Back in the office…

Posted on 28 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…after the better part of five weeks away. I find that I didn’t really miss it that much…some interesting new content in the inbox though and this week will be largely occupied by book reviews I think:

MAJ Jim Gant has completed his Tribal Engagement Team paper and the full text is available with a broad range of comments on Steven Pressfield’s blog. The closing paragraph says it all: ” There may be dozens of reasons not to adopt this strategy. But there is only one reason to do so—we have to. Nothing else will work.”
JFCOM has released JP 3-24 Counterinsurgency, the US DOD’s joint slant on COIN which should encapsulate and further develop the themes in FM 3-24. There is some comment on JP 3-24 on the COIN Center blog.
The US Army is developing its Army Capstone document Operating under Conditions of Uncertainty and Complexity in an Era of Persistent Conflict for a planned release date of December 2009. For all those who have been happy to sit back and snipe at US policy and doctrine here is your chance to have some input: the draft document has been published online and comments may be submitted through the Small Wars website (you do have to join up). The news release has more information.

In other COIN-related news

The UK is reroling four armoured and mechanised battalions into light infantry for service in Afghanistan on the understanding that these units will be able to revert back at a later date and noting that this will take possibly up to five years. This move is somewhat unusual in light of public comment in the UK this month regarding the overly-light nature of British vehicles in Afghanistan and the perception of a direct link between this and a number of battle casualties. The Canadians not only swear by their LAV3s in this theatre but also reversed a decision to get out of the tank game and are spending some billions of dollars for the rapid acquisition of Leopard 2A6M tanks. The US has deployed SBCT 5/2 into Afghanistan as well and initial reports indicate that Stryker is as effective here as it has been in Iraq. One wonders if this move is driven more by efficiency than by effectiveness?

I am (really, I am) making some progress in redrafting the paper on Countering Irregular Activity and it might even be complete next month…after that, Josh has been cracking the whip for the Future War rewrite/update…

Things that go well together…

Posted on 24 October 2009 by SJPONeill

Bert and Ernie…

Fred and Ginger…

Fish and Filo

I’ve been hanging out to try a fish and filo package for a while and thought that I would surprise Carmen with dinner when she got home last night. Lessons Learned:

Where it says use three sheets of filo, use three sheets of filo. Otherwise your herbed cheese filling will melt through the pastry and require an urgent transfer from flat oven tray to over dish to prevent spillover into the depths of the oven.

When folding filo packages, fold the ends in first and THEN roll. This tidily secures the ends and is less likely to crack the filo. Place the filling on one edge not in the middle of the sheet – this makes it easier to roll.

When making a leek sauce to be served under the filo packages, go over on the leek – what looks like heaps on the chopping board becomes barely enough for two once cooked up with herbs, pine nuts and cream. More is less, way more is enough…

The parsnip/turnip/carrot/kumara puree served in a scooped out potato half was a good idea but execution needs work. Baking these in tinfoil seemed like a good idea at the time but I can’t remember why now – it probably would have worked if I had literally spiced it up a bit – a better way would have been a straight bake sans foil. This would also have meant the spud cooking time would = filo cooking time.

Presentation needed work but it tasted primo.

Score:

Fish and filo 6/10

Leek and pine nuts 7/10

Potato halves with vegetable puree 4/10

Total: 17/30 which is still more than half!!!!

Afghanistan and TET

I’ve really bitten over this comment on Steven Pressfield’s One Tribe At A Time thread. [PDF: The “How” of Tribal Engagment – Steven Pressfield] My first reaction to Jim Gant’s Tribal Engagement Teams (TET – possibly an unfortunate acronym, remembering another COIN war) was ‘…yep, here we go again – more taking lessons from other wars and blindly hammering them into the round hole of the current war in Afghanistan…‘ Right up to the point, where the stated aim for the Afghan campaign was reaffirmed as creating an environment that could not be reoccupied by Al-Qaeda and its ilk. Against that objective in an essentially tribal culture like Afghanistan, the TET concept makes way more sense than free fire zones, big guns and high tech:

