition presented by several different forms of insurgencies. Yet we of the Coalition have taken to quoting Lawrence, apparently without much concern for the fact that from 1916 through 1918 Lawrence was the insurgent.

He helped channel money and weapons to an Arabic insurgency, and more specifically as he himself was very explicit in pointing out, this support went to a Bedouin Arab insurgency. During the course of operations in which he supported (and occasionally directly led) the guerilla operations nominally led by the future King of Iraq, Faisal I, Lawrence explored and romanticized the deserts of Arabia. His notes, dispatches, and personal journal formed the foundation for his culminating account. Yet it was in that first published collection of tidbits that Lawrence included the most important disclaimer. At the very top of the "27 Articles" published in The Arab Bulletin Lawrence made it explicit.

"The following notes have been expressed in commandment form for greater clarity and to save words. They are, however, only my personal conclusions, arrived at gradually while I worked in the Hejaz and now put on paper as stalking horses for beginners in the Arab armies. They are meant to apply only to Bedu [Bedouin, the tribal nomads of the deserts]; townspeople or Syrians require totally different treatment. They are of course not suitable to any other person's need, or applicable unchanged in any particular situation. Handling Hejaz Arabs is an art, not a science, with exceptions and no obvious rules."

Taking his quote out of context, of course, we have done the exact opposite of what Lawrence recommended...and are trying to apply his observations unchanged, yet in a completely different situation. It is enough to cause a historian to tear out his hair. Fortunately, there is wisdom to be extracted from Lawrence's experiences, even almost ninety years later, for he did hit upon some fundamentals which obtain, but only if we place his observations in their proper experiential context and then seek wisdom through this study. We must therefore start with the context.

For those unfamiliar with either his life or his work, T.E. Lawrence was very much a product of his era. He was born in the late 19th Century, academically he was classically trained in the British "public" school system, and was fluent in Arabic. By the time the First World War started he already had long experience (for his age) in the Middle East. He was not, significantly, a professional military officer. Originally brought into the King's Service to work with British Military Intelligence section in Cairo (his duties initially limited to cartography), in 1916 he was dispatched to the Arabian Desert to investigate the potential in a nascent Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks. (The Ottomans were allied with the Germans.) After making contact and developing ties with their leadership, Lawrence then became the de facto primary link between the riches of the British Empire and the potential manpower of the Bedouin tribes of central Arabia. Lawrence, twenty-eight years old at the time, immersed himself in the culture of his hosts. Upon Lawrence's advice, rather than directly confronting the Ottomans, the Beduin tribes with whom he was allied sought to envelop their Turkish opponents.

Starting from their base in the Arabian city of Mecca, the Bedouin forces of the Sharif of Mecca first advanced westward to the Red Sea. In general they met with great success given their limited assets and indeed their movement resulted in the Turks calling off their plans to move southward against the Sharif directly. But Medina, to the north of Mecca, remained an Ottoman bastion. Rather than make futile assaults with his desert raiders against a numerically and militarily superior force, Lawrence instead advised moving up the coastline. The Sharif initially ignored his recommendation and instead attacked Medina. That was a failure. Lawrence, meanwhile, continued on his own with his small detachment.

It was at this point, during a bout of illness when even Lawrence's prodigious reserves of strength were utterly sapped, that he developed his epiphany regarding the route to victory in the desert. Over the course of a few days he developed the guiding principals which helped him bring his Arab forces to the apogee of success. Thus it was not in his abilities as a cultural polymorph, but in the clarity of thought which he brought to the military problem he faced, that we may derive something useful today.

At the moment of crisis Lawrence discarded the linear thought of conventional British military thinking of the period. That he did so with the inordinate glee of an outsider who by his own admission was only "playing" at soldiering, does not detract from his epiphany. On his own Lawrence developed a vision for the employment of his uniquely gifted, and limited, forces. This is what Lawrence saw (original spelling):

"The first confusion was the false antithesis between strategy, the aim in war, the synoptic regard seeing each part relative to the whole, and tactics, the means towards a strategic end, the particular steps of its staircase. They seemed only points of view from which to ponder the elements of war, the Algebraical element of things, a Biological element of lives, and the Psychological element of ideas.

The algebraical element looked to me a pure science, subject to mathematical law, inhuman. It dealt with known variables, fixed conditions, space and time, inorganic things like hills and climates and railways, with mankind in type-masses too great for individual variety, with all artificial aids and the extensions given our faculties by mechanical invention. It was essentially formulable.

