The Strategist

History moves in cycles - FOB Keating and the Siege of Malakand

Forward Operating Base Keating, March 2007 (photo: Sgt Amber Robinson).

Tom Ricks has posted a first hand account of the FOB Keating fight in Nuristan (h/t Armchair Generalist). On 3 October, eight American and two Afghan soldiers were killed when a Taliban force launched a surprise attack against the isolated post.

As you can see in the photo (and in these pictures), the post was situated at the bottom of a ravine. It was overlooked on three sides by cliffs. As a result the post was exposed to frequent hostile fire and was vulnerable to a surprise assault.

This incident reminded me of the Malakand siege, on the Northwest Frontier in 1897. A British garrison held the Malakand pass, which is a key route between the Punjab and the Swat Valley (at that time the Northwest Frontier was part of the British Raj; now it is in Pakistan). From 26 July to 2 August the garrison was besieged by a large force of Pashtun tribesmen, but held out until a relief force reached it. During the siege 173 British and Indian officers and soldiers were killed or wounded.

Winston Churchill wrote an account of the Malakand siege, and the subsequent punitive expedition into the Swat and Bajaur - The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898). Churchill, who served on the expedition, described the situation of the Malakand garrison like this...

"The Malakand is like a great cup, of which the rim is broken into numerous clefts and jagged points. At the bottom of this cup was the 'crater' camp...

...the Malakand South Camp was an impossible place to put troops in. It was easy of access. It was cramped and commanded by neighbouring heights....

...the second encampment was close under the north outer edge of the cup....As a military position it, also, was radically bad. It was everywhere commanded, and surrounded by ravines and nullahs, which made it easy for an enemy to get in, and difficult for troops to get out."

Sound familiar?

There's no "moral of the story" here. But once again I'm struck how history moves in cycles. Over a century on from Malakand, another western imperial power finds itself in the Hindu Kush, fighting a frontier war against the same people and encountering similar problems.

Hail the Raj! Brits to train Pakistan's Frontier Corps

There's something gloriously anachronistic about this story. Britain is building a training camp in Pakistan's Balochistan province to instruct the paramilitary Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency.

Talk about back to the future. In 1907, during the Raj's heyday, the British formed the Frontier Corps by amalgamating irregular frontier levies like the Khyber Rifles, the Chitral Scouts and the Zhob Militia. These levies comprised local fighters led by British officers: the Kyyber Rifles, for instance, recruited Afridi tribesmen (Pashtuns). The British used the Corps to police the Northwest Frontier and hold sway over the autonomous tribes along the Afghanistan border. 

After independence in 1947, the Pakistan government expanded the Frontier Corps - it is now some 80,000 strong. The Corps operates in Pakistan's tribal agencies and Balochistan. Its main role is law enforcement and border security, although it has carried out military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Balochistan initiative is part of a joint Pakistan, US and British programme to modernize and strengthen the Frontier Corps. The aim is to make the Corps more effective in fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda and securing the border with Afghanistan. 

This is smart thinking, on two counts.

While some units are in poor condition, the Frontier Corps is organized, accountable to government, has martial traditions, and comprises locals who know the peoples, languages, customs, affairs and terrain of the frontier.

And whatever strategy plays out in Afghanistan, having a well-trained and equipped Frontier Corps in place is one key way of denying the Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuary in the tribal agencies.

Wrong war, wrong enemy: time for Obama to call it quits

I sense that some bad shit is about to go down...

"President Obama is prepared to accept some Taleban involvement in Afghanistan’s political future and is unlikely to favour a large influx of new American troops being demanded by his ground commander..."

Brace yourselves for howls of "traitor", "communist" and "Islamo-facist lover" from the rabid American far-right.

Such bile shouldn't hide the fact that this approach makes perfect sense. Why?

First up, it was crazy for the West to pick a fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It's crazy to keep fighting them. General McChrystal's plan - more troops to fight a protracted counterinsurgency against, yep, the guys the West didn't need to fight - is like building a bloody expensive road to nowhere. Sort of like Iraq, really.

And it clears the way for the West to concentrate on the real enemy, al-Qaeda, with a new strategy which is practical, achievable, affordable and proportionate to the threat. UAV strikes seem to be having a big impact on al-Qaeda's ability to operate. It makes sense to press home the advantage, rather than keep fighting the wrong war against the wrong enemy.

"Pull ya head in" - arguing the Afghan strategy

I haven't closely followed the Afghanistan strategy debate in Washington DC. So I'm not sure of the debate's internal dynamic. But check out the interview with US National Security Advisor General James Jones (h/t Global Dashboard). Am I right in assuming that Jones told General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, to pull his head in?

"We have a strategy. What General McChrystal has done is presented his opinion, is presenting his opinion, of what he thinks his role within that strategy is."

And...

"this is what we going to tear apart and look at and consider General McChrystal's input. The President should be presented with options, not just one fait accompli."

Top politicians, officials and commanders used to debate war strategy behind closed doors. The Jones interview is interesting in that it highlights how strategy is now being debated more openly. We, the public, are not privy to the detailed discussion, but we can get a sense of the main points of argument, and where the debate is heading.

   

T E Lawrence, and leadership as influence

Adam Elkus observed that in counterinsurgency "everyone and their brother wants to be Lawrence of Arabia with the tribes, forgetting of course that Lawrence was an insurgent".

People also forget that Lawrence saw himself, and served as, an adviser to Feisal and other leaders of the Arab Revolt 1916-18. Not the great white commander-in-chief, not the puppet master.