It is debatable whether the ‘clear zones of fire’ (free fire zones from another war?) or technological advantages are major contributors to a successful conclusion to this campaign (an Afghanistan that can not be reoccupied by AQ or its like?) At best the technology is an enabler for the initiatives that may lead to success; free fire zones, IMHO, are a legacy from conventional (Fulda Gap) mindsets and do not meet the spirit of proportionality, discrimination and precision required for countering irregular threats in a complex environment. It is these that may be more suited for “..low conflict area which is in relatively pro-government hands…” and NOT for an environment like Afghanistan where ‘everyone’ (outside the cities) has traditionally been armed – the only real way to discriminate between good guys, bad guys, fence-sitters and genuine non-combatants (who may still be armed) is up close and personal. This why, over the last week or so, I have gone from mild opposition to the TET concept to a firm advocate. After eight years of high-tech and big guns (which have proven of limited utility in other low level wars), it is time to get back to first principles:

ditch any coalition partners are can’t/won’t step up to the plate, and/or won’t comply with the theatre strategy. This is not peacekeeping where the number of different flags waving in the wind outside the theatre HQ is a reportable metric: this is war fighting with no time for passengers or social members.

Confirm the campaign objectives; identify the lines of operation to achieve those objectives; and then implement the tactical operations necessary to progress those lines. This isn’t COIN/CIT-specific – it must be 101 material from just about any military school in the Western world.

Implement the best Information Operations campaign on the planet to seize the new high ground – Al-Jazeera will fight you for it.

It’s all very easy to pick holes in concepts like Tribal Engagement Teams and that’s how I started. BUT it is even easier to pick holes in the current strategy where we once again seem to be winning all the battles and losing the two wars (in-theatre and home front).”

The crux of a successful lessons is analysing and validating observations, issues and lessons (OIL – yes, it really is all about OIL) against your current context – not trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole with your forehead. We saw this when the ‘experts’ all trumpeted the absolute need to implement a Malayan Emergency-style COIN campaign in Iraq. The fact this campaign’ success was due to a number of unique demographic and geographic factors that definitely are not duplicated in Iraq was lost on the ‘experts’. They also overlooked that while the official end of the Emergency was in 1960, it was not until 1988 that the last of the Communist Terrorists (CT) surrendered to Malaysian authorities.

In my ever so humble opinion, I think that Jim Gant has analysed the current situation and campaign objectives in Afghanistan, developed a model and then validated it against that analysis. I doubt there are many other who could same that they have done the same, certainly not those from the big guns and high tech schools of thought…what was that about lessons from other wars…?

Counterpoints…

Posted on 21 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…a miscellany today…largely from tag surfing today while waiting for slow sites to load…

I don’t agree with everything in this post from Rebecca Griffin but the information on the real cost of this Afghan War helps add perspective when we question the aims of the conflict – if the aim is really to counter Al-Qaeda, then for these $$$ could we not be smarter about it: Jim Gant’s Tribal Engagement Team concept starts to look even better…I do think, though, if reading posts like Rebecca’s, we need to remain cognisant of what Afghanistan might be like if the US (and nato in deliberate lower case) wasn’t there and how a withdrawal will actually work – we don’t want to be seeing helicopters off the Embassy roof again and dealing with a another generation of ‘boat people’….

Keeping with a COIN theme, People First provides some guidance on using the ‘New Social Media (NSM)’. Interesting in its own right but, still thinking COIN, do these sound familiar (direct quotes in italics):

And such a relationship can only be lengthened if both parties are happy and satisfied through two things:

1) the company (security forces?) listening to their stakeholders (‘the people’?); and

2) the stakeholders (‘the people’?) giving honest information, and feedback regarding a company’s (security forces?) product and services (strategy?).

Like, y’know, we don’t what they really want and they don’t really know why we’re here or what we want…and it gets better:

The way to go is for companies (security forces?) to squeeze all the information that they can from their stakeholders (‘the people’?) and use it to their advantage. Not only will the company (security forces?) prosper but also the stakeholders (‘the people’?) would be happy and satisfied. Could this be what GEN Vance means when he talks about getting ‘the people’ to make a choice? I’m not a big fan of the ‘our way or the highway’ approach to COIN but this does highlight a clear breakdown in understanding on all sides, the Taliban being at least one other player in the game..uh-oh that’s getting Clausewitzian: ‘the people’, the military, and the (shadow) government…hmmm…

On one of the CAC blogs there is a tactical decision conundrum (we used to call them games but this is serious now) regarding a sniper and an armed child. It’s a lose/lose one but the discussion is interesting and passionate – for me it immediately brings to mind Jim Molan’s observation on the need to have DAMCON preprepared for such situations so that we can place the responsibility back on those who would use children in war…as too who would or who wouldn’t shoot, that can only lies in the hands and the heart of the shooter…