Here was a pompous, professorial beginning. My wits, hostile to the abstract, took refuge in Arabia again. Translated into Arabic, the algebraic factor would first take practical account of the area we wished to deliver, and I began idly to calculate how many square miles: sixty: eighty: one hundred: perhaps one hundred and forty thousand square miles. And how would the Turks defend all that? No doubt by a trench line across the bottom, if we came like an army with banners; but suppose we were (as we might be) an influence, an idea, a thing intangible, invulnerable, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. We might be a vapour, blowing where we listed. Our kingdoms lay in each man's mind; and as we wanted nothing material to live on, so we might offer nothing material to the killing. It seemed a regular soldier might be helpless without a target, owning only what he sat on, and subjugating only what, by order, he could poke his rifle at.

Then I figured out how many men they would need to sit on all this ground, to save it from our attack-in-depth, sedition putting up her head in every unoccupied one of those hundred thousand square miles. I knew the Turkish Army exactly, and even allowing for their recent extension of faculty by aeroplanes and guns and armoured trains (which made the earth a smaller battlefield) still it seemed they would have need of a fortified post every four square miles, and a post could not be less than twenty men. If so, they would need six hundred thousand men to meet the ill-wills of all the Arab peoples, combined with the active hostility of a few zealots." [i]

From this observation Lawrence proceeded on and ultimately and hit upon what we might refer to as an "Economy of Force" mission, albeit one conducted with de facto guerilla forces. The operational situation he faced however, while complex, was not apparently perceived at all by his Regular Army superiors. Lawrence recognized the disposition of the Turkish forces for what they were, not a strength, but the dilution of strength. A simple glance at any map illustrates his observations.

At the time of Lawrence's epiphany the majority of the conventional forces controlled by the British faced conventional forces fielded by the Turks in what was then called Palestine. These armies were deployed, initially, along a line running south and east from Gaza. To the right of the British lines, as their forces advanced from their base of Egypt, was the open desert. In earlier operations Lawrence had already demonstrated the vulnerability of the Turkish controlled city of Medina to interdiction of its logistical supply line via the single track railway which ran through the Hejaz desert. His new contribution was to note that, seemingly counter-intuitively, the possession of Medina by a Turkish garrison of some 20,000 was advantageous to British.

In simple terms, the more Turkish soldiers he could force into holding Medina and the Hejaz railway which supplied it, the fewer Turkish soldiers there would be to face the conventional strength of the main British forces. Lawrence's vision allowed him to stop seeing Medina as an objective to be taken, and instead see it for what it was, an inexorable drain upon the Turks which ultimately limited their options everywhere else, and most critically, in front of the British Army on the battle lines. Thus, while he realized that by cutting the extremely exposed railways at multiple points he could have forced the Turks out of Medina purely out of logistical want, he also came to see that this would be counterproductive to the larger goal. Not bad for a college-boy.

First, remembering that Lawrence was the insurgent, not the counterinsurgent, is an important first step. It is also significant that he was dealing with nomadic tribes of Bedouin, not city dwellers. Both of these suggest that it might be useful to toss the quote which starts this article out of the window. But is there something that we can draw from his experiences? Is there perhaps some greater lesson available? How might Lawrence look at Iraq? Naturally, one would have to assume that he was a strategist for the other side.

Iraq has six neighbors, 2,281 miles of borders, and some 254 border forts. Of those neighbors four are decidedly or effectively classified as friendly to the United States, if not necessarily to Iraq, one of those neighbors was declared by the Administration to be a part of the infamous "Axis of Evil," and the other is a Baathist régime with a fairly well confirmed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (in the form of chemical agents) and a history of both committing political assassinations beyond their own borders and supporting groups identified as terrorists by the US Department of State. In other words, to her East and West, Iraq is bordered by countries which do not harbor much goodwill for the United States. Therein lies the strategic dilemma, and the parallel to Lawrence. Transliterate "the Coalition" for "the Ottoman Turks" and "the borders" or, if you prefer, "the oil pipelines," for "the Hejaz railway" and the picture snaps into view.

Iraq itself has a total area of 167,975 square miles, which easily exceeds the land-mass calculated by Lawrence to need more than 600,000 troops. While his sophomoric equation is not really a valid tool (the idea is to control people after all, not land) when analyzed with rigor, the point remains the same. Right now two countries which most definitely do not have a friendly outlook towards the United States most of the time, have a vested interest in sustaining, and if need be fomenting, a certain level of violence within the boundaries of Iraq.

If Lawrence were still around, working as a strategist for the Iranians, for example, he would certainly be advocating this position. After all, so long as the greater part of the land combat power of the United States is consumed in attempting to squelch violence in Iraq, those forces cannot be used elsewhere. He would, as he did along the Hejaz railway, recommend calibrated support to agitated elements inside Iraq. His advice to his higher command would be that they never allow the pressure to drop so much that we withdraw after declaring a victory, nor raising the pressure so high that we actually quit the place. Iraq, through the eyes of Lawrence, is our Medina.