Liddell Hart wrote that Lawrence had the gift of working through men, not standing over them*. To this astute observation I'd add that Lawrence was an influence par excellence.

The influence Lawrence exerted wasn't the shallow kind that sees the smooth talker shine in job interviews. It wasn't the unctuous patter of the used car salesman. Lawrence achieved great things because he was deeply interested in people, because he sought to understand them on their own terms, and because he worked to meld what he wanted with what they wanted in pursuit of a common goal.

* Basil Liddell Hart, T E Lawrence in Arabia and After (1934).

Russia, and why it's hard to win counterinsurgencies

This article, about the renewed insurgency by Islamic radicals in Russia's North Caucasus region, highlights how hard it is for states to "win" counterinsurgencies. And how, by assessing the situation over a short time frame, we fool ourselves into thinking that things are over.

Through brute force, a state might end one phase of conflict. But old grievances remain, new ones are added, and both are sharpened by brutal repression and humiliation. Lack of jobs means that young people have plenty of time and energy to forment revolt. If the ideas that animated earlier phases of insurgency have played out, new ideas, like radical creeds linked to operational tactics that worked elsewhere (e.g., suicide bombing, roadside IEDs), fill the void and spark further insurrection.

In these situations, struggle may also morph into new forms. As a nascent form of conflict, cyber-warfare seems ripe for exploitation by insurgents. There may be others. 

Caught my eye - Taliban fighters and Colombian drug money

• In the mountains of south-east Afghanistan, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spends time with Taliban fighters loyal to Jalaluddin Haqqani. Abdul-Ahad was worried about US drone attacks; the Taliban seemed unfazed.

• More on Afghanistan - Seth Jones's op-ed in the WSJ (h/t Zenpundit), on how the US can win the war by "going local", generates a critique at Ghosts of Alexander and a lively debate at Registan between Froust and readers, including "Njarl" who has just come back from 15 months in Afghanistan.

• Amazing story of some Colombian soldiers who found US $150 million of drug money stashed in the jungle. They turned it over to the authorities, right? Well, not exactly...

• Not that long ago the IEA rubbished the idea of peak oil. Now it's sounding the alarm about the end of global oil supplies.

• I knew there was a good reason for having a cuppa (Earl Grey or English Breakfast) before work - drinking tea helps deal with crises.

Caught my eye ... Nigerian scammers and "dastardly operations"

Here are some posts, articles and press releases that caught my eye this week...

• The Guardian profiles woman cops gunning for drug traffickers in Rio's favelas. Inspector De Mello: "I enjoy operations. When we don't have them I feel unmotivated. Today I feel professionally satisfied."

• Dean at Travels with Shiloh rips into Steven Pressfield's vids on tribes in Afghanistan. I don't know if Pressfield's spent time in Afghanistan, but Dean has. When he says that Pressfield's videos are "rife with over simplifications and generalities", I sit up and take note.

• Press release from the Columbia FBI on the latest Nigerian scam (h/t Bruce Schneier). What's interesting about this scam is how the tactics of the Nigerians are changing and evolving.

• Whoever claimed that the only benefit of organic food is that it's "healthier"? I eat organic food because it hasn't been drenched in herbicides and pesticides.

• Meanwhile in Pyongyang, Rodong Simnun, aka the "Newspaper of the Workers", denounces the imperialists and their puppets for "intensifying the dastardly operations for ideological and cultural poisoning".

First we take Peshawar...

David Kilcullen on the next big fight (via The Daily Dish):

"For Britons and Americans watching the hard-fought progress of our Coalition troops in Helmand, the harsh reality is that Nato could do everything right in Afghanistan and still lose the broader regional campaign against terrorism if Pakistan fails to contain its internal militants.

This makes the fight in Pakistan, and finding means to help Pakistanis help themselves, the most important battle in the world."

Hmmmm. The US and Britain have no clear idea about objectives, strategy and resources for the Afghan War. Is Kilcullen suggesting that as well the West gets embroiled in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province and the tribal agencies? What comes after that? Balochistan, Kashmir?

The title of Kilcullen's piece suggests that he seeks inspiration from George Curzon's experience as Viceroy of India (1899-1905). If there are lessons to be drawn from British imperial experience on the Raj's frontier in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it's these: know your limits, don't overextend, leave tribal peoples to govern themselves, and if you must enter their territory, don't stick around long.

Trend watch: insurgent attacks in Afghanistan

From The Economist...

Change of strategy needed in Afghanistan

If Jeff is right about Iraq - "the US has defeated the insurgency there" - then it's a pyrrhic victory. Where are the great benefits that offset the terrible costs of the invasion and insurgency?

This is my basic problem with the counterinsurgency/nation-building approach, advocated by Kilcullen, Nagl and other dreamers, which is being rolled out in Afghanistan. It's ruinously expensive and it's a grossly disproportionate response to fairly straightforward problems.

Take Afghanistan. We want to prevent al-Qaeda using Afghanistan as a base, right? So why try to secure this country - a remote and harsh landscape of deserts, mountains, fiercely independent tribes, and a weak and corrupt government - through protracted counterinsurgency? And why battle against the tough and fanatical Taliban, a movement that the west didn't need to pick a fight with in the first place?

How about ignoring the Taliban, and grandiose plans of nation-building, and concentrating on al-Qaeda? Set up one or two fortified fire bases in strategic locations. From there carry out precision strikes against terrorist leaders and infrastructure using special forces, UAV attack drones, and local mercenaries. More ambitiously, run a divide and rule strategy from the base areas, sowing discord between terrorists and their tribal allies.

