Regarding Kat's post on the subject below, Dr. Sean Maloney, a canadian military historian who has been involved in chronicling and analyzing the Canadian Forces efforts in Afghanistan sent along an article he wrote in 2005 that discusses the origins of the PRTs.
He also had this to say:
He also had this to say:
From the intro to the article:PS:
I sat in on some of the first meetings when these things were conceptualized. Nobody anticipated they would be anything more than a 'bridge' until the Afghans could re-establish some form of
governance. If somebody told that crew then that they'd still be running seven years later, they'd freak.
-SMM
Click here to download the article.Canadian forces in Afghanistan have been based at Camp Julien, and their mission as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has been to enhance security and stability in the capital, Kabul, where the government, as Sean Maloney writes, “has evolved over three years from a transitional government, to an interim government, to an elected government.” However, the Canadian deployment is now shifting from the capital to the provinces, and provincial capitals such as Konduz, where provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have a much more dangerous assignment in the reomote areas of the country. “There is nothing mystical about PRTs” writes Maloney, a professor at Royal Military College, “but there is a lot of mythology and wishful thinking in the current discussion of them.” From a recent tour of the area, he offers a ground-level view.
forces on a par with the United States. The United States will not permit certain capabilities to be commanded by the French (in the 1960s, it was nuclear forces, today it is special operations forces);
I am in the middle of reading Eisenhower's biography. Maybe Mr. Maloney should revise this to state the French have been thinking they are something they aren't since Napoleon's defeat or at least WWI if not WWII. But, I won't quibble. So far, I'd agree that this is pretty standard issue. All of these nations believe they are making equal contributions and thus should have equal time in command and strategic development.
I wonder if that is the reason some spec ops guys leaked the "secret" report about the ambush of the French group a few months ago and their lack of equipment, ammo, etc?
Nice bit of political play there. Obviously, we don't have a commander in place who will make all these folks place nice with each other.
I wonder, if the spirit of Dwight Eisenhower were here today and speak to all of us, what would he say? There is enough public information out there, for us to draw some conclusions. I believe we can also translate most of it for today's environment.
Kat, the most important thing, PLEASE ENJOY IT!
As always,
Grumpy
I think that is one of the issues. We won quickly and determined that it would be something like chump change to set up government and go on. I am so surprised that no one entered into the theater, saw the utter destruction and lack of anything resembling infrastructure (what appeared to be neolithic conditions) and thought it would be a couple of years tops to establishing this nation.
I am thinking about how this ought to go from my limited vantage point as an armchair analyst. I am thinking along the lines of "all roads lead to Rome". There were reasons why the first acts of the Roman legions as they went out and pacified territories was to build roads and bridges, set up forts along the way and established control of the surrounding areas. Sometimes with garrisons as small as 40-100 men.
We need to tie our efforts to an extremely visible, strategic, long term and multi-purpose (civilian and military) goal that would let the citizens know that there is governance and it is not as far as they might believe.
More thoughts to come.
"If somebody told that crew they'd still be running seven years later, they'd freak."
WRONG, many people "knowledgeable" of the whole region, not just Iraq and Afghanistan, told George W Bush and his Father during his Presidency, that this Nation should NOT get involved. This would bring the terrorism to this Nation. As the Armorer says, "This is not a binary war." The more you know of the region, the more you know John is right. My view, this is a "gradient war", a full spectrum of all shades between absolute white and absolute black. The duration of this war will be forever.
V/R Grumpy