…and ethics and children brings us to my final point for the day, and I really do (yes, I must) take issue with John Birmingham over Jessica Watson, currently bidding to become the world’s youngest circumnavigating solo sailor – his stance in both Cheeseburger Gothic and his Brisbane Times column,Blunty, is why not? Well, here’s why not JB: it’s fine to let these things happen, let your teen daughter sail solo around the world and fake your 6 year old son getting trapped in a runaway balloon, or driving your family into the eye of a hurricane…right up to the point where to you want other people to risk their lives bailing these idiots out – it’s alright so long as you are prepared to accept that Search and Rescue will say “not our problem to rescue this silly tart when she gets into strife again“. Let’s not forget that she couldn’t even get out of port without hitting another vessel and those container ships are kick-arse big ships: it’s not like she just missed seeing an itty-bitty dinghy….Of course, no self-respecting SAR organisation is going to abandon anyone without a fight so here’s hoping that JB and co will be happy enough to help foot the bill when she needs rescuing – all in the name of “…doing something other than sitting on the couch, inhaling Mars Bars and watching ‘reality’ TV…“

It’s raining again…

Posted on 20 October 2009 by SJPONeill

..after a nice day yesterday, where I chopped most of the wood and filled up the shed, dried the carpets after they got caught out in the last storm, and recovered a dozen+ eggs from the chooks latest covert nest – maybe their yard is too big?

After all that – it was a fairly respectable wood pile that had accumulated over 2-3 months – my poor old body wasn’t up to the challenge of blogging, and even less so after Carmen slipped me a glass of wine over dinner (very nice too: steak, tabouli and cold roast vege salad with a rosemary and honey dressing). I was out to it on the couch (also very comfortable: they are two big flat-tops that I can easily stretch right out on, named Nimitz and Ark Royal) by the time the Monday movie started: I have brief flashes of Brit crims knocking each other off (The Take…?)before I negotiated the stairs to bed…

Anyway…

Coming Anarchy has an interesting item on media bias and reliability which has turned into a bit of a cable-bashing session. While I share the concern raised in the actual blog entry, I don’t have much time for the hobby-horsing in many of the comments. As per my own comment, the issues in the blog entry are how it is now: the internet and our ablility to self-publish pretty well whatever we want have decreased our reliance on the media for impartial information to the extent that most media outlets now have to follow commercial imperatives or go under: simply, they are now in the same ratings game as the rest of the media business; no longer the voices of knowledge and wisdom, but catalysts for people (‘the people’?) to further not only explore but contribute to an issue, for better or for worse…

Hence the Information Militia: informal, disorganised, often at cross purposes and following their own agendas even when in support of a common goal (have you ever noticed how a ‘common goal’ can have so many different meanings?) but a force none the less to be reckoned with. From Twitter to Crimestoppers to the most stridently hard left/right (is there really a difference or do the meet in the middle?) blogspace, we have access to growing mass of information upon which to make our own decisions, to shape and guide our actions and our worlds. The choise is ours whether we meekly accept that which is served up to us on a spoon, or take the plunge to ferret out as much supporting and contrary (what sort of loser only seeks that which agrees with them? Possibly we don’t want the answer to that question!) information to deal with.

So the first level of the Information Militia are those who feed information in; is the next level those who take that information, reprocess it and serve it up again, perhaps in support of a specific objective…?

Steven Pressfield is on the road this week and has reposted his One Tribe At A Time article to keep the dialogue alive. Of all the online discussion regarding the way ahead, this particular discussion is the first that I have seen that may be sowing the seeds of a successful campaign in Afghanistan (which would be a historical first!) . Key elements are:

Prevent Afghanistan from passing into a condition that would allow Al Qaeda to use it as a resource in creating threats to our security and national interests.

The best that we can hope for in Afghanistan is a “loose confederation of tribes.” Think of a congress composed of elder members of each tribe that comes to represent issues of import to that tribe at some set dates/times each year. The only hope for a “traditional” government is found in the bigger cities; but…Afghanistan is mostly tribal villages, not big cities. Such gatherings would not put an end to inter-tribal fighting, however, the tribes might be able to get some assistance from the central government for basic services and the like. Generally, the tribes don’t want the “modern” conveniences – they want to stay the way they are, but some can benefit from help with drilling wells, medical care, etc…

Adopt and implement NOW a campaign based upon direct integrated engagement with the tribes (‘the people’ in popular COIN parlance).