[i] T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, (New York, NY: Random House edition), pg. 192.

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SWJ Editors' Links

Lawrence of Iran? - Noah Shachtman, Danger Room

Channeling Lawrence - Jules Crittenden, Forward Movement

Discuss at Small Wars Council

US House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. April 2008.

From the Introduction:

The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chose to investigate Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) because they are considered to be critical to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The subcommittee used PRTs as a case study of an issue that the subcommittee has been interested in -- examining in more depth how multiple agencies work together, or for that matter, do not work together in the field and in Washington, as the third quote above suggests. As we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national effort involves more than just military actions, and instead requires integrated efforts and the resources of government departments and agencies beyond the Department of Defense (the Department, DOD). PRTs illustrate the need for effective, integrated action to achieve government-wide "unity of effort" in complex contingency operations. We wanted to know how the departments and agencies in Washington give comprehensive and consistent guidance to the military services and combatant commanders (COCOMs), as well as how both Washington and organizations at agency, service, and COCOM levels support interagency operations in the field. After all, mission success will only be ensured if senior leaders adequately guide and support the people who the nation has asked to do difficult jobs under dangerous and challenging conditions.

To support the committee's oversight responsibilities, the subcommittee sought to

accomplish the following:

Understand the Administration's strategy and plans for the use of PRTs, and how this strategy supports larger campaign plans and strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations more generally;

Delineate the roles of the Department of Defense, other U.S. Government (USG) agencies and departments, and coalition allies in PRTs and PRT-like entities;

Understand the brigade combat teams' (BCTs') and regimental combat teams' (RCTs') relationships to various kinds of PRTs, including command and control issues;

Understand the capabilities of various kinds of PRTs;

Review DOD and related interagency assumptions, processes, and metrics used to assess the accomplishments of PRTs;

Assess the resources invested in PRTs against the returns on those investments;

Contribute to congressional oversight of PRTs, Iraq, Afghanistan, and interagency operations;

Report findings and recommendations to the House Armed Services Committee or other committees of jurisdiction for further hearings and legislation; and

Present information for public debate, with the hope of improving the Department's approach to organizing, training, and equipping military members for PRTs, and optimizing military support to PRTs.

This report includes only a brief summary of how the subcommittee went about this oversight project (more detail can be found at Appendix B). We have focused instead on our major findings, and lay out the details of these, with related recommendations, at the tactical level (field operations), the operational level (combatant commands, services, and agencies with their policy and guidance responsibilities and their 'organize, train, and equip' missions), and at the strategic level in Washington.

The PRT tactical-level concept and the fact that there are approximately 50 such U.S. units on the ground reflect a willingness among government agencies to move outside of "stovepipes." However, the subcommittee found many significant issues during the course of our study. Although efforts have been made over the last seven years attempting to improve interagency coordination and cooperation, the government has not gone far enough or fast enough to support the people in the field or accomplish the nation's mission. The efforts that have been made must be assessed to determine whether interagency integration is improving or whether a different approach is needed. Many people are working very hard, but processes and structures in Washington still resemble what was used in the Cold War rather than what is needed to best address our nation's current and future opportunities and challenges. While agency stovepipes still exist, the PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan offer lessons we can use at every level to increase our "strategic agility". What our nation needs now is a sense of urgency in capturing and applying these lessons. Our recommendations are meant to foster just that.

Read the entire report.

Dr. David Kilcullen

As a tactics instructor in the mid-1990s, teaching British platoon commanders at the School of Infantry, I spent many weeks on extended field exercises in the wilds of south Wales and on windswept Salisbury Plain. Both landscapes are studded with Roman military antiquities, relics of ancient counterinsurgency campaigns -- mile-castles, military roads, legion encampments -- as well as the Iron Age hill-forts of the Romans' insurgent adversaries. Teaching ambushing, I often found that ambush sites I chose from a map, even on the remotest hillsides, would turn out (once I dragged my weary, rucksack-carrying ass to the actual spot) to have Roman or Celtic ruins on them, and often a Roman military road nearby: call me lacking in self-assurance, but I often found this a comforting vote of confidence in my tactical judgment from the collective wisdom of the ancestors.

Like the Romans, counterinsurgents through history have engaged in road-building as a tool for projecting military force, extending governance and the rule of law, enhancing political communication and bringing economic development, health and education to the population. Clearly, roads that are patrolled by friendly forces or secured by local allies also have the tactical benefit of channeling and restricting insurgent movement and compartmenting terrain across which guerrillas could otherwise move freely. But the political impact of road-building is even more striking than its tactical effect.