This approach would play to Western war fighting strengths, like air power and high technology. It would minimize friendly casualties - no more soldiers getting blown up by roadside IEDs while patrolling the countryside. And if the Taliban were stupid enough to attack the fire bases, they'd be annihilated by concentrated firepower. Defence remains the stronger form of war, after all.

Photo: Cherie A Thurlby, CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Afghanistan, www.army.mil

Afghanistan: on the horns of a dilemma

Putting your enemy on the horns of a dilemma is one of the hallmarks of great strategy, according to British military thinker Basil Liddell Hart.

This is one way of interpreting the situation in Afghanistan. The Coalition is on the horns of a dilemma. To withdraw from Afghanistan now would throw away all the efforts of the last eight years and leave the weak Kabul government to fall to the resurgent Taliban. To stay in Afghanistan means committing to a protracted and costly counterinsurgency and nation-building campaign where the odds of success are at best uncertain.

When you're on the horns of a dilemma, paralysis, or ineffectual half-measures, often result. Either way, defeat comes, sooner or later. This is why the west should pull out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Or get in there boots and all. If Afghanistan really is the "important and strategic country" that many western politicians make it out to be, then the west needs to dramatically boost its military and civil commitment.

But are there viable "have your cake and eat it too" options? Such as running a divide and rule policy from a nearby friendly country (perhaps India) - like the Raj and its 19th century strategy of playing off one frontier tribe against another. Or securing several enclaves in Afghanistan and from there striking the camps, training grounds and supply routes of takfiri terrorists and drug smugglers - like a mirror image of guerrilla sanctuaries or Maoist base areas.

"Is Afghanistan an important and strategic country?" Part 2

This is probably the clearest expression of western strategic aims in Afghanistan that I've read:

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown:

"...three quarters of the most serious plots against the UK have links into these mountains. So our purpose is clear: to prevent terrorism coming to the streets of Britain.

If, in Afghanistan, extremists return to power and once again provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda, then the same threat of global terrorism arises.

So this is a fight to clear terrorist networks from Afghanistan and Pakistan, to support the elected governments in both countries against the Taleban, to tackle the heroin trade which funds terrorism and the insurgency, and to build longer term stability."

Brown's statement goes a long way towards answering a question that I asked a while ago, about why Afghanistan should be regarded as "an important and strategic country for the west".

But it doesn't address the concern that the west's counterinsurgency campaign and nation-building effort is not sustainable. Or whether the Coalition is actually winning the fight against the Taliban, as Brown claims.

And you thought Maoism was dead...

New post here at Global Dashboard - "like evangelical Christianity, Maoism is going to have a big future in violent and poor places in the 21st century". Prompted by this post at India's Forgotten War.

Imagining the 21st century - "gangland" cities (2)

In the 21st century most of us will live in cities, of one sort or another. Here are some ideas about the possible evolution of cityscapes.

Those who live in the 21st century's city-states, whether in Asia, Europe or the Americas, will be the lucky ones. In the Third World, sprawling, polluted and anarchic slum megacities will continue to grow. No amount of "development aid", "economic growth" or utopian dreaming is going to change that trajectory.

In the west, former industrial cities of the 19th and 20th centuries will be gradually abandoned. Some will shrink into smaller and more viable hubs, abandoning the suburbs to nature, and if they're lucky becoming absorbed in the hinterland of a prosperous city-state. Others will become "ganglands", controlled and fought over by cash-strapped local authorities and cashed-up crime cartels. In the worst cases, think Roman Britain after the legions pulled out in 410AD and the barbarians moved in.

There could be transitional phases lasting decades in which westerners fight insurgencies not in far-flung places like Afghanistan, but much closer to home, in decaying cities, marches between city-states and ganglands, and frontier zones like the American/Mexican border and the Balkans. Gangland cities will provide criminals with secure bases for making, storing and trafficking drugs, guns and other illegal materials. Global terrorists and criminals will find sanctuary there.

Some gangland cities might be highly organized and prosperous, ruled by powerful cartel lords, and networked with gangs in other cities. Others will be a violent, poverty-stricken and fragmented mess where power flows and ebbs between a succession of petty tyrants. For city-states and national governments, the ganglands will constitute their greatest security threat.

Many cities will be stuck somewhere between city-states and ganglands. Generally prosperous cities, like London or Vancouver, will have poor slums and violent no-go areas. Generally poor and violent cities - Johannesburg is a contemporary example - may have wealthy and heavily fortified enclaves, protected by private mercenary companies.

For decaying cities, "Roman Britain" scenarios are not inevitable. As I've written before, in some places municipal authorities and national governments, working with local communities, may retain or regain control from gangs by using counterinsurgency practices and urban regeneration programmes.

>> Imagining the 21st century series

"Global COIN campaign" a crazy idea

Check out the Armchair Generalist's post on Andrew Bacevich's takedown of Andrew Exum at a recent conference on American security and foreign policy...

"I admit I am a big Bacevich fan, and it's arguments such as his - in less than ten minutes, he outlines everything that is wrong with the past and current [Afghanistan - Pakistan] strategies - that win me over."

John Nagl's idea of a global counterinsurgency campaign must be a contender for the silliest idea to emerge since the "War on Terror". There are basic unanswered questions, like...

• what would be the aim of a global COIN campaign?

• is that aim realistic and achievable?

• how would the US pay for it?