The catalyst behind this proposal is MAJOR Jim Gant’s One Tribe At A Time paper which articulates the Tribal Engagement Team concept although it will seem all too familiar to anyone with knowledge of traditional ‘hearts and mind’s campaigns like the classic campaign waged in the Highlands of Vietnam by US Special Force in the 60s. This mission used to be SF bread and butter before the glitz of Special Operations took over in the 80s and 90s. Gen McCrystal has the ‘get out amongst the people bit right’; Jim Gant has provided the ‘how’ of this…small units, living with the tribes in an enduring and long-term relationship…Anyone wanting to do some background reading on this could do worse things than read Robin Moore’s The Green Berets – the very good book upon which the entertaining but conceptually accurate John Wayne movie was based…Here is someone who has read FM 3-24 and then adapted it to the current situation; hopefully the full text of this paper will be posted soon so that we can get our teeth into it instead of being fed these tempting titbits…

My last link today is to the developing discussion on The Strategist on historically incorrect war movies, initiated by King Arthur on the weekend…it’s a good discussion with a good nugget or two…and of course my comment above re The Green Berets movie will spark off some more…

The COIN drops…

Posted on 16 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…or is it just a penny…?

Previously in The World According To Me: “Over time some insurgents will tire of the constant harassment in the face of growing public confidence in government forces and disdain for the insurgents… encouraging THEM one by one to consider coming to the talking table…”

I picked this up on my way through Singapore last month, thinking that with Admiral Sandy Woodward of Falklands War fame as an advisor, it would be pretty good. Not only is it not, but I could also see why other commanders in the fleet were worried that Woodward, with limited aviation or amphibious experience, be the wrong guy for the job: once the plot puts to sea the whole premise is based on the ‘fact’ that the US Navy is the only service in the US DoD which helps the story along by skipping gayly around inconveniences like AWACs…I also think that the three unnamed Special Forces officers who allegedly advised on the story need to hand back any beers they received for ‘advice’ as the SF side is pretty weak as well. So the connection with COIN is…?

Without spoiling what story there is, a key assumption in the book is that the way to win an insurgency is to out-exasperate the opposition, i.e. harass them to the point of just giving up and going home…at the time of reading the book, these seemed like a great recipe for success for insurgents and difficult to beat from a COIN perspective – until I I reread the piece on the Information Militia this afternoon…could initiatives like Crimestoppers in a COIN/Stability campaign actually be the start of the Death of 1000 Cuts for an insurgency? Turning The War of the Flea on its head and subjecting the insurgents to an endless series of pinpricks and mossie bites until they have just had enough and start to consider their options…?

One thing I did like about Barracuda 945 is that the ending is not the righteous vengeance that one might have been expecting. Instead it presents a very left-field scenario which strikes at a core issue and not just a symptom – does that sound like something that might be drawn from FM 3-24 – even if the story does use major elements of national power to achieve the effect…?

I’ve commented a lot, as have many other commentators, on the apparent lack of strategic objectives for the war in Afghanistan. This summary came off one of the distribution lists I’m subscribed to; it states pretty clearly that al-Qaeda is still the primary raison d’etre for the war from a US point of view but one wonders how logical that really is…some things to think about:

The Taliban are not AQ; they may have supported and hosted them prior to 9/11 but are now probably not that impressed with all the attention that has drawn.

AQ are probably well-established in many other locations are the globe – where next after Afghanistan for the GWOT?

If there is any lesson to be learned by insurgents (as opposed to simple terrorists) from 9/11 and the London Tube bombings it is that such actions are more counter-productive for the ’cause’ – as Yamamoto feared, once you wake the sleeping dragon, it is damn difficult to put it back to bed…so AQ cells around the world are probably more discreet than to parade themselves openly in training camps as once was their wont.

These things being the case, then perhaps we need to reread FM 3-24 and ensure that such fundamentals remain in the 2010 version, and start to focus the campaign on ending the insurgency…if the aim is an AQ-free Afghanistan, then maybe we need to be casting off the dream of democracy for all and realistically start to look at ways of bring the Taliban to the table…carrot and stick…turn the war of the flea back on them…out-exasperate them until talking becomes the way better option to fighting. It is unlikely that we will be able to bring the Taliban (or any other significant Afghan group) to the table by force – didn’t work for Alexander, didn’t work for Victoria, didn’t work for Mikhail, and it wouldn’t have worked for Napoleon either if he had strayed in this direction….