This is my first Small Wars Journal post for several months; since leaving Iraq last year I have been working mainly on Afghanistan, in the field and in various coalition capitals. This brief essay (brief by my risibly low standards, anyhow!) describes recent road-building efforts in Afghanistan. A follow-on piece will explore the broader notion of political maneuver in counterinsurgency, using road-building as one of several examples.

Case Study -- Road-Building in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, 2006-2008

A few weeks ago I was out on the ground with coalition and Afghan units in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan, and spent a short time with a Provincial Reconstruction Team and its associated Brigade Combat Team in the Kunar River Valley.

I last worked this area in summer and fall of 2006, supporting General Karl Eikenberry, then commanding Combined Forces Command Afghanistan. He was about to wind up his headquarters and hand over to the NATO International Security Assistance Force; at his invitation I took a small inter-agency field team into Afghanistan to study and record U.S. counterinsurgency techniques. Incidentally, this produced a body of knowledge on best-practice counterinsurgency which informed our efforts to execute the "surge" strategy in Iraq a few months later, so that some of the techniques we ended up applying in Iraq were first developed in Afghanistan.

Since my last visit, the area has seen a remarkable turn-around in security, largely the result of a consistent U.S. strategy of partnering with local communities to separate the insurgents from the people, bring tangible benefits of governance and development to the population, and help the population choose (elect) their own local leaders. Road-building has been a key part of this effort.

Here are two extracts from my field notebook for the recent trip, which describe the project:

[Extract 1 -- Field Notes, 2 miles SW of Asadabad, Kunar Province, 10:30 AM March 13th 2008]

"The PRT's main project at present is the opening up of the Korengal Valley, to assist in clearing out a former major stronghold of the enemy, and to bring development and governance to the area. The main push is centered on driving a paved road through the valley to allow forces to secure the villages, driving the enemy up into the hills...and affording freedom of action to civilian agencies so that they can work with the people to extend governance and development.

The road project involves a series of negotiated agreements with tribal and district elders -- the approach the PRT is taking is to make an agreement with the elders to construct the portion of the road that runs through their tribal territory. This has allowed them to better understand the geographical and functional limits of each elder's authority, and to give the people a sense of ownership over the road: since a local workforce has constructed it (and is then paid to protect it) they are more likely to defend it against Taliban attacks. Also, the project generates disputes (over access, resources, timing, pay, labor etc) that have to be resolved between tribes and community groups, and this allows Afghan government representatives to take the lead in resolving issues and negotiating settlements, thereby connecting the population to the provincial and local administration and demonstrating the tangible benefits of supporting the government.

The PRT tracks the current rate the Taliban are offering as payment for attacks against the road or vehicles traveling on it, and ensures they pay more than the enemy (though only just). Once the road is through and paved, it is much harder to place IEDs under the tarmac surface or on the concrete verge, and IEDs are easier to detect if emplaced. The road provides an alternative works project to prevent people joining the Taliban, the improved ease of movement makes business easier and transportation faster and cheaper, and thus spurs economic growth, and the graded black-top road allows friendly troops to move much more easily and quickly than before, along the valley floor, helping secure population centers and drive the enemy up into the hills where they are separated from the population -- allowing us to target them more easily and with less risk of collateral damage, and allowing political, intelligence, aid, governance, education and development work to proceed with less risk. Road building is not a panacea, but the way this PRT and the local maneuver units are approaching this project is definitely a best practice".

[Extract 2 -- Field Notes, 8 miles NE of Asadabad, Kunar River Valley, 11:35 AM 13th March 2008]

"We exited from the PRT base in a four-car humvee convoy, through a rough HESCO-and-razorwire gatehouse, then bumped down a rough dirt track to the main Kunar Valley road, a two-lane asphalted roadway, well-graded and with a deep concrete monsoon drain on the left (west, or hill-ward) side to catch run-off, frequent culverts made of concrete, a stone retaining wall on the downhill (river) side, and yellow steel road hazard markers. This road is newly completed and very good -- the best I have ever driven in rural Afghanistan and a real feat of civil engineering. It was mainly constructed by an Indian contractor using local labor and Indian government aid money. The area south of Asadabad is even newer, and was a multi-million dollar USAID project.

The tactical advantages of the road, as well as the economic benefits, are much as I described earlier, and in this case the road (which parallels the border five kilometers away) also provides a strategic advantage for lateral movement of forces along the frontier, and to interdict Taliban infiltration routes -- though [the Brigade Commander] said that parties of enemy still infiltrate in this area, coming down by night from the hills on the Pakistani side, crossing the river on truck inner tubes, spending a few days attempting to do armed propaganda work in the villages on the Afghan side of the river, then moving up into the hills to avoid our patrols. Many of them congregate NW of the river, just beyond the [XXXX] valley, in a district we rarely visit and which remains a pocket of insurgent activity -- but one the Brigade tolerates because there is no access from this isolated valley to the rest of the population and their focus is on securing the bulk of the population rather than clearing terrain, and because they lack the forces to secure every part of the province and have therefore sensibly "triaged" their AO.