• what would be the opportunity costs (i.e., the things that could otherwise be usefully done with the money)?

Applying Kilcullen's ideas to urban regeneration

As I mentioned several weeks ago, I've recently read David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla. Here's a post I wrote at Global Dashboard which adapts one of Kilcullen's counterinsurgency concepts to urban regeneration and countering criminal gangs in rundown western cities.

Imagining the 21st century: conflict

"Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal," wrote Arthur Schopenhauer, "a beast of prey which will pounce upon a weaker neighbour as soon as he notices his existence."* It's obvious to all but the most fervent peaceniks that violence and conflict will shape the course of the 21st century. But what sort of conflict will we see?

Some analysts talk about "resource wars" - wars between states for control over increasingly scarce natural resources like oil, water, minerals, arable land, food, timber. I'm trying to think of a better term for describing this phenomena, because resources doesn't encompass the idea that people will also fight for...

• position: territory that determines access to strategic resources and infrastructure, e.g., an oilfield, a pipeline, a grid;

• people: the leadership and allegiance of a population;

• loot: wealth to be gained from exploiting or taxing a resource, either legally or illegally, e.g., rainforest timber, cocaine.

Clearly, these categories are not mutually exclusive. And these wars will not be fought only between states. They'll involve state v non-state groups (a tribe, a crime cartel, an insurgent network, a terrorist group, a private military company, a corporation), and non-state groups v other non-state groups. Sometimes the identity of protagonists will be cloaked as proxies are used to do the dirty work.

Arguably, counterinsurgency doctrine is a western approach to this type of conflict - it's a doctrine of control. The ideas being worked through by Petraeus, Kilcullen, Nagl and others will become a system that westerners will use to control resources, land, positions and populations. You can see this at work in Afghanistan, where counterinsurgency doctrine is a means to control territory and population, thereby denying takfiri terrorists a sanctuary and base area for launching attacks on the west.

But counterinsurgency is cumbersome, consumes a great deal of time, effort and money, and doesn't guarantee long-term success. Others, emulating the Russians in Chechnya, or the Sri Lankans in their war against the Tamil Tigers, will stick to tried, trusted and brutal means of suppression and control.

* "On Ethnics", in Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (transl. R J Hollingdale, 1970).

Counter-gang strategy

I love a gritty internet takedown. At Travels with Shiloh, Dean tears apart a Small Wars Journal article by John P Sullivan on 'criminal insurgencies and gangs'...

Read the rest at Global Dashboard, where I'm guest blogging.

Sunday reflection: on "The Accidental Guerrilla"

The navigator

I've got a rotten cold, so last night I went to bed early with a copy of David Kilcullen's The Accidental Guerrilla. Several hours later I finally went to sleep, after finishing off the evening with some light reading - a skip through Frederick Forsyth's classic thriller The Odessa File.

Kilcullen's book is a study of modern guerrilla (or 'hybrid') warfare, and how to deal with it. It draws on Kilcullen's extensive practical and theoretical experience as an Australian army officer, counterinsurgency advisor to the US government, and conflict ethnographer (his doctorate from the University of New South Wales looked at the impact of guerrilla warfare on non-state political systems in traditional societies).

I'll fully review this book when I've finished it (see Zenpundit for another take on Kilcullen). But for now you may be interested in Kilcullen's reflection on the Iraq War. "The war," Kilcullen writes, "in grand-strategic terms, was a deeply misguided and counterproductive undertaking, an extremely severe strategic error, and a model of exactly how not to do business." He considers that the "Surge" of 2007, which focused on securing and splitting the Iraqi population from the insurgents, was a way of saving "ourselves from some of the more egregious consequences of a bad decision to invade Iraq in 2003".

This is one of the things I like about Kilcullen, and one of the things that's valuable about this book. Kilcullen is his own man, not afraid to call a spade a spade and make life uncomfortable for the elites.

By the way, the picture (another lunchtime shot) shows the Kupe group statue at Taranaki St Wharf, Wellington. The three figures are Kupe, the legendary Polynesian navigator, who's said to have discovered New Zealand, his wife Te Aparangi, and the tohunga (priest) Pekahourangi.

Sri Lanka - is the government's victory decisive?

What will happen to the Sri Lankan Tamils' struggle for independence, now that the LTTE has been crushed?

Shlok Vaidya thinks that "the same fight will be rebooted in another form. If current global trends are any indication, it will be faceless, it will be small and agile, and its structure will almost be flat." In an comment on this post, Guy made a similar point:

"The number of Tamils in camps is enormous whilst Tamil fundraising and criminal organisations remain global (I met some in London yesterday on the Bakerloo line) and the worry is that this will produce a victory like that of the Israelis in 1948 or the first Russian assault into Afghanistan in 1979 (?) where large camps full of civilians are left to fester and become the locus for new enemies to grow, equip and train."

Could be. But here's something else to consider. What say the Sri Lankan government's victory really is decisive, and that any further resistance is desultory, inconsequential and eventually peters out without anyone really noticing? Like in Malaysia, where a handful of Chinese communist guerrillas clung on in the jungle for 20 odd years after the Emergency ended in 1960. Or Northern Ireland, where a small band of extremist republicans carry out sporadic attacks, despite the fact that virtually everyone else has moved on.

As I mentioned before, much will depend on Colombo's willingness to use its military victory to reach a fair political settlement with the Tamils, rebuild the economy, and get people out of camps and into jobs.

