Don’t count your chickens until they are hatched…

A couple of articles caught my eye in today’s Times. The first by Magnus Linklater is a short account of a recent visit to southern Afghanistan ‘It was a battlefield last time I was here. The progress is remarkable’

Linklater gives credit for the progress in no small part to the USMC who fairly recently arrived in the area by force, although they are due to pull out in September:

A few weeks ago, Garmsir was a no-go area for all but the hunkered down British troops in their heavily guarded forward operating bases, and for the US Marines, beginning to arrive in force. Known as the “snake’s head” because of the distinctive shape of the area – a broad expanse of fertile country in the north, tapering to a long tail of farmland, supporting a rural population, mostly cultivating opium poppies – Garmsir was, until recently, held by the Taleban.

“The last time I was here, I wasn’t able to come into the town at all. It was a full-scale battlefield,” Sir Jock said. “Now we’ve just come twice through the main street. I wouldn’t say for one moment that we’ve restored Garmsir to total peace and security, but the progress we’ve made over the last few months is remarkable.”

This is excellent news and accords with reports from colleagues and students in Afghanistan that progress is being made there, that the campaign is being fought more intelligently than it was, and that the Taliban is hemorrhaging support through indiscriminate attacks which make it look as though it is they and not ISAF which is violating the ancient codes of fighting in this area.

Seizing it back was due in part to the surge of the US Marines, with their massively resourced Marine Expeditionary Unit. But it was also achieved through a classic piece of soldiering by A Company of the Argyll and Suther-land Highlanders – the kind of infantry operation that hasn’t changed much in character since the Second World War. In the cramped forward operating base of Delhi (these FOBs, a key part of the Helmand strategy, mostly bear classic names from Britain’s military past, like Inkerman, Balaklava and Nijmegen) Major Neil Den-McKay took me up to his tiny observation post, protected by sand-bags, with a thin slit looking out over a 120-degree arc of the countryside. He pointed to an open field, falling away to a ditch, barely 300 yards away.

“The Taleban were there,” he said.

“We knew they were there because they kept attacking us. So we had to clear it.” He did so by taking a company of jocks in point formation, with bayonets fixed, straight down the ditch until they encountered the Taleban head on. “I don’t think they were expecting us,” said Major Den-McKay drily. “They certainly seemed surprised.” The Argylls drove the Taleban out, inflicting heavy casualties, and without losing a man. It may not have been more than a skirmish, but it sent out a powerful message about the determination of the British forces to make the territory their own.

Earlier, I had sat with Sir Jock and the commanding officer of the Helmand task force, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, listening to the commander of the US Marine Expeditionary Unit, Colonel Lewis Henderson, who spoke of how a combination of military might and civil resources had taken and held the snake’s head itself. He talked of the use of powerful armoury to defeat the Taleban, including blowing up more than 200 bunkers, seizing caches of weaponry and destroying the infrastructure, together with tactics designed to win over the local population once victory had been achieved.

But here’s the rub, you see. Now that you’ve driven the Taliban out how are you going to keep them from coming back?  You’re all familiar with the raging debate over force structure, training and organization. Should we have a  ‘COIN-oriented’ force or a ‘warfighting’ force? I don’t want to rehash it here except to say that the dichotomy is crude and unhelpful because it’s not an either/or situation . You need to do both because dealing with the immense and perpetual problems of imposing (or reimposing) political control throughout and beyond combat operations is the core and essence of making war an effective instrument of state policy. Fact is that right now ‘nation-building’ and ‘war-winning’ are cognate terms. This may not be to your liking but you can’t always pick your wars.

Back to Linklater, though, who illustrates how the flow of ‘COIN-best practice’ which once flowed from the UK to the USA (justifiably, or not) now goes the other way. I do not think Brigadier Aylwin-Foster could have written his seminal essay in the Military Review Changing the Army for Counterinsurgency Operations today. However right it was at the time (and I think it was pretty accurate), it is clear that the US military has come a long way since then. Is the British Army keeping up?

“To sustain and secure,” was the way he described it. It was the sustaining part that provided a fascinating insight into how far American counter-insurgency tactics have developed since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Aware of the danger of suicide bombers, one of the first things they did was to carry out random finger-printing of suspicious-looking civilians in the outlying areas of the snake’s head. It suggested that the Marines had good local knowledge, whereas in fact they had encountered what Colonel Henderson described as “black holes of intelligence”.

