Comments for To Bring Peace n In Afghanistan, Talk to the Taliban We're the Military and Airpower Guys of Jonah Goldberg of National Review Online + a stray we found wandering around looking lost. All original material JHD, BHD, JR, WT, and KA 2003-2007 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:55:21 Z Movable Type 4.12 en Copyright 2008 http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification To Bring Peace n In Afghanistan, Talk to the Taliban [Kat] Via Michael Yon, a link to an opinion piece by someone he calls a friend. To Bring Peace n In Afghanistan, Talk to the Taliban Or, in other words, why Petraeus had to go to CentCom. I wrote last August that the problem in Afghanistan is that there is no Petraeus. Prescient or just common sense? Both, likely. I'll skip past the "we are failing" opening gambit and the "we don't need to keep so many troops there" (I'll get to that comment). Let's head right for the meat of the "failed counter-insurgency" in Afghanistan: Before the arrival of... http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:31:37 -0600 Comment from Cannoneer No. 4 on 2008-04-30 is an either or situation. There is a finite total end strength that can be supported in Central Asia through Karachi, Chaman and Torkham. The more non-indig trigger pullers, the fewer non-indig trainers of indig trigger pullers. Coalition warfare is fighting by committee. The profession of arms tends to attract national chauvinists because they are more likely than others to consider defen[s/c]e of their Westphalian nation-state worth killing and dying over. We need to maximize the utility of every ISAF and OEF boot at the end of that long supply line. Send the caveated contingents home. Stand the ANA up faster. Task organize ANA units into ISAF/OEF formations until eventually its the ISAF/OEF units attached to Afghan Corps. Instill a healthy spirit of competition in the ANA between the proteges of different nations to prove on the batttlefield who got trained the best. It's their country. We need to do less direct action on their behalf, and more Foreign Internal Defense. ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72636 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72636 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:29:26 -0600 Comment from Damian on 2008-04-30 Fantastic, John. Here's another question to ask him: does the "lessons learned" info flow the other way (from allied militaries to the U.S. services)? Much as I respect the professionalism of your men and women in uniform, your nation doesn't have a monopoly on good ideas or more effective execution of those ideas. Given my experience trying to get good American ideas officially adopted up here, I'd bet there's better information sharing through informal networks within Kandahar and Kabul than there is between the HQ's responsible back home in each country. Those responsible for policy tend to be fairly parochial, whereas the fighters just want to do it the best way possible, so they don't get killed for making a mistake someone else already made and learned from. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72634 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72634 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:12:40 -0600 Comment from John of Argghhh! on 2008-04-30 Damian - I'll be speaking with the Director of the Army Center for Lessons Learned here at Fort Leavenworth tomorrow. I'll ask if there isn't at least ABCA-derived access available to people. I suspect there is, but I could be wrong, and we could certainly over-use the NOFORN marking on things. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72633 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72633 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:44:05 -0600 Comment from Toluca Nole on 2008-04-30 Why am I posting this... If we could walk with the Taliban, talk with the Taliban, Grunt and squeak and squawk with the Taliban, And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk to us. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72631 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72631 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:06:09 -0600 Comment from kat-missouri on 2008-04-30 Sometimes it's not about the quality of the work, but rather achieving the quantity required to hit a tipping point ("surge" anyone?). I'd agree, but also add that they need the empowerment to take certain actions, build things, negotiate truces, etc, etc, etc right there and probably don't have it. ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72629 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72629 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:35:11 -0600 Comment from Damian on 2008-04-30 our Canadian friends excluded of course Precisely! Because everyone knows we Canucks are already perfect the first time around! Just ask us! *rolling eyes* I just wish ISAF and the U.S. could have a central "lessons learned" clearing house where all the ideas that actually demonstrated results could be shared, then a central decision could be made that this is how the coalition does it. And I don't care if that good idea is Canadian, or American, or Estonian, fer heaven's sake. But everybody gets prickly about how their own troops do things, and I worry that we're letting that get in the way of the results. Besides that, I think it would be useful if those in charge remembered that perhaps those currently operating in RC South (Brits, Canadians, Dutch etc) might well be doing it right, but not doing enough of it because of a lack of boots on the ground. Sometimes it's not about the quality of the work, but rather achieving the quantity required to hit a tipping point ("surge" anyone?).]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72628 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72628 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:02:13 -0600 Comment from kat-missouri on 2008-04-30 And the Afghan gov't has been actively seeking to bring former Taliban back into the fold for years now. They even created the National Commission for Peace and Reconciliation to facilitate that process. One of the most interesting things from late last year and early this year has been the Afghan government insisting on expelling Brit and German diplomats who were ostensibly negotiating outside of the national government's purview. I guess the real question is, at what level is that negotiation acceptable. In Iraq, many negotiations start from the ground or local area out. Frankly, I think this is the proper process. Waiting for national reconciliation in Iraq was taking too long and I believe that is the issue in Afghanistan.
With all due respect to General Petraeus, at the end of the day, the decisions about who to go after and who to negotiate with should really be up to the Afghan government, shouldn't they?