Tuesday reflection - Sri Lankan war a strange phenomenon

The Sri Lankan government's crushing military defeat of the Tamil Tigers is a strange phenomenon - a sudden and seemingly decisive military end to a long-running insurgency.

This goes against the grain of current counterinsurgency thinking and practice. Campaigns are seen as fundamentally political struggles. Force is but one subordinate element in a wider strategy, in which the counter-insurgent aims to boost the government's legitimacy, separate and secure the civilian population from the insurgents, and address root grievances through political and economic processes. There is no such thing as military victory.

Clausewitz wrote that in war there are many aims but only one means - "combat is the only effective force in war; its aim is to destroy the enemy's forces as a means to a further end"*. Who would've thought that this idea could apply to a modern counterinsurgency campaign?

But always with Clausewitz, things are never as straightforward as they first appear. What's crucial are the words "as a means to a further end". The Sri Lankan government may only achieve lasting peace if it uses its military victory to reach a fair political settlement with Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. Otherwise, we may see a resurgence of terrorism and guerrilla warfare ten or 20 years down the line.

* On War, book 2, chapter 1.

Pakistan army operations in the Swat Valley

Two videos below give some idea of the fighting between the Pakistan army and the Taliban in the strategic Swat Valley, North-West Frontier Province.

The first video (via Pakistan Ka Khuda Hafiz) shows an airbourne assault, with images of gunships attacking buildings and infantrymen yelling battle cries as they land by helicopter on a hill-top.

In the second video (below the break), Al Jazeera correspondent Imran Khan talks with residents on the outskirts of Mingora whose houses have been wrecked in the fighting. The army has  surrounded the town, which the Taliban are said to have fortified.

Top four challenges for India's new government

With India's Congress-led UPA coalition winning another term in office, it's timely to read Aravind Adiga's analysis of the top challenges facing the Indian government (h/t Global Dashboard).

Adiga believes that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have to deal with big problems in terrorism, a ballooning fiscal deficit, the Naxal insurgency, and nation-wide water shortages (which could spark unrest).

Tactics of the Pakistan Taliban

Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh on the small unit tactics of the Pakistan Taliban:

"Khan* described how the Taliban operate in groups of 30 to 40 men, split into groups of five, each with a radio set. As they creep up on security forces' positions, firing rocket-propelled grenades, they try to distract soldiers with surrender negotiations until they swarm the position "like a pack of wolves", he said."

As I mentioned on Monday, the Pakistan army is readying for an assault on Taliban positions at the town of Mingora, in the strategic Swat Valley.

* General Tariq Khan, commander of Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Staying low the most sensible approach

Here's another excellent video clip from Guardian correspondent John D McHugh in Kunar, Afghanistan. It looks at the fighting in Kunar largely from the perspectives of local village leaders.

You can't help but appreciate their predicament. The villagers want to get on with daily life, which is struggle enough, but are caught in a war, not of their making, between two sets of intruders: the US and the Kabul government on the one side and the Taliban on the other. For the villagers the most sensible approach is not allying with one or other side but, as best they can, trying to stay low and out of the way.

Insurgency in the Swat Valley, Pakistan

There's a couple of good reasons for keeping an eye on the Swat Valley fighting between the Pakistan army and the Taliban.

Firstly, the Taliban appear to be fortifing Mingoa, in readiness for an urban battle against the army. They may be looking to emulate Hezbollah's success against the Israelis in Lebanon in 2006: draw a conventional army into layered urban defences, inflict heavy casualties, then pull out. Taliban control of the high ground overlooking the town would compound the problem for the army. Any attack on the town would need to be preceded by the capture of fortified high points.

Secondly, the Swat Valley occupies a strategic position in Northern Pakistan. In the map you can see the lower Swat Valley, running from Mingora (top right) to Bat Khela. From there the main road climbs over the Malakand Pass, then drops into the plains of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) towards the cities of Peshawar and Islamabad. From Mingora to Mardan is about 70 km and to Peshawar about 110 km (as the crow flies). Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, is 130 km away.

Control of the Swat Valley would give the Taliban many long-term options: moving fighters and supplies into and out of Afghanistan to the west through Dir; and infiltrating south and southeast into the nearby hill country and the plains of NWFP. No wonder the Pakistan army wants to gain control of the valley.

Google Maps: View Larger Map

US Air Force scores own goal (again)

Here's what US Army Field Manuel No. 3-14 Counterinsurgency says about the use of air strikes:

"E-5.  An air strike can cause collateral damage that turns people against the host-nation government and provides insurgents with a major propaganda victory.

Even when justified under the law of war, bombings that result in civilian casualties can bring media coverage that works to the insurgents’ benefit."

Looks like someone forgot to send a copy to the US Air Force ... "US air strikes kill dozens of Afghan civilians".

The Gun of Doom

When I was a kid, I voraciously read war comics - fictional tales of derring-do, usually set in the Second World War, with fearless Allied soldiers fighting fanatical Nazis or Japanese and prevailing against great odds. The titles were evocative and stirring - "The Fighting Few", "Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!" and "The Haunted Jungle". The motifs were timeless and recurring - honour, courage, grit, self-sacrifice, redemption and so on. The plots were simple, the dialogue cheesy, and exclamation marks flew thick and fast...

"It's darned tough, sir! Once those Huns get across the river they'll be all over us like a swarm of hornets!"*

Now, almost straight from the Commando comic annals, comes this story from the Afghan War, with the blood-curdling headline "British two-ton 'Dragon gun' terrifies Taliban" (h/t Armchair Generalist). According to the Times, plucky British gunners, guarded by stalwart Gurkhas, haul a 105mm light gun up a mountain in Helmand province. When the gun opens fire it terrifies the Taliban, so much that they name it 'the Dragon', "because of the flame that belches out of its barrel when fired". 