Could we live with a stable Taliban in Afghanistan if that meant an al-Qaeda-free Afghanistan?

Something’s missing…

Posted on 14 October 2009 by SJPONeill

Today I’ve made similar comments on both the COIN Center blog and Steven Pressfield’s blog on the war – maybe I’m missing something but has anyone recently i.e. since December 2001, actually clearly articulated what we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan? Every man and his dog (maybe we should start listening to the dogs?) are presenting their theories on how to win the war BUT, if these is one lesson we think we have learned since WW2, it is don’t get into anything unless you have some idea on how you’re going to get OUT of it. So what is the endgame for Afghanistan? Please… anyone…?

Exploit the mineral wealth of Afghanistan? Which minerals would they be?

Prevent Pakistani nukes falling into Taliban/AQ hands?

Return Afghanistan to its pre-1979 state?

Save it for/from democracy?

Prevent Iran or someone else filling the power vacuum left by the Taliban post-2001?

Secure new markets for globalised industry?

Something else?

Maybe I’m just dumb, or wasn’t paying attention that day the endstates were being explained…I’ve read FM 3-24 and similar publication on the subject of COIN, irregular threats and stability ops and actions and a common theme in most of the is the absolute need to identify what the root issues of the conflict are and set out to address them in your long game…are we doing that? Have we done that? Is there a cycle of ongoing review and adjustment….?

As LCOL Malevich says in the Center blog “The Taliban have a simple message “foreigners out.” And, they promise only “security” and “justice.” What is our mission, what is our compelling narrative?”

I suppose the other question that we might want to review is why does America care? When is NATO going to get its act together and get into the game; Ditto the Islamic Brotherhood – if they really do care for all Muslims, where are the aid packages, the troops and the initiatives from closer to home – would an Iranian Brigade be more effective than an SBCT…?

And some more in a similar vein here that I stumbled across while tag surfing…

Almost famous…

Posted on 10 October 2009 by SJPONeill

…excusing a bit of a time lag from unwinding the rubber band back to NZ over the last few days hence the silence…I was quite flattered to open up Cheeseburger on Monday to find one of my comments re the Birmoverse starring on the front page as it were. Certainly led to an interesting dialogue – people should check out the various discussions re what’s next in the Birmoverse and maybe even contribute if they have anything meaningful to say…while I’m interested in a 50s/60s sequel to the Axis of Time trilogy, I’m way more interested in a 21C prequel that explores the modern Birmoverse (less the wormhole device) – this would be a great tool (shades of self-interest!) to explore possibilities for where our version of this century might go…

Am now safely back at home (thank you very much to Singapore Airlines – truly a great way to fly!!) having enjoyed another brief stopover in Singapore which I largely slept through despite being booked into the Crowne Plaza Changi which is right by the main runway (ask me how I know that the last flight into Changi is at 0230 and the first out at 0600!!!. The beauty of Singapore though is that the light rail system can get you pretty well anywhere in an hour or so absolutely max so I still got to spend a good 4-5 hours in town hopping from one airconned enclave to the next. I very much enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Miniature Hobbies (03-380) in Marina Square – so fun fun to explore an unfamiliar top-class model shop and of course I managed to make a couple of acquisitions that I’ll probably never build: the Academy I-19 sub is very nice, more so for only $20 and comes with some very nice etch work; and the Trumpeter B-4 203mm gun is one of those big chunky ‘I was built in a tractor factory‘ bits of Soviet kit.

The Singapore Air entertainment programme for October was a bit weak – I was expecting Up, GI Joe and G-Force at least but had to make do with Transformers II which didn’t rock and I watched first movie straight after just to confirm that it wasn’t just a teeny screen issue…even though I was awake the whole Singapore-Auckland leg, all I watched was the canned TV episodes because there was nothing in the movies that appealed in the slightest…I did enjoy the first Doctor Who special from Season IV and have to wonder what is going to happen between the Doctor and Lady Christina who is just way too hot to be written out so early in the season…as I was watching Doctor Who of which I have always been a fan since it stopped scaring me witless in the late 60s, It struck me that the whole idea of the Tardis drifting aimlessly lost in space and time may have been inspired by a BBC writer who got caught up in the Oxford Ring Road space-time discontinuum (no, obviously, I’m still NOT over it yet!!)…

