The War in Afghanistan 2558 Days and Counting

To put Afghanistan in prospective. World War II lasted 2175 days counting from Sept 1, 1939 to Aug 15, 1945. Our Civil War was three days short of four years or 1456 days. The war in Afghanistan has lasted 2558 days counting from October 7, 2001. There is no end in sight, in a war where the casualty rate resembles our own Indian Wars of the 19th century, and with a cost that competes with the heady spending days of the Vietnam War.


Framing the debate about the strategy in Afghanistan, has been as difficult as trying to swat a mosquito with a straw. The level of frustration is reaching a point where it can no longer be tolerated. Our democracy deserves to know what is Afghanistan to our national interest, and is it worth the lives and monetary cost to do what other great powers have tried and failed, for the past 2500 years? Today, that goal appears to be to move Afghanistan's people, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, whatever the cost.

Below, are several posts that resonate with reason and offers insight beyond the stifling self-interest that flows from much of the media and our elected officials.

Zenpundit leads off with this post that he introduces this way.

Had a pleasant and interesting email conversation with the always thoughtful Dr. Bernard Finel of The American Security Project ( that link is the blog, here is the main site for the org). Dr. Finel has been blogging vigorously and very critically of late about COIN becoming conventional Beltway wisdom, a premise he does not accept nor believe to be a useful strategic posture for the United States. It was a good discussion and one that I would like the readers to join.

Read this important post in full:
On COIN and an Anti-COIN Counterrevolution?

This next post comes by way of Thomas Barnett who opens with these words from his World War Room column in Esquire.

On Monday, the latest video surfaced from Osama bin Laden's longtime deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, featuring his usual sermon on the state of the radical Islamic struggle against the United States. The gist: Al Qaeda is winning hands-down, natch. Trouble is, it's not.

The message wouldn't have attracted any more media attention than his thirty-or-so similar videos from the past three-and-a-half years except, of course, for his affirmation that a truce with President Obama is still on the table: If America is willing to "concede" radical Islam's "victory" throughout the greater Middle East by withdrawing all of its troops, then Al Qaeda will stop targeting Americans.
Some offer.

Read more: Why Al Qaeda Is Losing the War on Terror.

Clearly Barnett raises valid points that Galrahn of Information Dissemination picked up on and added his thoughtful analysis.

Here is a snippet of Galrahn's thoughts.

As Tom Barnett notes, "We're the ones winning this struggle across the board" and are doing so by connecting opportunity to places where opportunity has rarely existed in any form, much less on a global scale. While there is a hint in the truth that by fighting them over there we aren't fighting them over here, there is also a bit of truth in suggesting that fighting the soft war is more important, and achieves a more attainable containment strategy than fighting the hard war in those disconnected places ever will.

Read more: Thinking About Trends and Changes.


From the field in Afghanistan comes this report filed by Michael Yon. The photos are stunning and Michael's reports so real, you can taste the grit of the dust kicked up by the rotors.
Read more:
Pixie Dust

Michal also found the time to contribute this guest post at Steve Pressfield's It's The Tribes Stupid!

It can be tempting to downplay or ignore the influence of tribes in Afghan politics, and on the effects on our operations. We tried to ignore the great influence of the tribes during the war in Iraq, and not until 2006, fully three years into the war, did we effectively begin to work with tribes on an appreciable scale.
Tribes in Afghanistan: A Guest Post from Michael Yon

It's The Schools Stupid!

ADMIRAL MULLEN AND GREG MORTENSON

MORTENSEN OPENING A SCHOOL

AFGHAN GIRLS LEARNING.

The previous posts have been focusing on what is going wrong and whether Afghanistan is worth the effort of thousands of young Americans and the indirect support of the citizens in countries providing help to defeat the Taliban and give the next generation of Afghan children a better future than any of their preceding ancestors could imagine. Today a post by Thomas Barnett helped to answer part of that question, his comments below, introduce an article in the New York Times by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN.

Nice column.

Old but crude theme of mine: in many places, shrinking the Gap means liberating females and killing the hard line males who stand in the way.

Call it what you want, but it will be done because it's right--and we know it.

Liberating females, killing men who stand in the way

Friedman's column opens by saying the same thing that many Americans are thinking.

I confess, I find it hard to come to Afghanistan and not ask: Why are we here? Who cares about the Taliban? Al Qaeda is gone. And if its leaders come back, well, that’s why God created cruise missiles.