We moved fast along the road...as we drove, [the Brigade Commander] and I were discussing key development issues. His two main concerns are water -- the river is low this season after only light snowfall over winter (by Afghan standards) and he is worried about irrigation and crop rotation issues -- and electricity generation capacity, which is now the key limiting factor on development as basic infrastructure problems begin to be solved (roads, bridges etc). Like the other Regional Command-East commanders, he is all about development and governance. Having fought a hard kinetic fight to gain control of the province in 2005-6, during [Colonel, former Brigade Commander] Mick Nicholson's time, the focus has now shifted to economic and political issues, with ANA/ANP doing the bulk of the security work, supported by a smaller US footprint and by local agreements and neighborhood watch forces.

The PRT operates a "10 kilometer rule" which stipulates that 80% of unskilled labor on any project has to come from within 10km of it -- this helps build community jobs and ownership over projects, and gives the people a stake in defending them against the enemy. ...

[The USAID team leader] later pointed out to me that it has become a widespread PRT practice to have local communities construct at least part of the projects themselves, especially the perimeter and security fences and walls, to give them a sense of pride and ownership in the project (as well as longer-term employment -- rather than build many projects simultaneously they space the work out over time to generate long-term jobs). She said this makes it more likely that the population will defend the facility, prevent their men being involved in attacks on it, or at the very least give early warning to the government and security forces if they become aware of insurgent plans to attack the project. In this sense, community involvement is a source of both economic development and strategic (or indirect) force protection."

Political, Security and Economic Effects

From these field notes, we can summarize the political, military and economic effects of the Kunar road project. Road construction in the Kunar River valley appears to have at least the following 16 key effects:

(1) It separates the enemy from the population -- instead of being in the villages among the people, the insurgents are now forced up into the sparsely populated (often uninhabited) hills. This has political as well as security effects: the population gets a visual impression of the enemy firing down into the valley (where they live) and the security forces defending the villages, rather than (as previously) the enemy living in the villages and the security forces attacking the villages to get at the enemy.

(2) It makes the enemy easier to detect and target, since they are out in the hills away from population centers, allowing them to be seen and targeted (including by air power) with much less risk of collateral damage or non-combatant casualties.

(3) It restricts enemy infiltration and cross-border movement, reducing the enemy's freedom of maneuver, compartmenting terrain they would otherwise cross freely, making it harder for them to go where the security forces aren't, and thus increasing the population's sense of security.

(4) It facilitates the movement of friendly forces: vehicles can travel 8-10 times faster on paved all-weather roads than on dirt tracks, and thus cover more ground.

(5) This, in turn, allows fewer troops to cover a larger area, or to cover the same area more densely, so that a smaller force can secure a larger population base.

(6) It allows civilian agencies to access the population more easily, so that officials, teachers, health workers, aid agencies and other representatives of government can bring the benefits of governance and economic development to the people.

(7) The paved surface makes IEDs harder to emplace and easier to detect, because insurgents have to choose between digging through a hard, clean surface layer (which takes time and a larger emplacement party, making it more likely the emplacers will be caught, and disturbs the road surface making the IED easier to spot) or surface-laying the IED, again making it easier to spot.

(8) This, in turn, reduces IED casualties and gives the population greater confidence in the security of the roads, increasing their feeling of deriving tangible benefit from the government and encouraging them to invest in crops or other economic activity, because the likelihood of produce reaching market safely is increased.

(9) The reduced IED threat also means that security forces can adopt a lower threat posture, allowing them to interact more closely and in a more friendly and collaborative manner with the local population.

(10) The road builds connectivity with and confidence in government officials, who are involved heavily in resolving the disputes and negotiations created around the construction of the road. It also allows these officials to 'learn the trade' of responsive local governance and builds human capacity in local officials and institutions.

(11) The construction of the road, and its associated negotiations, allows tribal leaders to demonstrate and exercise initiative and authority, restoring their influence and credibility, which had been eroded by the internal challenge to their traditional authority from Taliban insurgents and religious extremists.

(12) The road creates jobs and promotes business, facilitates agriculture, and allows farmers to get crops to market faster before they spoil. In addition to the work generated in constructing the road itself, secondary economic activities (selling fuel, roadside stalls to service increased traffic, increased customer base for local businesses that now reach a wider market, reduced cost of commodities that are now subject to lower transportation overheads) have similar economic benefit.

(13) The road opens up remote valleys, bringing populations (like the Korengalis) into contact with the government and with wider Afghan society for the first time. This brings economic, governance and security benefits, along with a backlash of resistance to outside contact which often has to be carefully handled by government and community leaders.