Just doing a final peruse of the blogs before I sign off…yes it is 0158 which just shows how screwed up my body clock is from the rubber band…anyway here’s a commentary on the Coming Anarchy about the US and China buddying up in Afghanistan – when you step back from currently-held models, it sounds sensible and when you get down to it, China has a pretty good track record for countering insurgencies as well – just not according to our book, speaking of which, David Kilcullen’s visit to Wellington on 1 Oct, from all reports, went exceptionally well and I hope to get a more detailed backbrief in a few days…

And making a good point for possibly the wrong reasons, The Strategist has mention of what is probably the best chance of success for Afghanistan ( as opposed to every other man and his dog who are trampling around the place)…good old COIN principle #1 Compromise IS Good!

I’ve been thinking….

Posted on 5 October 2009 by SJPONeill

….and I’m not even from the ACT Party…(sorry, NZ in-joke – Google for ‘Prebble’, ‘I’ve been thinking’ for more info – the most common response to the book was a request for some evidence that he had actually thought very much about anything).

This COIN thing – the more I think about it the more parallels I see with Vietnam (and someone drew a parallel between the ANA and the ARVN on the latest thread on the COIN blog over the weekend):

♣ What’s it all about? We went into Vietnam on the premise that it was an insurrection supported by a hostile neighbour to the north, all in support of global world domination by the communists. The real issue in Vietnam was one of reunification and perhaps if we had identified that up front we would have conducted the whole war with a totally different aim and approach and achieved the ultimate endstate earlier and with way less cost on blood and treasure. What is the real issue in Afghanistan? COIN and SSR are means. To what end are we applying them?

♣ An underlying principle of COIN is that in the end the successful campaign by Western standards seeks to redress wrongs and address/resolve the core issues, which may in the end, as in Malaya, Aden, Ireland (across the 20th Century), and New Zealand (1840-90), pretty well give the insurgents what they want. What are the issues in Afghanistan and what do the insurgents want? That’s what do they really want as opposed to what we think they want…

♣ The non-HN COIN forces in Vietnam were largely from Western nations (US, Australia and New Zealand. The only Asian forces there were from Korea but there were no forces from what we now know as ASEAN. In all fairness, that might not be a bad thing as most of the those military forces were still in a fledgling stage of capability in the 60s. The main exception would be Indonesia but it was a bit scarred from The Misunderstanding with Commonwealth forces in Borneo and Southern Malaysia around the same time. There was an interesting discussion over dinner on Saturday regarding Iran’s role in Middle East politics at the moment…while it has been happy to stir up trouble in Iraq to further its national interests regarding the Gulf, it is less happy to do so in Afghanistan because Iran does not actually want a fundamentalist Islamic nation sitting on its own borders. Apparently it is one thing to be or have been one, and quite another to have to live with one. As a result, Iran considers it in its own interests to have a stable Afghanistan. Perhaps the current defrosting (warming is probably too positive a term) in the relationships between Iran, the US and the UN may lead to an Iranian force deploying to Afghanistan, possibly even as lead nation in an Islamic brigade/div under ISAF. This might bring the necessary degree of cultural awareness and engagement to the ISAF campaign that it currently so clearly lacks.

♣ Following on from the point above, perhaps the engagement that GEN McCrystal needs to be doing is not with the US and UK, or the parsimonious NATO contributors, but with the informal Islamic Alliance including Iran, Iraq (yes, you did read that right – how better to learn COIN for domestic use than understudy in another campaign), the Gulf States (how nice just for once to see them ante up, especially since they contributed so much to the original mess – yes, Saudi Arabi, that means YOU!!), Malaysia (whose forces had a good rep in Somalia and Bosnia – partly because of the Islamic cultural connection, partly because the Malaysians are very laid back and laissez-faire in their approach to just about anything), Indonesia, and Pakistan (see Saudi comments). Maybe the last thing Afghanistan needs is more Western troops…This point also came out in 2000 after the INTERFET deployment into East Timor, after Australia announced the Howard Doctrine whereby Australia would become more active in regional affairs. There was a massive kickback from ASEAN which felt, probably with some justification that it could look after its affairs and those of its members very nicely thank you very much. Similar regional interventions have been attempted with varying degrees of success in Africa. perhaps the actual question is What’s in Afghanistan for NATO?