But every time I start writing that column, something stills my hand. This week it was something very powerful. I watched Greg Mortenson, the famed author of “Three Cups of Tea,” open one of his schools for girls in this remote Afghan village in the Hindu Kush mountains. I must say, after witnessing the delight in the faces of those little Afghan girls crowded three to a desk waiting to learn, I found it very hard to write, “Let’s just get out of here.”

When I read the article, I got the same sense to still my pen the next time I questioned the logic of is it worth it and how will it end? After you read this article, see if you can still convince yourself that we should walk away and see these children consigned to to a world where the value of a women is measured in her ability to produce the next generation of warriors and serve her master/husband. If this seems harsh, consider that all of the poverty stricken failed states we hear about today have a legacy built over centuries, of treating women as chattel. Teach a women to read, and she will pass that skill onto her child, boy or girl and the next generation will be more enlightened about their own self-worth and have the basic tools to make a difference in a complex world.

Read more and tell me we can just walk away.

Teacher, Can We Leave Now? No.

I am not being a bleeding heart, trying to correct the ills of an imperfect world. Personally, I think that it is an impossible task to ask one nation, the United States to carry this load. We have allies, but in the face of the mounting losses, even our staunches allies are faltering. 5 Reasons Why Half of Britain Wants Troops out of Afghanistan

.But other's more enlightened than I, have written about the subject of empowering women and their voices can be found in books like those below.

The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier

The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good by William Easterly

Great Powers: America and the World After Bush by Thomas P.M. Barnett

And with Nicholas Kristoff' who writes for the New York Times and blogs as Nick Kristoff blog

Finally Greg Mortenson, the builder of 179 schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. http://www.gregmortenson.com/

All these pens have written of the importance of empowering women. This is not some women's lib rant, by a group of "girly men." These four voices along with Tom Friedman, Admiral Mullen and Greg Mortenson understand why empowering women will lead to a more connected and ultimately a safer world for everyone.

Tell Me How This Ends, Afghan Redux

Afghanistan continues to command our attention as it begins to resemble Iraq in 2006. The tactics have turned to roadside bombs that killed American and coalition soldiers. The bloodiest month of the war in Afghanistan.

Small Wars Journal has up three related reports on the war in Afghanistan.

Time to Move on from Hearts and Minds

A post by brigadier Justin Kelly who questions the conventional wisdom that defeating insurgencies is all about winning Hearts and Minds.

His conclusion in part.

The twin propositions that “there is no military solution” to insurgencies and that “hearts and minds” approaches are the only the way forward are based mostly on wishful thinking. Fighting is unattractive to liberal democracies while good deeds put a song in our hearts. All western countries would rather build a school than raze a village. Unfortunately, building schools is only marginally useful in creating an acceptable peace. The true worth of such actions is only realised after the war—in extending and solidifying a peace that can, invariably, only be achieved by the application of force.

A hearts and minds approach represents a strategy of exhaustion and typically engages one of the insurgent’s principal strengths—time. For the West, strategic exhaustion is a critical vulnerability: “if you”re not winning, you”re losing”. In any event a “heart’s and minds” approach cannot provide security in the first instance, and can’t be fully realised until there is security.

And This Week at War, No. 24 by Robert Haddick

Haddick focuses on the major thrust by 5000 U.S. Marines into southern Helmand province and the very real issue of the lack of support by the ANA.

A week into of the operation, there are now questions about when those Afghan forces, so vital to Nicholson’s planning, will arrive. In an interview with the Pentagon press corps, the brigadier general said that only 650 Afghan soldiers have accompanied the Marines into south Helmand. “I mean, I'm not going to sugarcoat it,” said Nicholson. “The fact of the matter is, I -- we don't have enough Afghan forces, and I'd like more.” Nicholson could not give a specific answer when asked when more might be on the way.

And in response to the shortage of trained Afghanistan forces.

McChrystal to Seek Expansion of Afghan Forces by Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the newly arrived top commander in Afghanistan, has concluded that Afghan security forces will have to expand far beyond currently planned levels if President Obama's strategy for winning the war there is to succeed, according to senior military officials.
Such an expansion would require additional billions beyond the $7.5 billion the administration has budgeted annually to build up the Afghan army and police over the next several years, and the likely deployment of thousands more US troops as trainers and advisers, officials said.

Adding additional prospective to McChrystal's request to expand the Afghan Army is this recent article by C. J. CHIVERS in the New York Times.

It begins.

The Afghan foot patrol descended a mountain and slipped through a canyon. Then things went wrong. One Afghan soldier insulted another. And there, exposed on dangerous ground, a scuffle erupted.