Ye gods!

The obvious question is why the Brits didn't fly the gun of doom to the top of the rock outcrop? The article suggests that surprise was a key factor in the decision to do things the old fashioned way. But surprise would only last until the gun fired, then everyone would know its position.

The Times article is a straight cut and paste from this British Ministry of Defence release, and a good example of lazy churnalism. It's worth reading the MoD release, because it explains why the Brits sited the gun on top of the rock outcrop, e.g., being able to fire directly at the enemy in a straight line, rather than indirectly. The MoD release also undermines the element of surprise line that the Times article ran. According to the MoD, helicopters were used to ferry the gun to the foot of the cliffs, and the gunners spent the previous four days building a solid firing platform on top of the outcrop. So much for secrecy.

The epic story of the hauling of the gun of doom smells like a PR stunt. But am I being too cynical? Perhaps it's more likely that British officers on the ground wanted to give the poor gunners something to do, and some enterprising MoD PR hack saw this as a golden opportunity to spin a positive story about Brits in Afghanistan.

* 'Sergeant Dave Green', in "Fight Back to Dunkirk" (War Picture Library).

Training the Afghan National Army

One of the key objectives in Obama's Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy concerns the Afghan national security forces (army and police):

"Developing increasingly self-reliant Afghan security forces that can lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight with reduced US assistance."

The White Paper proposes that the size and capability of the security forces must be "substantially increased", and that "salaries must become more competitive with those paid by the insurgents". 

You can get a sense of just how tough this task will be by watching two videos, especially this one. Guardian photo-journalist John McHugh shot the videos at a combat outpost in mountainous Kunar province, where US Marine trainers were working with a Afghan National Army unit. It's clear that the Afghan troops are not up for much, and that their opponents, the Taliban, are far better trained, paid, equipped, and motivated. As one of the Americans put it:

"when you look at the enemy, they have performance-based promotions where, if they do a good job, they get promoted [instead of] who they're related to, and you have to respect that..."

The American trainers seemed like a sharp bunch of guys - disciplined, intelligent, and having a good rapport with the Afghan soldiers. Quite different from this loudmouth in Iraq. But the trainers' inability to speak with the Afghan soldiers in their own language must be a huge obstacle to progress. If the US is to dispatch more military trainers to Afghanistan, giving those soldiers a working knowledge of Dari or Pashto should be a prerequisite. 

Obama announces new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

US President Barack Obama has announced a new integrated strategy for fighting terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The strategy is set out in a six page white paper. Here are the key goals:

• "Disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and...prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan".

• Promote effective and self-reliant government in Afghanistan and Pakistan, at all levels, with a significant jump in civilian assistance.

• Build up the strength and capacity of Afghan and Pakistani security forces to fight insurgents and provide security to local populations.

• Work with other countries and the United Nations to carry out these objectives.

Here are my observations about this strategy.

• The strategy sets clear objectives. Whether those objectives can realistically be achieved is another question, e.g., stabilizing two very unstable regions, and reversing a longstanding tradition of weak and corrupt central government, are big asks. Some objectives may undermine others, e.g., attacking the narcotics trade will alienate farmers from the Afghan authorities.

• Escalation is inherent in this strategy. By attacking al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan, the US is significantly widening the theatre of war and the number of troops and equipment needed. It risks creating more "accidental guerrillas" - locals who end up fighting with the terrorists because their valleys are invaded by foreign troops.

• The strategy includes some sound ideas, such as a comprehensive counterinsurgency plan (which prioritizes population security, economic development, and building effective local governance), and reconciling with moderate elements of the Taliban (something which I've long argued for - here, for instance). 

But the big question is whether the US and its allies can stay the course. This strategy is big, multi-faceted and ambitious, and needs substantial long-term commitment. Can the US sustain this commitment in the midst of a deepening global slump, and with a more immediate crisis - Mexico's collapse as a functioning state and its drug war - to deal with?

David Kilcullen on "accidental guerrillas"

I recommend this Danger Room interview with counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen. In the interview, Kilcullen outlines his idea of the "accidental guerrilla"...

Interviewer: When did the concept of the "accidental guerrilla syndrome" really start to click?

Kilcullen: It was field observation over ten years or so, but the name came to me one afternoon near the Khyber Pass... My local escort commander pointed out to me that he and his guys were the real foreigners on the Frontier, whereas the al-Qaeda guys had been embedded there for a generation. He said no outsider could tell the locals apart from the terrorists except by accident. And when outsiders intervene to deal with the global terrorists hiding out in areas like the FATA, it turns out people get upset, and the local community coalesces around rejecting outside interference, and closes ranks to support the terrorists....

This has happened in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, Thailand, Indonesia, Europe - basically everywhere I've worked since 9/11, I have observed some variation on this pattern. I call the local fighters "accidental guerrillas," because they end up fighting on behalf of extremists, not because they hate the west but because we just turned up in their valley with a Brigade, looking for AQ. And I calculate 90 to 95 percent of the people we've been fighting since 9/11 are accidentals, not radicals."

What does this tell us about the 'War on Terror'? That the war, and its campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, are mostly a sham. That the west has wasted a great deal of time, effort, lives and public money fighting people who mostly were not its enemies, at least not to begin with.    