Yes and no. As I was explaining above, you really have to know the local actors and separate them, as we agree, from the outsiders and then separate them again based on who locally is going to be reconcilable and who won't. That has to happen within AO's. In Iraq, individual units built their own intelligence and moved from that, not from any monstrous top down level or even waiting for the Iraqi government to decide how they were going to handle, for instance, the "de-ba'athification" issue. What they did locally was find the guy we needed to co-op to help control the area. If he was former Ba'ath or what have you, it only mattered whether he could be potentially tied to direct crimes under Saddam or really attrocious acts against Iraqis in the current context. Otherwise, he became a viable candidate for co-op. Were we suppsed to, should we have, waited for the national government to figure out how they were going to handle reconciliation with former Ba'ath members? I don't think so. That would have been ludicrous, suicidal and the least direct method. I would say that, that same metric has to apply in Afghanistan. In Iraq, there were several levels of actors within each AO. Some were national movements (like old Ba'ath), some were tribal, some were criminal gangs and then there were the outsiders. I imagine that it is the same in Afghanistan yet complicated by the much larger and multitudinous tribes, ethnicity, religion, language, etc. I don't expect that Petraeus is going to decide back at Centcom who we should or should not negotiate with. What I believe that Petraeus will do will be directing the forces there to take control and develop their own AOs, their own leads, their own priorities and their own target/negotiation lists. I imagine, no matter what, that people like the Haqqani network joining national reconciliaiton will be more related to national government over all, but that units operating in the areas where they are prevalent will do their best and utmost to cleave off any extraneous or peripherals to that organization in order to isolate them more effectively from the population and make their transition to being a part of the political process more likely. That last part will be the unit's responsibility, not the central government. Particulary as their ability to project anything into those areas, force, construction, etc, is limited without us. Petraeus will most likely work towards getting the Afghan government to see it our way. Just as I don't expect that Petraeus can decide on whether every actor is either a target or potential negotiation, neither do I expect the Afghan government to know. At least not fully. Nor to make such decisions on the very local level. Second, I believe that Petraeus did wonders on getting a unified view and performance of counter insurgency out of the US military in Iraq, across the marines, Army, Air Force and Navy, making it truly joint. Being the commander of MNF-I gave him some clout, but if you understand anything about the "joint" operations aspect, it is a lot about getting commanders across the armed forces and down through the ranks to "buy in" to the program. Iraqi and American forces. I imagine that is going to be his focus at CentCom to some respects. First to get all of our forces in Afghanistan operating in a specific direction and second to get our allies to work with us in the same manner. The last is probably going to be the most difficult, but, considering that Petraeus also had to get the various Iraqi factions to do the same, he has plenty of experience at working with prideful knuckel heads ( our Canadian friends excluded of course; he who bleeds with me and all that...) ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72626 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72626 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:37:28 -0600 Comment from Damian on 2008-04-30 Fewer non-indig trigger pullers and more trainers of indig trigger pullers. I'd disagree with you a bit on this: we need more trainers of indig trigger pullers, but we also need more non-indig trigger pullers, especially in RC South. Hence the utility of the 24th MEU rolling into Helmand to augment the Brits, recently. And my country's been calling for another battle group on the ground in Kandahar for quite awhile now. I just don't think it's an either-or proposition.]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72623 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72623 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:48:57 -0600 Comment from Damian on 2008-04-30 "If we built a list of priorities, what would you put on it first?" Howzabout we ask the Afghans themselves. There's a current program called the National Solidarity Program in Afghanistan. For anyone interested in this nation's grassroots reconstruction, if you don't know about this, you should read up. I've written about it here, with some interesting stats, and some commentary on the usefulness of most NGO's. The most telling stat is that because of the Community Development Councils' local nature, and the fact that communities must contribute a minimum of 10 percent of the total project costs in either labour, funds, or materials, less than one percent of the initiatives launched through the NSP have been destroyed or targeted by insurgents. The locals have skin in the game, and won't tolerate the Taliban thugs tearing down what they just built themselves. As far as negotiating with the Taliban is concerned, it's already being done. When I interviewed BGen David Fraser, who commanded RC South during Op Medusa last year (as the Cdns, Brits, Dutch and others were taking over from the U.S.), one of his primary objectives was to separate the hard-core ideologues, often from outside Afghanistan, from the locals who just needed a paycheque and some security for their family. And the Afghan gov't has been actively seeking to bring former Taliban back into the fold for years now. They even created the National Commission for Peace and Reconciliation to facilitate that process. With all due respect to General Petraeus, at the end of the day, the decisions about who to go after and who to negotiate with should really be up to the Afghan government, shouldn't they? Anyhow, it's an interesting discussion, that's for sure...]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72618 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72618 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:12:48 -0600 Comment from Cannoneer No. 4 on 2008-04-30 Line of Communications from your Sea Port of Debarkation, and then add in the source of your Cl III, you begin to understand why we don't have 160,000 troops surged into Afghanistan. We need fewer caveated boots on the FOB and more of the right kind of boots, like Police Mentoring Teams and Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams. Fewer non-indig trigger pullers and more trainers of indig trigger pullers. ]]> http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72613 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72613 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:03:05 -0600 Comment from fdcol63 on 2008-04-30 Examples like Basra and Afghanistan expose how ineffective the British and European "Soft Sell" approach (less confrontational) is when dealing with insurgencies and armed militias in a Muslim culture. It may work in a constabulary environment where the population has been utterly defeated and is ready for peace. But it fails miserably with a culture that glorifies death, whose civilian population has been spared the worst of the horrors of war, and who don't recognize that they have been truly vanquished. http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72611 http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2008/04/to_bring_peace.html#comment-72611 Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:42:24 -0600