The soldiers turned on each other with shoves, punches and kicks. One swung an ammunition can in a slow-motion haymaker. The patrol had already been hapless: a display of errant marksmanship, dud ammunition and lackluster technique.

“For months I’ve been telling everyone how proud I am of you,” seethed an American captain, yanking the Afghans apart. “Today you embarrassed me.”

The Obama administration has put a priority on expanding the size and abilities of Afghanistan’s security forces, first to help fight an expanding war and eventually to allow the Pentagon to draw down its troops. The task was inherited from the Bush administration, and the United States has helped to field roughly 170,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers in units created from scratch. In plans now under review, these numbers could double.

Read more:

Erratic Afghan Forces Pose Challenge to U.S. Goals

The smaller trickle of blood and the unnoticed cha-ching of the cost to our treasury has kept Afghanistan out of the minds of most Americans. The uneducated or indoctrinated believe that we only need to bring all the troops home and our domestic and economic problems will be cured as if our elected officials will be given some magic wand to grant every entitlement. Afghanistan will consume our atttention for longer than any of us will desire. The question asked by General Pretraus of Rick Atkinson during the Iraq invasion in 2003 is still in play. "Tell me how this ends."

Afghanistan and Failed States

Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions has a couple of timely posts that call attention to the broken parts of our world. The first addresses the need for the core states of the world to act in concert to address the failing and failed states of the world.

Steve begins:

The Economist, in a recent International section article, asserted that "in almost any discussion of world affairs, there is one thing on which doves and hawks invariably agree: much more needs to be done to shore up states that are failing, in a state of collapse, or so poor that they are heading in that direction" ["Fixing a Broken World," 31 January 2009 print edition]. Since Development-in-a-Box™ is one of Enterra Solutions' core offerings, development is a topic I frequently address in this blog [see, for example, my posts entitled Dealing with Failed States, More on Dealing with Failed States, and Fixing Fragile States]. As an opening to its article, The Economist claims that "the planet's most wretched places are not always the most dangerous." That shouldn't come as too great a surprise since the residents of some of those countries are so poor that they spend nearly every waking moment just trying to stay alive.

Drawing this quote from the article, Steve shows the correlation to observations made by his associate Tom Barnett.

A rather precise taxonomy is offered by Robert Cooper, a British diplomat and Eurocrat, in his book, 'The Breaking of Nations'. He splits the world into three zones: Hobbesian or 'pre-modern' regions of chaos; areas ruled effectively by modern nation-states; and zones of 'postmodern' co-operation where national sovereignty is being voluntarily dissolved, as in the European Union. In his view, chaos in critical parts of the world must be watched carefully. 'It was not the well-organised Persian Empire that brought about the fall of Rome, but the barbarians,' he writes."

You might recognize some similarities between Cooper's taxonomy and Tom Barnett's, my colleague at Enterra Solutions. Tom's Core States comprise Cooper's modern and post-modern states and his Gap States comprise Cooper's pre-modern or Hobbesian states. Between the two, Tom places Seam States, which are often the places exploited by criminal and terrorist organizations as gateways into the developed world. Tom believes that diplomacy is the only security tool necessary for working with the Core, but in the Gap, a capable military force (a Leviathan force) is also a necessary part of the kit. Between the extremes of diplomacy and conflict, Tom recommends using a nation-building force (a System Admin Force) to help Gap countries along the path to prosperity. He was preaching his gospel of "shrinking the Gap" long before it was adopted by the U.S. or the EU. The Economist's article provides a brief history of why thinking changed.

This post is well worth the time taken to read and understand that ignoring these problems will eventually grow like a pandemic to engulf the functioning states of the world.

Read more:

Fixing a Broken World

Steve turns to the dean of American diplomats, Henry Kissinger who as DeAngelis notes is still making grand strategic observations at the ripe age of 86. In this post, Kissinger offers sage advice for President Obama and America on the treacherous course in Afghanistan.

Henry Kissinger, who has labored in academia's ivory towers as well as Foggy Bottom's government offices, remains, at age 86, keenly interested in world events and U.S. responses to them. Never shy to express his opinions, Dr. Kissinger offers up his views on the war in Afghanistan for consideration by the Obama administration ["A Strategy for Afghanistan," Washington Post, 26 February 2009]. As one might expect, Dr. Kissinger is not happy with the direction the war is heading; otherwise, he would have likely have remained silent. He writes:

"The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point. The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally -- threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world's third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk."

The post ends with these cautious words aimed at both the President, but the oposition party.

