Counterinsurgency Field Manual: Afghanistan Edition

Foreign Policy ^ | Jan/Feb 2009 | Staff

[Dawnsblood]

For the past five years, the fight in Afghanistan has been hobbled by strategic drift, conflicting tactics, and too few troops. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, got it right when he bluntly told the U.S. Congress in 2007, “In Iraq, we do what we must.” Of America’s other war, he said, “In Afghanistan, we do what we can.”

It is time this neglect is replaced with a more creative and aggressive strategy. U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is now headed by Gen. David Petraeus, the architect of the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy widely credited with pulling Iraq from the abyss. Many believe that, under Petraeus’s direction, Afghanistan can similarly pull back from the brink of failure.

Two years ago, General Petraeus oversaw the creation of a new counterinsurgency field manual for the U.S. military. Its release marked a definitive break with a losing strategy in Iraq and reflected a creeping realization in Washington: To avoid repeating the mistakes of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military would have to relearn and institutionalize that conflict’s key lessons. At the time, the doctrine the manual laid out was enormously controversial, both inside and outside the Pentagon. It remains so today. Its key tenets are simple, but radical: Focus on protecting civilians over killing the enemy. Assume greater risk. Use minimum, not maximum force.

For a military built on avoiding casualties with quick, decisive victories, many believe such precepts veer far too close to nation-building and other political tasks soldiers are ill-equipped to handle. Still others attack the philosophy as cynically justifying the United States’ continued presence in Iraq—neocolonialism dressed up in PowerPoint.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

The terrain and distances involved in fighting and building in Afghanistan are different than those in Iraq. That is why a different and location-pragmatic strategy is needed to win.

[Dilbert56]

Strange, didn't our primary enemy, al Qaida, pronounce Iraq as the central front in the GWOT? Given that, the "Do what we must / Do what we can " dichotomy seems appropriate.

It was disgusting to see the media take time away from fellating Obama to propagate the "Afghanistan is going to hell" storyline. Every year our casualties have gone up during the summer and receded during the winter. Obama and his disciples used this as "proof" that the wheels are supposedly coming off there. Once the casualty levels in Iraq dropped they had to find a new club to bash the US and its President so suddenly they found Afghanistan worth caring about.

The US, Canadian and UK forces in Afghanistan have done a fantastic job. Whenever the enemy masses they are killed. When they ambush Coalition forces, they are killed. As they scurry from cave to cave in the tribal areas, they are killed by drones. As long as they're "heads down" they're not attacking us here.

Turning Afghanistan into a Western-style nation isn't in the cards. The best we can hope for there is pinning the enemy down and keeping them on defense. Someday the local tribes may come to hate Al Qaida the way Al Anbar province rejected them. But right now they're not going to stay "bought". They don't have the means to stand up to terrorists and perceive no reason to favor us over them in this struggle.