It would be interesting to see if Kilcullen's "accidental guerrilla" concept also applies to the "War on Drugs". If American planes and agents spray or burn coca crops in remote Latin American valleys, does that simply drive local farmers into the arms of the drug lords?

A tree-hugger in Iraq

The Times profiles Emma Sky, a British counterinsurgency expert and adviser to US General Ray Odierno in Iraq (h/t Global Dashboard)...

The willingness of American commanders to ask for her advice consistently surprised her. “The Brits came in with more experience in this sort of operation, but over the years I think the American Army has learnt a lot more. I mean, there's no way the British Army would ask someone like me to come along.”

She also came to appreciate the meritocracy of American culture: “What I found with the Americans is they always gave me a place at the table. Once there, it was up to me to prove myself.

“With the British military, it's always a fight to get a seat at the table - I'm female, I'm not military, I'm a tree-hugger.”

This is another thing that impresses me about the US army. It's good at tapping the knowledge of outsiders - people like Emma Sky and Australian David Kilcullen - and bringing fresh and uncoventional ideas into play.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 4: battle as the centre of gravity

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, an exploration of the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz as set out in his classic work On War.

In Book 4 Clausewitz puts battle at the heart of war...

"since the essence of war is fighting, and since the battle is the fight of the main force, the battle must always be considered as the true centre of gravity of the war." [4.9]

There's little doubt that "the battle"  - the clash of armies at a particular site over a limited time period - was the centre of gravity during the Napoleonic Wars. But this idea doesn't hold for modern conflicts - battle, where it occurs, may be the most dramatic event, but it is not the centre of gravity.

What does "centre of gravity" mean? I take it to mean the situation where the outcome of the campaign or war is ultimately decided. In the First and Second World Wars, the centre of gravity was the use of resources. The nations that won were those that most effectively mobilized, coordinated and utilized their human and material resources.

In insurgencies, the centre of gravity is the people and politics. The insurgent tries to gain the allegiance of the people, and establish alternative governments in "liberated areas". The counter-insurgent seeks to isolate the insurgent from the population, and to boost the legitimacy of the authorities. In a counterinsurgency, military action is a subordinate aspect of overall operations, and - as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland - the military may be used for purposes other than attacking the enemy, e.g., securing the population, developing infrastructure. 

In modern conventional war there is arguably no "battle". Combat is characterized by a flow of fighting, the tempo of which rises and falls in different places and at different times. Military action is directed less against the enemy's "main force" (his frontline combat formations), more against his headquarters, communications, supply lines and intelligence systems. The aim is to destroy the enemy's ability to think, decide and act. Here the centre of gravity is the network of decision-makers, machines and infrastructure that animates a military force.

Even if battle is no longer the be-all and end-all, Clausewitz's centre of gravity concept is a useful one. It's something that politicians and commanders should ponder as they prepare for war: "in this conflict, what is the centre of gravity - the situation where the outcome will be ultimately decided?".

If the Afghan war was a business, it would be broke

What's the cost of British military operations in Afghanistan this financial year? Nearly £2.6 billion (USD3.7bn), an annual increase of more than 50%. And what has the British government got to show for this "investment"? Bugger all.

If the Afghan operation was a business venture, it would be broke. Lot of investment but no profit, even after seven years in business.

I know it's difficult to compare private sector and government spending. Pay-offs for public spending - in health, education, public infrastructure and so on - take years, sometimes decades to show. For example, if you educate kids in IT skills the pay-off may not come until 20 years time, when they set up software companies that employ people and sell goods to other countries.

But what's scary about the British (and American) military spend in Afghanistan is that money is being spent even though the allies have had no realistic objectives, no strategy for achieving these, and no indicators for measuring progress. It's not surprising that one of the first questions President Obama asked his military chiefs was "what's the endgame?".

Malignant 4GW force or powerful grassroots movement?

What say 4GW guru William S Lind has got it dead wrong? What say the return of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan turns into a good thing - if, as JC and Ralph suggest, those who've seen foreign war, poverty and anarchy decide that their communities and countries won't suffer the same fate?

To take this a step further - what would happen if demobilized vets, with their experience of discipline and initiative, and their expertise in providing security, local governance, construction and development in counterinsurgency situations - put this to good use in their own communities?

Professional soldiers usually come from poorer communities - urban slums, strip-mall suburbs and rural towns which are crime-plagued, poverty-stricken, and hard hit by industrial and agricultural decay and economic slumps. Instead of being left to their own devices, these men and women could be mobilized and resourced to organize their communities, around concepts of communal safety, resilience and sustainability. They would take a lead in local representation, crime-prevention, localizing energy, food and water supply, and nurturing community cooperation and assistance.

Instead of the malignant 4GW force of Lind's fevered imagination, these men and women could be the vanguard of a grassroots movement for community regeneration.

*"Great War on Terror"

JC on the blowback effect of the GWOT

In comments JC counters Lind's bleak view of the blowback effect of American vets returning from the "Great War on Terror"...

"I'm not going to suggest that there won't be a lot of disgruntled returnees, but there's near a million men who have been exposed not only to the evils of war, but the nation and town building, the restraints, decision making, inversion of the traditional soldier role and the massive role of integration of a thousand duties that was required.

These are the differences that balances Lind's comments, and I suggest there will be a different civic return from many of these guys in the years ahead...not least as they observe the corrosive effects of domestic corruption that they had to fight so hard against overseas."

A new strategy for the Afghan war?