Dr. Kissinger suggests that the Obama administration should not count on much help from outside the region (especially from America's NATO allies). Conflict in the Middle East remains unpopular in Europe and Kissinger doesn't believe that President Obama's popularity will change that sentiment. He is more sanguine that Europe would be willing to help rebuild Afghanistan should the security situation there be stabilized. Kissinger concludes his op-ed piece with these words: "Whatever strategy [President Obama's] team selects needs to be pursued with determination. It is not possible to hedge against failure by half-hearted execution." I hope that members of Kissinger's own party heed his words as well as the administration.

Read more: Kissinger on Afghanistan

Thomas Ricks Wanat Battle: Part (V) Underestimating the Threat

Battle of Little Big Horn, 1876

Clark Field, Dec 8, 1941

Isandlwana, 1879

The last stand of the survivors of Her Majesty's 44th Foot at Gandamak, 13, January 1842

Firefight somewhere in Afghanistan, 2008

In a previous post, After Action Report: Wanat Aftghanistan, I linked the ongoing reports over at Tom Ricks Foreign Policy Blog, where Rick's details the investigation of what went wrong last July in Eastern Afghanistan at the village of Wanat, where a small force of American soldiers held out against overwhelming odds.

In part (5) of this series, Ricks continues his analysis.

By this point, we've seen that the company commander, the platoon leader, and the platoon sergeant all had misgivings about the deadly Wanat mission in eastern Afghanistan last summer. They feared that the enemy had been tipped off, that the mission was inconsistent with counterinsurgency doctrine, that they didn't have enough people to execute it properly, that it was coming too near the end of their unit's deployment, and the commanders and staff above them were distracted by the turnover to the replacement unit.

Read more:

Inside an Afghan battle gone wrong (V): Neglecting the misgivings of those given the mission.

What troubles me is how so many charged with sending these men, could have been so blind to the obvious. Placing a unit in what amounts to a box canyon, view, with no observation posts, high enough to see the enemy's approach borders on gross incompetence and neglect. I must note that if this were the Navy, and a Captain had run his ship on a sandbar, he would have already been relieved and a court of inquiry would have been convened to determine if it warrants a court martial.

"1st LT Brostrom expressed concerns to me about the number of men he was taking with him for the mission. . . . and that he was also concerned about the terrain surrounding the area. When I asked him about the terrain he said it was like Bella [another outpost], but he would have no OPs [observation posts] up above him."sworn statement from Lt Bostrom's best friend.

When those men deployed to Wanat, these words may have been both comforting and prophetic.

King James Bible Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

As someone who saw the same kind of mistakes being made in another war decades ago. I am deeply troubled that those charged with leading, have as Ricks distinctly observes with this lesson, let hubris, trump good soldiering.

The lesson: Yes, commanders need to show a spirit of confidence. But they shouldn't let that "can-do" spirit prevent them from taking on and weighing the honest doubts of those being sent on the mission. That doesn't appear to have happened here.

The "can-do" spirit and over confidence, led Custer to misread Sitting Bull, Custer'sLast Stand; MacArthur, Japanese airpower, MacArthur's Failures in the Philippines; Chelmsford, the Zulu warriors, Battle of Isandlwana. And from an earlier time in Afghanistan, General Elphinstone and the Ghilzai tribesmen, Kabul and Gandamak.

Granted, the battle of Wanat, is a pimple on an elephant's ass compared to the above failures in planning for the threat. But, consider this, in 1868 during the Battle of Washita River, Custer was accused of failing to come to the aid of Major Joel Elliott, who with 19 men, had ridden off a short distance and were attacked. Custer left the detachment dead on the battlefield, to be retrieved in the spring. Custer never was able to erase the stain from the memory of those he continued to lead.

The Army needs to shine a very private spotlight on the judgement of those charged with deploying these men, so that in the future, commanders rely on more than a "can-do" attitude to accomplish a mission, that in hindsight, looks like a recipe for disaster.

I do not post this to ignite a controversy, I have loved the United State Army from the first time I donned the uniform. During my service, including Vietnam and the year of discord (1968) as federal troops were deployed to major American cities, I sensed the responsibility that an army fielded by a democracy carries. To my last breath I will carry the knowledge that the common soldier wants to do his best, and is willing to sacrifice their life for their country and their fellow soldiers. It is critical beyond measure that they deserve the best in leadership. In reviewing what went wrong at Wanat, and adding comment, I hope to add my voice and those who visit this blog and to those of Thomas Ricks and abu mugqawama who have questioned the logic of sending these men into an impossible situation.