(14) Construction of a denser road network provides multiple alternate routes, thereby lessening the chance of ambush. In 2005-6 most Afghan valleys had, at best, a single dirt track along the valley floor, often poorly graded and closely following rivers and streambeds with multiple crossings. This meant that each valley had only one way in and one way out -- so that if you went up a valley, the enemy knew you were coming back the same way and could ambush you on your return. The denser road network allows convoys to move via multiple routes and thus makes them less predictable and harder to ambush.

(15) The road gives the people a stake in continued security and economic progress, since they are part of the process of constructing it, maintaining it, using it to support their business and personal activities, and they benefit from the closer relationship with state institutions that can provide essential services. The process of constructing the road creates alternative employment to the insurgency, an important factor in an environment when most communities allow their young men to fight for the Taliban for money, as an alternative to unemployment, but where only a small proportion of local guerrillas are ideologically motivated.

(16) The local community partnerships and alliances created during the road construction process generate indirect/strategic force protection rather than solely tactical/direct force protection. That is, rather than relying on direct force protection at the tactical level (through a higher threat posture, more armored vehicles, weapons and so on), a force can rely on early warning and assistance from local partners who know the environment better, allowing it to adopt a less threatening posture and thus avoid alienating the local community.

Generalizing from the Kunar Case

How possible is it to generalize from this example? On the face of it, road-building appears to be a generally-recognized form of force projection and governance extension, hence the extreme frequency of its historical use by governments, colonial administrations, occupying powers, and counterinsurgency forces through history. It is also worth recognizing that there is little that is specifically American (or Afghan) about the engineering aspects of the approach described above.

But the effects accrue not just from the road itself, but rather from a conscious and well-developed strategy that uses the road as a tool, and seizes the opportunity created by its construction to generate security, economic, governance and political benefits. This is exactly what is happening in Kunar: the road is one component, albeit a key one, in a broader strategy that uses the road as an organizing framework around which to synchronize and coordinate a series of political-military effects. This is a conscious, developed strategy that was first put in place in 2005-6 and has been consistently executed since. Thus, the mere building of a road is not enough: it generates some, but not all of these effects, and may even be used to oppress or harm the population rather than benefit it. Road construction in many parts of the world has had negative security and political effects, especially when executed unthinkingly or in an un-coordinated fashion. What we are seeing here, in contrast, is a coordinated civil-military activity based on a political strategy of separating the insurgent from the people and connecting the people to the government. In short, this is a political maneuver with the road as a means to a political end.

We might also note that terrain, climate, demographics and ethnography play a key role here. The terrain is mountainous: indeed, it is one of the most topographically forbidding operating environments in the world. Most valleys in this area have never in recorded history possessed more than a single dirt track along the valley floor, some lack even that. The valleys are twisting V-shaped canyons in the upper reaches of streams and rivers, extending in the lower reaches to wider corridors with alluvial plains adjacent to major braided watercourses. The climate is brutal: valleys are snowed-in for several months of the year, making a hard-top all-weather road such as has been constructed in Kunar a major change in the seasonal pattern of life in the hills. The population lives almost entirely in semi-fortified townships and compounds along the valley floor, while the hills are hardly populated, barren, steep, waterless and incapable of supporting life on a large scale. In this environment, warfare has a seasonal character, with a traditional lull over winter and harvest time, and a traditional peak period over summer and fall. The population is tribal, with a traditional way of life that balances tribal elders against religious leaders and representatives of a distant, scarcely-noticed government; this "traditional governance triangle" has been heavily eroded by religious extremists and the Taliban who have threatened the traditional dominance of the elders, creating tension and giving traditional leaders an interest in partnering with an outside actor who can restore their authority.

Conclusion -- Roads Ain't Roads

In summary, like the Romans and other counterinsurgents through history, U.S. forces in Kunar, in a close and genuine partnership with local communities and the Afghan government (most especially, a highly competent and capable Provincial Governor), have engaged in a successful road-building program as a tool for projecting military force, extending governance and the rule of law, enhancing political communication and bringing economic development, health and education to the population. Roads in the frontier area that are patrolled by friendly forces and secured by local allies also have the tactical benefit of channeling and restricting insurgent movement and compartmenting terrain across which guerrillas could otherwise move freely, and their political and economic effects are even more striking.

All of this seems to suggest, in effect, that "roads ain't roads". To generate the effects listed above, a road-building project probably needs to be consciously approached as an integrated form of political maneuver, and the approach taken also probably needs to take into account the human, topographic, political, cultural and economic environment in which that maneuver will occur. All this is happening in Kunar today, with very substantial positive effects on the counterinsurgency campaign in the province. But replicating this success in other places is likely to demand detailed study of the environment and an understanding of political maneuver as a counterinsurgency technique -- something I will address in the next post in this series.