He admitted that they knew very little about local power bases and the complexities of tribal allegiances. So instead the marines went out into the villages with grapes. Why grapes? “They give off a nice smell, and they’re not threatening,” he said. They also sent out leaflets – not warning the local people about the Taleban, but explaining what the Americans were trying to do. Reckoning that many residents of Garmsir were underinformed about the war, they distributed 400 clock radios. And they began compiling data – about the number of shops, the distribution of farms, the availability of schools. They discovered things they didn’t know before, like the fact that although this was a very poor rural population, it was surprisingly well-educated, with some of the villagers speaking two or more languages.

The British listeners were clearly impressed by Colonel Henderson’s presentation, but some of the flies in the Garmsir ointment emerged almost immediately. In the first place, the US Marines are due to pull out of the area in September, leaving this experiment in winning the peace open-ended. Could the British maintain the momentum without the kind of resources that the Americans had deployed? “The commander of the Helmand task force will deploy his units as he sees fit to ensure that we can hold on to and sustain the progress that’s been made here and bring it forward,” said Sir Jock, in the clipped manner of one who is not certain of the answer.

My sense is that the British Army is trying (and don’t get me wrong, I remain strongly of the view that the British Army is the best there is). But the tradition here is to try to do twice as much as the Americans in half the time with half the resources–a situation which, quite predictably, results in failure at least half the time. The US I think leaves less to chance because it is more prepared to match resources with the scale of the real mission requirements. I am reminded of Edward Luttwak’s sharp reminder that ‘the West has become comfortably habituated with defeat.’  He was talking mainly about the US, I reckon, but it applies equally here where, says Brian Bond in The Pursuit of Victory, ‘The British will forgive defeat, but never victory.’

But why am I banging on about defeat when Linklater is saying things are looking up in Afghanistan and others, like Gerard Baker recently tell us to Cheer up. Were Winning this War on Terror? Because I think it’s really premature. Afghanistan is a multi-decade commitment and I’m not sure we’ve enough gas in the tank to sustain it–nor do I see the government really putting enough money into changing that (in fact, this government seems to have been drained of all will entirely beyond that of its own immediate political survival). Moreover, in the broader context while it is great that Al Qaeda no longer has a territorial base in Afghanistan, as Michael Evans also writes in today’s Times, they have other places to go Al Qaeda finds three safe havens for terror training:

Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organisation, driven out of Afghanistan and defeated in Iraq, is re-emerging in strength in three alternative safe havens for training, operational planning and recruiting – Pakistan, Somalia and Algeria – according to Western intelligence and defence sources.

The core al-Qaeda headquarters in the tribal areas of Pakistan pose the gravest threat to the United Kingdom. But in Somalia and in Algeria, where the so-called al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was set up in 2004 as a powerful bin Laden offshoot, the organisation is recruiting energetically and its leaders are believed to have aspirations to hit Western targets.

The basic problem is that we need to face up to a world in which adversaries capable of causing great harm require a very limited territorial base and flourish in the disaffected elements of our domestic population. We’re a long way from figuring out how to deal with that; so it’s way too soon to start declaring victory. Related thoughts at Abu Muqawama The Order of AQ.

Pakistan’s Fighting the Taliban

Following a drumbeat of criticism for its less-than-bellicose approach in the tribal areas, outrage of America’s more bellicose approach to that part of the world,  fresh allegations of ISI assistance to the Taliban, and Afghanistan’s accusation that the ISI assisted in the assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai, the Pakistani government is supposedly getting tough on the Taliban.  The NYT reports:

Pakistani forces bombarded suspected militant hideouts with mortar shells Saturday as the government launched a major offensive against Taliban fighters threatening the main city in the country’s volatile northwest, officials said.

The offensive in the Khyber tribal region marked the first major military action Pakistan’s newly elected government has taken against the militants operating in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

I’m still a neophyte to the world of Pakistani politics.  Truth be told, most the experts I speak to about it in advance of my research there warn me that it’ll take about a decade to progress beyond the neophyte-level.  By which point I’ll be a “beginner.”  So while I’m not ready to wade with answers regarding all the machinations that led the government to begin shelling militants, I do have some questions:

1. As we learn more about the government’s volte face, what will the analysis say in terms of the internal and external factors that tipped the balance?   Musharraf’s diminishing role meant less connection between the government and military, with Kayani hanging back a bit. This was good in that it appeared the military might actually let the civilian government govern.  Except that civilian government was a bit tied up with its own issues. So the concern that no one is really, you know, running Pakistan is understandable.  Which brings me to my question of whether this action is a realization that the external drumbeat of criticism has reached the point where the government needs to act, whether the different players in government acted in concert, and whether a particular internal agenda is being served and how?  Or did the threat of instability amidst rising threats to Peshawar just become too great? It’s never one thing or another, but I’m curious to see what the tipping points and breakdown of priorities were. Though it is questionable if we’ll ever really know for sure.

