Kat in her post below, rants about the paper written by Michael Hallett; New Potentials for Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
The core of her piece (and you should read it all if you haven't) is this:
The core of her piece (and you should read it all if you haven't) is this:
Perhaps Kat missed this post by John Nagl, that went up on November 19. In it, Nagl says:Lack of Unity of Effort
Many people point to the Iraq surge of troops as the turning point in Iraq. Others discuss the development of the COIN strategy. But, none of it mattered without one really important development:
Unity of Effort
Not just militarily, but across the State Department, UN, US and foreign aid agencies. It took a dynamic concept and people with a single purpose. It took people like Petraeus and Crocker to stop the infighting and push these organizations to work together. Crocker worked, not only with the Iraqi government, but with the foreign aid organizations and the UN to move them towards a single plan. Petraeus also exercised influence over the national government and Iraqi military, but most importantly had his teams focus on local governance and security. They acted as the first line to identify the needs in their areas after securing their AOs. PRT efforts concured with security efforts.
Afghanistan lacks that in spades. Both in the American effort and the general Coalition.
They can create any number of organizations with initials as long as the alphabet. They can read the COIN manual and try to implement it. Build wells, roads and schools. Nothing matters unless we have one goal and one direction.
One other aspect of the strategy involved how it was employed. Right now, Afghanistan resembles a quotation. To paraphrase: he who seeks to do everything at once, will accomplish nothing.
Like all good plans (whether this one is good depends on success in execution) it's pretty simply stated. The devil is in the details of the various orders that will drive execution:Things I find particularly interesting in this plan include the upfront acknowledgement that this is a counterinsurgency (vice peacekeeping) campaign (obvious to us, but hugely important in the NATO context); the addition of "Shaping Operations" to the classic "Clear, Hold, Build" COIN methodology; an acknowledgment that in this still critically under-resourced theater, ISAF cannot be strong everywhere and must therefore prioritize areas to clear and hold (a point Dave Kilcullen made well on Sunday with Fareed Zakaria); and the overt emphasis on buildling Afghan governance capability and capacity as the objective of all of our operations.
One of the challenges with Afghanistan is the NATO aspect, meaning General McKiernan has many people interested in what he's doing, from SACEUR's General Craddock to CENTCOM's General Petraeus, along with having SOCOM operating in his area on their own, worldwide writ... and then we add in the NATO governments and their national caveats. On top of that we have the Afghanistan government(s), and the various other interested parties from NGOs to the UN. McKiernan needs unity of command before he can begin to get unity of effort.MISSION
ISAF conducts operations in partnership with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) and in coordination with Operation Enduring Freedom, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and the international community in order to assist GIRoA to defeat the insurgency, establish a secure environment, extend viable governance, and promote development throughout Afghanistan.
LINES OF OPERATION
Security
Governance
Reconstruction and Development
COMPREHENSIVE AND INTEGRATED APPROACH
Comprehensive: Working concurrently across all three lines of operation.
Integrated: Operating in a coordinated manner with GIRoA and the international community.
KEY PLANNING FACTORS
Counterinsurgency campaign.
Shape, in order to clear in order to hold and build.
Prioritize the areas to clear and hold.
Establish and maintain freedom of movement.
Apply greater effort on the narcotics-insurgency nexus.
Identify and engage key Afghan community leaders.
Interdict and disrupt insurgent movement to and from sanctuaries in the border region.
Build Afghan capability, capacity, and credibility.
As soon as I saw the list of alphabet groups created in 2008 for Afghanistan, my first thought is that somebody has too much staff with nothing better to do and certainly not focused on creating or directing a winning strategy.
Further, from what I've read, each of these nations think the other nations stink at their jobs, has no real concept of how to fight whatever war each of them thinks they are fighting or how to go about commanding disparate nation's troops. Thus, they are all demanding they retain their own functionality, plans and staff. A complete nightmare for Coalition fighting.
We've been here before, though, too many times in the past. Maybe the best way to go about it first is to put more American troops in. By dent of our presence, we will own the theater and command.