Dr David Kilcullen is a civilian counterinsurgency expert who advises several coalition and allied governments. These are his personal views only.

Lest we forget. ANZAC Day is commemorated by Australia and New Zealand on 25 April every year to remember members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who landed at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. ANZAC Day is also a public holiday in the Cook Islands, Niue, Samoa and Tonga.

The ANZAC Day Tradition - Australian War Memorial

ANZAC Day - New Zealand History

ANZAC Day Full Coverage - The Australian

ANZAC Day Full Coverage - New Zealand Herald

ANZAC Day Full Coverage - Sydney Morning Herald

ANZAC Day Full Coverage - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

...Recently, LTC Paul Yingling wrote a piece that appeared in the Armed Forces Journal - and sparked heated debate throughout the Army - ruffled some feathers - ruffled a lot of feathers. That is a good thing. We need more, not fewer, Paul Yinglings.

And on this point, George C. Marshall also can serve as our model. Many thought MAJ Marshall's career was at an end in 1917 when he publicly disagreed with and angrily lectured GEN "Black Jack" Pershing at 1st Division headquarters in France during World War I. He even grabbed the general's arm when he tried to disengage.

His anger and assertiveness did not draw a rebuke from Pershing - rather it earned his respect...

Wednesday Fred Kaplan provided Gates Celebrates Dissent.

Take, for instance, the case of Paul Yingling, the Army lieutenant colonel who, almost exactly one year ago, published a widely read article in the Armed Forces Journal that likened Iraq to Vietnam and blamed both debacles on "a crisis in an entire institution, America's general officer corps," which he accused of lacking "professional character," "moral courage," and "creative intelligence." Yingling was no crank. He was 41, a veteran of both Iraq wars, and at the time the deputy commander of the Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the unit that—well before Gen. David Petraeus took charge of U.S. forces in Iraq—brought order to the city of Tal Afar through classic counterinsurgency methods.

Gates didn't mention Yingling by name in his speeches on Monday, but he certainly had him in mind when he said at West Point, "I have been impressed by the way the Army's professional journals allow some of our brightest and most innovative officers to critique—sometimes bluntly—the way the service does business, to include judgments about senior leadership."

He went on, "I encourage you to take on the mantle of fearless, thoughtful, but loyal dissent when the situation calls for it. And, agree with the articles or not, senior officers should embrace such dissent as a healthy dialogue and protect and advance those considerably more junior who are taking on that mantle."...

Much more at Slate.

You can find articles by LTC Yingling at his SWJ Bio Page.

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad...

At a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference, Gates said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other problems in the Central Command area of responsibility, demand knowledge of how to fight counterinsurgencies as well as other unconventional conflicts.

"I don't know anybody in the U.S. military better qualified to lead that effort," he said, referring to Petraeus...

Selected Quotes:

Max Boot (Commentary's Contentions): Odierno spent the year from early 2007 to early 2008 working closely with Petraeus to supervise the implementation of the surge. They were by far the most successful team of commanders we have had in Iraq--potentially the Grant/Sherman or Eisenhower/Patton of this long conflict. Yet there was a strong impetus back in DC to break up the winning combination--as seen in Odierno's rotation home earlier this year and in persistent rumors that Petraeus would be sent to NATO. That is something I warned against in a January post, in which I suggested that a better move would be to send Petraeus to Centcom and Odierno to MNFI. But, based on his track record, I knew I could not necessarily count on the President doing the right thing. Now he has. That gives us a chance to build on the initial success of the surge in the challenging months that lie ahead.

Shawn Brimley (Democracy Arsenal): First, it clearly reflects a desire for some continuity in Iraq over the presidential transition -- this is a good thing. With Ambassador Crocker retiring in early 2009, this will ensure that at least the top military commander in Iraq will stay consistent through the transition. Wartime transitions are inherently dangerous, and I'm glad Gates and Co. are thinking this through.

Phil Carter (Intel Dump): After ousting Adm. William "Fox" Fallon for various sins, Gates tapped his top Iraq commander to run the organization responsible for both of America's wars and a bunch of other hotspots. As my friends at Abu Muqawama note, the challenge will be for Petraeus to command CENTCOM in a way that embraces all of these places, and shows no improper preference for Iraq (although Iraq is the main effort for CENTCOM, so some preference will be natural). Another challenge will be for Petraeus to sustain himself and his staff in yet another grueling assignment. Granted, he'll be home-based in Tampa, Fla., but I don't imagine he'll spend much time there.