2. How serious and comprehensive a military effort are they going to make? In other words, is this the real deal?

3. And the million dollar question is, of course, if this is the real deal will it work? Are the Frontier Corps really willing and able to do the job?  How big a role will the regular army play?  And are these guys ready for this kind of fight? And what kind of resources is Pakistan ready to divert from the other front, if necessary?

I’ve actually got more questions than that.  But I’m running out the door for my wife’s boss’ engagement party.  And if I’m the reason we’re late, there’s going to be an attack in North London tonight.

Update: The NYT reports:

The action was limited, with security forces shelling territory outside Peshawar held by an extremist leader. Army forces were not used, and the intent apparently was merely to push the militants back from the city’s perimeter.

But the shelling was the first time the new civilian government, which has been committed to negotiating peace accords with Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic militants, resorted to military action.

In response, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, announced that he had suspended his participation in peace talks.

The Pakistani channel Samma TV reported that Mr. Mehsud had threatened to take the fight against the government to the heart of Pakistan, the provinces of Sindh and Punjab, if military action continued.

In Peshawar, senior military officials said that a regional security force had fired mortar shells against two bases of an Islamic militant known as Mangal Bagh, whose well-armed fighters have taken control over much of Khyber agency adjacent to the city.

Mohammed Alam Khattak, Inspector General of the Frontier Corps, said the operation was in response to growing public demand after weeks of daily kidnappings and intimidation by militants.  The army was not involved, but General Pervaiz Kayani, the Army Chief of Staff, has been given full authority by the government to conduct whatever operations are necessary to secure Peshawar.

 Mangal Bagh, leader of Lashkar-i-Islam (Army of Islam) was apparently the main target of the attack.  Lashkar-i-Islam is approximately several thousand fighters strong.  For those interested in what Bagh has had to say in the past, the NEFA Foundation has posted a copy of a recent interview with him here.

According to General Khattak, the operation is primarily intended to destroy Bagh’s bases in the Bara area of the Khyber agency and is expected to last approximately 5 days.  So stay tuned…

 

 

Pakistani military training Taliban fighters

Canada: Ex-Taliban fighter tells of training from Pakistani military

Afghanistan - A former Taliban fighter has provided a gripping first-hand account of being secretly trained by members of the Pakistani military, paid $500 a month and ordered to kill foreigners in Afghanistan.

Mullah Mohammed Zaher offered a vivid description of a bomb-making apprenticeship at a Pakistani army compound where he says he learned to blow up NATO convoys.

Earlier this month RAND released a report by Seth Jones Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan which claimed that Pakistani intelligence and military were providing training, intelligence and other support to Taliban fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan. If corroborated the account of the former Talib above would have major strategic implications.

Suited for the New Diplomacy?

Suited for the New Diplomacy? - washingtonpost.com

I am back from my holidays and catching up on my reading. First, I must say thank you, thank you, thank you Ireland. But getting back on topic, the article linked above caught my eye. It seems to reflect a sentiment that work in the field such as on PRTs in Afghanistan, however exciting, just is not what the State Department is about.

One of my U.S. Foreign Service colleagues has a great photo of himself from his time working with a Provincial Reconstruction Team in one of Afghanistans livelier provinces. He’s dressed in khaki, with an MP5 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. When I first saw it, I thought: Theres a lot to say about service like that. Its adventurous. Its courageous. Its patriotic.

But is it diplomacy?

Well, what is diplomacy? Says the author ‘… while expertise in military affairs is a good thing, should it overshadow all else in a world of shifting challenges — climate change, energy security and the threat of global pandemics, to name just a few? As China buys up U.S. debt by the billions, let’s hope that some U.S. diplomats are reading the Financial Times and not just Sun Tzu.’ But why do we need diplomats for these things either? Back in the old days when travel and communications were slow it made sense to have good generalists representing the interests of one’s nation in foreign places. Now, on the other hand, if its climate change talks then fly in your guys from the environment ministry, if its energy security then experts from that sector of government, if its pandemics then health, if its international finance then the real experts on finance. You see where I’m going.

I know this is crude and our diplomats do more than drain wineglasses and talk to other diplomats. Nonetheless it is the case that there is a great need for diplomats* of the type of the author’s friend who go also to the hot, dusty and dangerous places where they may have to defend themselves, or at least not get in the way of the troops accompanying them while they do. If the State Department doesn’t want to do this, then Defence will have to do it for itself. Maybe that’s the right course.