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In a war such as this, perception is everything. Note, that we abandoned the valley and now only fly predators, like deadly hawks seeking prey, over a village now totally committed to the Taliban.

UPDATE:

This report about Counterinsurgency in Vietnam by SWJ Editors is worth the read. The smell of Vietnam's jungle is beginning to waff from the rocks of Afghanistan.

Reads of the Week.

Barak Obama's Administration picks

Burned NATO trucks Pakistan

First Vietnamese-American Congressmen Joseph Cao, Louisiana

Leading off this week is this post from Zenpundit, The Elite as a Tribe about President-elect Obama's appointment.

A taste of Mark's comments.

I’m not unhappy with Obama’s appointments, finding them so far to be well qualified and I’ll offer high praise for Obama’s selection of General Jones and Secretary Gates. The Small Wars/COIN bloggers are jumping for joy and the national security bloggers, along with the conservative political bloggers, should be pleased; the next Defense Secretary or Secretary of State might easily have been Anthony Lake. It’s a more conservative national security group than any time during the Clinton administration. Count your blessings folks.

What strikes me as amusing though is the entirely visceral, euphorically emotive and almost tribal “he’s one of us” support from the elite for the President-elect. Reactions that run against the supposedly cerebral and “reality based” pretensions of empiricism and skepticism for which they make a claim but seldom practice because most of them are highly-trained, vertical thinking, experts.

No sooner had Mark commented on the selection of so many academic elites to roles in government, than he posted this, The Chicago Way is Incompatible with Gravitas.

I think most people familiar with Illinois politics expected that eventually some kind of Chicago landmine was going to go off under President-elect Barack Obama - it’s just that few people expected it might happen before the 20th of January.

www.stratfor.com files another report on the Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis.

It begins:

In an interview published this Sunday in The New York Times, we laid out a potential scenario for the current Indo-Pakistani crisis. We began with an Indian strike on Pakistan, precipitating a withdrawal of Pakistani troops from the Afghan border, resulting in intensified Taliban activity along the border and a deterioration in the U.S. position in Afghanistan, all culminating in an emboldened Iran.

The scenario is not unlikely, assuming India chooses to strike.Our argument that India is likely to strike focused, among other points, on the weakness of the current Indian government and how it is likely to fall under pressure from the opposition and the public if it does not act decisively. An unnamed Turkish diplomat involved in trying to mediate the dispute has argued that saving a government is not a good reason to go to war. That is a good argument, except that in this case, not saving the government is unlikely to prevent a war, either.

Related to a post last month, What the ----- People! part of which, was about the Taliban ambushing a supply convoy in the Kyber Pass and stealing humvees destined for NATO forces in Afghanistan. I thought that embarrassment would spur commanders to improve their supply chain security. But I was wrong.

Now, two reports of attacks on the supply chain reflect out far out of sync things have gotten in Pakistan.

Trucks Torched at Pakistan Terminal Used for NATO - Associated Press

And the ink was not even dry on the story above when this report "hits the fan."

Second Attack on NATO Trucks in Peshawar - The Times

Suspected Islamist militants in northern Pakistan set fire to 100 vehicles and other supplies for US and Nato forces in Afghanistan in the early hours of yesterday morning in the second such raid in as many days.

Witnesses and local officials said that several militants attacked a freight terminal on the outskirts of Peshawar, setting fire to several dozen containers and military vehicles.

“The militants came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them on fire,” said Mohammad Zaman, a guard at the terminal on the Peshawar ring road. “They told us they would not harm us but they asked us not to work for the Americans,” he said.

Some local officials said that about 50 containers were destroyed, while others said the attackers set nearly 100 vehicles alight including Jeeps and 20 supply trucks.

Finally, this story from Louisiana. A state that a few decades ago has a reputation for political corruption and segregationist policies. This story mirrors the recent election of Barak Obama and Governor Bobby Jindal. The United States is a nation of immigrants who become Americans with each wave adding to our strength and innovation.

GOP Finds an Unlikely New Hero in Louisiana (By Paul Kane)

Less than 24 hours after his upset defeat of a longtime Democratic congressman from New Orleans, Anh "Joseph" Cao found the weight of the entire Republican Party resting on his diminutive shoulders.

Cao, 41, ran as a reform-minded conservative against Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.), a nine-term incumbent who won reelection in 2006 despite widespread publicity about the FBI finding $90,000 in his freezer during a 2005 raid on his home. Cao, the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, plans to take a victory lap through Washington this week.