Charlie (Abu Muqawama): General David Petraeus has been tapped to replace Admiral Fox Fallon at Centcom. But CNN buries the lead: the real story is that LTG Odierno is headed back to Iraq to replace Petraeus.

Abu Muqawama (Abu Muqawama): Abu Muqawama respectfully disagrees with Charlie that the big story here is Odierno moving to Iraq. Abu Muqawama has no problem with this and thinks he's an okay choice at this stage in the conflict. The big story is Petraeus moving to CENTCOM. Why? Because aside from the president, no one man is more closely associated with the war in Iraq than General David Petraeus. America's success or failure in Iraq will largely determine his legacy.

Tom Barnett (Thomas PM Barnett): But overall, good for the military change process and good for the COIN vector. If Petraeus goes from CENTCOM to the CJCS, which many will now anticipate all the more, depending on his perceived success in this post, then he logically ends up as the pivotal player in military's post-9/11 evolution, eclipsing Schoomaker and Rumsfeld by a ways. His career trajectory thus contradicting the "one-off" school of thought on Iraq.

Richard Fernandez (The Belmont Club): More important than his battlefield successes in Iraq may be the implied victory in Pentagon politics that his nomination to CENTCOM chief suggests. It's important to remember that before the Surge, Petraeus' ideas were on the margin. Now they are in the mainstream.

William Kristol (Weekly Standard Blog): The allegedly lame duck Bush administration has--if this report is correct--hit a home run. CENTCOM is the central theater of the war on terror, and the president is putting our best commander in charge of it. What Odierno achieved as day-to-day commander in Iraq was amazing (see Fred and Kim Kagan's article, "The Patton of Counterinsurgency"), and he's clearly the right choice for MNFI. Bush has done the right thing, overriding opposition from within the Pentagon. He deserves congratulations--and thanks.

Spencer Ackerman (Washington Independent): Terrence Daly, a retired Army officer and long-time mentor to many counterinsurgency theorists, considered the appointment auspicious for both the course of both ground wars -- though not necessarily for the rise of counterinsurgency within a military often reluctant to embrace it. "This moves Petraeus into an important post from where he will be able to oversee the prosecution of both of our major counterinsurgencies, Afghanistan and Iraq," Daly said. "It moves him away from the Army, however, where he was regarded as a possible successor to Gen. George Casey as chief of staff of the Army; and, unlike Casey who wants to take the Army back to the emphasis on conventional fire and maneuver warfare, one who would carry out far-reaching reforms to enable it to deal with COIN [counterinsurgency] more effectively."

SWJ Comment: Commentary addressing the need for continuity is spot on -- but this goes beyond the benefits afforded the US presidential transition come January. The "bigger" transition - the successful handoff of security responsibility to a government of Iraq that can govern its people and territory -- is proceeding and requires US military and diplomatic leadership experienced and well-versed in the complex operational environment we call Iraq.

While General Petraeus to CENTCOM and General Odierno to MNF-I provide the military continuity -- the wild card is the diplomatic continuity. With Ambassador Crocker's retirement and a change at the top of our diplomatic leadership -- both in January -- the time is now to address the "all instruments of national power" requirements to see this thing through.

The writing is on the wall -- once the drawdown of Coalition military forces begins in earnest there is no turning back -- no operational pauses -- no new surges.

More:

Petraeus-Odierno Team Nominated to Lead in CentCom, Iraq - AFPS

Petraeus Picked to Lead Mideast Command - Washington Post

New Jobs Set for 2 Generals With Iraq Role - New York Times

Petraeus Tapped for Central Command - Washington Times

Petraeus Promotion Ensures Continuation - Los Angeles Times

Petraeus to Be Nominated to Lead CENTCOM - New York Times

Promoted Petraeus to Leave Iraq - The Australian

Petraeus Set for Central Command - BBC News

Gen. Petraeus Picked to Lead Iraq, Afghan Wars - Reuters

Odierno 'Best' Choice for Iraq Post - USA Today

Battlefield Promotions - Wall Street Journal

Grand Slam: Petraeus Moves Up - New York Post

Petraeus Wins - The Atlantic

Why Petraeus? - Westhawk

Republicans Hail Petraeus Selection - The Hill

Army Musical Chairs - Intel Dump

Petraeus Nominated CENTCOM CINC - The Belmont Club

Impressions on Military Shifts - Democracy Arsenal

Petraeus Gets Promotion; Odierno Gets Iraq - Danger Room

Better for America... - Thomas PM Barnett

General Petraeus To CENTCOM - Threats Watch

Changes for Petraeus and Odierno - The Captain's Journal

Petraeus to CENTCOM - Abu Muqawama

CENTCOM is Not IRAQCOM - Abu Muqawama

Petraeus to CENTCOM - Weekly Standard Blog

Petraeus' Ascension - Washington Independent