Incidentally, this is a great idea:

At the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, a new division has been created to prepare civilians for service in war zones, and diplomats can spend several weeks at Fort Bragg, N.C., learning how to be less of a liability to troops in the field. This is fine, as far as it goes. Diplomats cannot and should not be turned into Rambos, but they should be given every possible preparation for the unique challenge of working in war zones.

Does anyone know if Britain is doing this? We should be.

*Of course the appropriate term is probably not ‘diplomat’ but ‘colonial administrator’.

An army falling apart

Internal documents report the French Army to be on the verge of “falling apart”, according to the Telegraph. Less than half of the army’s Leclerc main battle tanks, and less than 40% of its helicopter fleet, are operational. This gives a new spin on French reluctance to do more of the heavy lifting (i.e., combat operations) in Afghanistan. Here was I putting it down to political reluctance. But perhaps it’s as much a case of “can’t do” as “won’t do”.

I did quite a bit of focus group work with French officers in the Ecole Militaire in Paris last year. This is a true war-fighting military. Years of intervention in Africa have given French officer corps combat experience. And crucially, this is a military itching to get back to war. Especially as their last big punch-up, the 1991 Gulf War, proved to be a bit of an embarrassment: the French only able to deploy a light division that was tasked with guarding the far left flank of the coalition advance into Kuwait. This was in contrast to the British 1st Armoured Division, which joined the US VII Corps assault on the Iraqi armoured reserves and Republican Guard.

The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is about to announced a major defense review. But this is unlikely to result in the investment that is so solely needed in the military. Indeed, it is likely to recommend cutting French operational forces from 50,000 to 30,000 troops. At the same time, the Guardian reports that Sarkozy is pushing for the creation of a permanent European joint operational headquarters to based outside Brussels. As a fig leaf, and to signal that this is not the usual Gaulic NATO bashing, Sarkozy is offering to bring France back into NATO’s military command. Given the lack of real commitment in Paris to the military, the British are right to be wary of this French proposal.

Contrary to the google joke, France has a proud military tradition. More to the point, it has a military with the skill and spirit to fight wars, and win them. At a time when the West so desperately needs more combat capable forces to secure peace in Afghanistan (and Iraq, eventually, perhaps), it is such a damn shame that the French are letting their fine military go to the wall.

Social scientist killed in Afghanistan

Social Sciences in War: The Cost of Being There Complex Terrain Lab

Via Michael Innes at the link above comes news that Michael Bathia, a social scientist with the US Army’s Human Terrain System, has been killed in Afghanistan.

In Memory of Michael Vinay Bhatia ‘99

Michael Bhatia

May 08, 2008

Michael Vinay Bhatia ’99 died yesterday in Afghanistan, where he as working as a social scientist in consultation with the US Defense Department.

In addition to graduating magna cum laude in international relations from Brown University, Michael was a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute from July 2006 to June 2007. At the Institute, he was involved in a research project on Cultural Awareness in the Military, while also writing his PhD dissertation.

Over several years, Michael’s research and humanitarian work took him to such conflict zones as Sahrawi refugee camps, East Timor, and Kosovo, in addition to Afghanistan.

Of his work in Afghanistan, Michael wrote in November: “The program has a real chance of reducing both the Afghan and American lives lost, as well as ensuring that the US/NATO/ISAF strategy becomes better attuned to the population’s concerns, views, criticisms and interests and better supports the Government of Afghanistan.”

Michael Bhatia was writing his PhD at Oxford University. He had also done work for the International Policy Institute here at King’s College London. He also taught in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University where I did my BA and MA degrees. Sadly, I never met him. I have the greatest respect for Michael Bhatia and people like him who are prepared to lend their vitally-needed expertise on the ground exposed to danger. Rest in peace.

A moving personal tribute at The QWU Blog

If you google Mike, you’ll read a lot about his scholarly work around the world, especially in Afghanistan. Mike was a true academic, but in many ways he was more like Indiana Jones. Mike didn’t sit around and do research. He spent his time in the field: in Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and more. Mike was a genius.

More at Ghosts of Alexander

Sound of battle

BBC News: Gun battle message shocks parents

The sound of battle is what the parents of Stephen Phillips heard when they checked their answering machine. The 22 year old who is serving in Afghanistan with a US Army MP company, had unknowingly phoned home when he accidentally hit the speed-dial on his mobile whilst in combat.

Turns out the parents had just returned from buying flowers for Stephen’s best friend, who had been killed in action in Iraq the year before. They were understandably distraught, especially to hear gunfire and somebody screaming for “more ammo.”