♣ Would it just be easier to load up everyone who does not want to return to the living hell of Taliban rule and relocate them to New Afghanistan somewhere else? Is the war about saving the people or is it about stopping the Taliban getting their hands on nukes as per the head of the British Army, General Sir David Richards’ warning last week?

♣ In another parallel with Vietnam, the Taliban are being supported by a neighbouring nation albeit without the direct blessing of the Government of Pakistan. Like North Vietnam, although for different reasons perhaps, NATO is unable to shutdown this support via military means and diplomatic means only have limited effect because Pakistan is not officially support the Taliban. Applying the ‘isolate the insurgent’ line from COIN doctrine, how do we isolate the Taliban from its support base in Pakistan over what is some of the most unnavigable and inhospitable terrain on the planet (You’re not in the Fulda Gap anymore, Dr Ropata)?

The Birmoverse

Posted on 2 October 2009 by SJPONeill

John Birmingham, the Australian author of World War 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3 (Axis of Time trilogy), and Without Warning (1st of the ‘The Wave’ series) has set up blog entry over at Cheeseburger Gothic for discussion on both series…if you haven’t read any of these you really want to give them a go…a secondary theme of the AoT trilogy is a prescient (probably because it agrees with me) glimpse of one version of the next decade of so of the 21st century….

I see on the COIN blog today that Canadian forces are advocating a new approach in Afghanistan but as discussed by a number of members on the blog, this appears to be a desperation-driven attempt to accelerate the course of the campaign and it probably hasn’t been all that well considered. Trying to make the people the new bad guys is probably one of the more innovative approachs to COIN I have seen but will it fly? Like a brick…

From the COIN blog:

“In Afghanistan one of my close friends (an Afghan that would die to save me and almost did) let me know the difference in “their ways” of thinking. “If you just give me something I may be thankful, but I am not grateful. I think – look what I was able to get from you, not thankful of what you gave me. If you attached a price to what you gave me in favors or later chips to be used when you needed something, now we are communicating and building our relationship.” At first that bothered me but I then began to see through his eyes. If we take that to winning the “hearts and minds” we have missed the boat. It does nothing to give to these people as it does to have their own countrymen give, help, and make choices for themselves. We need to be the facilitators and not the handout.”

Think about it….

The rules murdering their troops…

Posted on 30 September 2009 by SJPONeill

A top article from the NY Post on the COIN Center blog – most definitely stimulating for the grey matter and really makes you wonder what’s it all about. The day of 911, I was working with a guy who had just come back from a US college and I clearly remember his words that this was Pearl Harbor all over and from this point on, America would consider itself at war. The implications of this were that the gloves would come off and any pretence of being a team player would vanish if it got in the way of the main effort…

Somewhere along the way, the ‘war’ seems to have been lost out of the whole ‘war amongst the people’ model – the key part is that, unlike peace support and reconstruction and peacekeeping and all the nice safe sounding words (like offshore and deployment and operations…) is that war is war and there not very much nice about it – certainly it is not about trying to be nicer to the bad guys or potential bad guys than to your own troops, or hobbling them with rules to prevent anything bad happening (apparently except to them)…this is a war.

Bad things happen in wars. Sometimes people get caught in the middle and get hurt. That’s war but we accept these risks because there are bigger things at stake…Any non-combatant death is bad but the key is whether there was an intent to kill, either directly or passively by failing to apply a reasonable duty of care (key word: REASONABLE!!) War is and always has been (possibly always will be so long as people are involved) messy, untidy, dangerous and indiscriminate…we should not be kidding ourselves that we can write a book and toss in some technology and all of a sudden make it squeaky clean and politically palatable.

However, this article and FM 3-24 both skirt around or possibly even overlook the key point: the keys to successful COIN are probably endurance and habit forming – the foe that can stick it out the longest AND ensure that the habits it desires are embedded over a couple of generations (Note: speed is not a characteristic of COIN!!) will most likely be declared the winner. While the Malaysian Emergency may have been declared ‘over’ (won?) in 1960, the last CT did not surrender til 1988. Similarly, and they are probably halfway there, it will still be another ten or so years before anyone can confidently state that the troubles in Ireland are truly over. You want to be out of Afghanistan in ten years? You’re dreaming – you might as well pull the pin and bail out right now…

Wars are wars and you can not fight (definitely not win) them with a sterile ‘big arrows, little maps’ approach…forget the non-lessons of DESERT STORM and get down and dirty…