As for the young man, when he heard the recording, he was embarrassed by the swearing. Good god there’s nothing to be ashamed of. You should hear the cursing when I stub my toe. A little colourful language by men fighting for their country is neither here nor there.

British readers will not be surprised by the tagline in the Sun: “Son’s on the Taliphone.“

Sigh.

Merchants of….crappy ammo

Allegations Lead Army to Review Arms Policy - New York TImes

Need an arms supplier for the new Afghan National Army (ANA)?

Correction: the primary arms supplier for the ANA.

A tiny company with limited experience, operating from an unmarked office, led by a 22 year old on a felony charge. Hmm…yes they’ll do nicely. Incredible but true: that’s who the DOD awarded the contract. The compant concerned - AEY - is now under investigation for shipping out obsolete and sub-standard ammunition to the ANA.

Remember Custer Battles? Yes, we’ve been here before. Once again the dedication and sacrifice of those in the field is undermined by the incompetence and corruption of those back home

Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency

Kilcullen on Small Wars Journal

I didn’t notice this essay on Small Wars Journal until the link was sent to me by a student as I’ve been busy second marking all day (blah!). Kilcullen is always worth reading and this piece on roads and counterinsurgency is fascinating and thought-provoking. Go read it.

My view: much common sense here, particularly the recognition that much of Afghan rural tribal society views road construction with apprehension if not hostilty because experience tells them, a) they represent the encroachment of central authority and, b) while trucks with goods roll down them (which is good) so too do tanks and troop carriers (which is viscerally evident to Afghans). So I’m struck by the potentiality that either:

a) This is wrong, Afghans don’t think roadsd are a two-edged sword;

b) Kilcullen is wrong;

c) The theory is normally correct, but the political management which Kilcullen refers to has been so skillful that it has effectively been neutralised;

d) The theory was correct but has been rendered outdated by changing circumstances in the country over the past few years. If that’s the case, of course, the situation is arguably reversible, which is less positive;

e) The road-building project has worked in this particular area, but will not in fact enjoy general applicability; or,

f) some combination of the above.

My thoughts on this are strongly informed buy the student who forwarded the link who really ought to join this blog.

The insurgency there and here

Keeping Canada in Afghanistan - TIME

Kings’ PhD student Jay Hudson sent me a link to this article on Canada and Afghanistan by ex-BHO advisor Samantha Power. It’s actually quite interesting and makes some decent points:

The Afghan war had broad public support in Canada in 2002, but is now seen as one front in George W. Bush’s hugely unpopular “war on terror.” The discontent also has deeper roots. Since World War II, when Canada sent more than a million troops to fight (and lost 45,000 lives), the country has stuck mainly to U.N. peacekeeping missions–a practice invented (as Canadians are fond of reminding visitors) in 1956 by Canadian Foreign Minister Lester Pearson. Having taken few casualties in the past half-century, Canadians have found it jarring to watch flag-draped coffins return to what can feel like a very small country. A public that has long seen its military as innocently patrolling the peace has had trouble adjusting to its forces engaging in a full-fledged, unconventional war.

Perhaps most important, Canadians do not see the Afghan conflict as directly relevant to their own security. Al-Qaeda has never staged an attack on Canadian soil. And although 24 Canadians were among the victims of 9/11 and terrorists were planning to blow up two Air Canada flights in the British terrorism plot of 2006, Canadians worry that fighting alongside the U.S. will increase–not decrease–the risk that they will become a target.

The latter paragraph in the extract is quite important. In fact it applies more to European countries, perhaps especially Britain, than it does Canada. I think this is something that Americans generally do not quite get. For Europe the ‘insurgency’ is not just ‘over there’ it’s right here too. There are large Muslim audiences who are radicalized by the deluge of images, from Western media, of British troops in Aghanistan and Iraq. Some of them, in fact a worryingly large fraction of them if reports of the security services are to be believed, respond by mass-murdering their fellow citizens. If allied nations perceive themselves to be fighting as mere auxiliaries of the United States then naturally their calculations of cost-benefit of going to and staying in, for example, Afghanistan, at the risk of further alienating and heightening the danger of violence from  segments of their own population, are going to reflect that perception. The worst thing about the Bush administration, in my view, is that it is so loathed (not entirely justifiably) by the populations of its major allies that the tendency is to view the War on Terror as fundamentally America’s. This is strategically debilitating.

Coming back to Power, however, as Jay points out, her breezy suggestion of how to resolve the problem (NATO: Change the rules about funding) does rather suggest she really has no idea what those rules are.