Canadian outpost, Ma'Sum Ghar, Afghanistan (photo: lafrancevi).

If you want to get a sense of the likely new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, read this article by Nathaniel Fick and John Nagl and this interview with US General David Petraeus.

Petraeus is the head of the US Central Command. His beat includes Afghanistan. He wrote the "US Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual", and is credited with turning around the security situation in Iraq in 2007/08. Fick and Nagl are former US military officers, and counterinsurgency specialists who are closely associated with Petraeus and another noted expert, Australian David Kilcullen.

The articles suggest that coalition forces will seek to defeat the Taliban insurgency through these key elements:

• Provide security to the Afghan population, by having small troop and police detachments live among the people.

• Work with and through local governance structures, e.g., village councils.

• Develop rural infrastructure - roads, schools, electricity, clean water and so on.

• Strengthen the capacity and authority of the Afghan government, and its army, police and courts.

• Use minimum force, and limit air strikes (which have killed large numbers of civilians and have alienated the population).

• Negotiate and reconcile with elements of the Taliban.

The US is planning to "surge" an extra 30,000 troops to Afghanistan this year, while the British may send up to 3500 more soldiers. If the strategy outlined above is followed, many of these reinforcements will be deployed throughout countryside, in rural towns and villages, to provide security to the Afghan people, government administrators and development projects.

Bad, not so bad, but still pretty bad...

How bad is Mexico's drug war? Bad, says Christian Brose. But not so bad, says Christian Brose. But still pretty bad, says Christian Brose. Confused? You will be after reading Brose's post at Foreign Policy (via The Daily Dish). Brose writes:

"I'm still horrified and alarmed about what's going on in Mexico, but here are a few reasons to keep our feet on the ground - for now."

Yikes! But hang on...

"As yet, there is no alliance unifying all of the narcogangs into one force that seeks to challenge and topple the Mexican state. Now, this could still happen, and even if it didn't Mexico could still be fatally compromised, but thus far the gangs are still mostly killing each other."

Phew! But then again...

"There are signs...that the gangs are beginning to compete for the allegiances of the Mexican people and wage a strategic communications battle against [Mexican President] Calderon. This is a troubling development. But for now, these campaigns are not focused on advancing rival forms of gang-led governance..."

Thank goodness. But wait...

"Calderon's government is fighting for its life, but it hasn't lost (yet). In fact, there is still a chance that the worsening trend of the past few years actually reflects a problem getting worse before it gets better."

Yeah right. Let's put this into context. Say you live in a country that's being torn apart by fighting between crime syndicates and the government. Where gun battles, kidnappings, killings and corruption are part and parcel of daily life. Where elements of the police, paramilitary agencies and the army are in league with the drug lords. Where the only thriving industry is personal security. You'd think that was bad, right? 

Apparently not, if that country is Mexico, your name is Christian Brose, and you inhabit an alternative universe otherwise known as Washington DC.

Clausewitz, "On War", Book 3: the Prussian as prophet

This post is part of the Clausewitz roundtable, a debate about the ideas of Prussian military thinker Carl von Clausewitz.

In chapter 17 of Book 3 we see Clausewitz as prophet, and a remarkably accurate one at that. Writing about the Napoleonic wars, Clausewitz identified three trends that would characterize combat in the Second World War.

An expert's take on the Israeli army

Check out Colonel Pat Lang's insightful commentary (via Global Dashboard) on the organization of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)...

"...the IDF is an army built to very specifically suit Israel's individual circumstances, needs, and philosophy.  It is in some ways, a singular force.  It actually more closely resembles the Swiss military establishment than it does a large standing force backed by reserve units in the way that the US Army is built.

The IDF ground force is essentially a reserve or militia army that keeps most of its forces in inactive status while maintaining a handful of units on active duty as a training base and a force in being to meet short term contingencies."

Like Switzerland's national militia, the IDF is based on the "nation-in-arms" concept. This involves maintaining a very large conventional force of citizen-soldiers that can be mobilized quickly if the country is attacked. It's a good model for fighting defensive wars, as much for its deterrent value as any other factor. But as the Israeli experiences in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza show, the model is less effective when launching offensive operations against guerrilla forces (like Hezbollah), fighting counterinsurgencies, or policing restive populations.

That's not to say that the IDF isn't an effective fighting force. It's that fighting against guerrillas, and carrying out counterinsurgency and policing duties requires special training, skills and experience. These are best incubated, retained and refined in professional and specialized units - army and paramilitary - rather than national militias that largely comprise part-timers.

Kilcullen - what's going wrong in Afghanistan

This is a great read (h/t Glamdring). Counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen writes about the west's strategy in Afghanistan - what's right, what's wrong. Actually, mostly about what's wrong. Here's a snippet:

"Police are another main issue. We have built the Afghan police into a less well-armed, less well-trained version of the Army and launched them into operations against the insurgents. Meanwhile, nobody is doing the job of actual policing—rule of law, keeping the population safe from all comers (including friendly fire and coalition operations), providing justice and dispute resolution, and civil and criminal law enforcement.

As a consequence, the Taliban have stepped into this gap; they currently run thirteen law courts across the south, and ninety-five per cent of the work of these courts is civil law, property disputes, criminal matters, water and grazing disputes, inheritances etc.—basic governance things that the police and judiciary ought to be doing, but instead they’re out in the countryside chasing bad guys."

This seems to be part of a wider pattern: in counterinsurgencies, police forces get turned into paramilitary outfits. Is this because, as Kilcullen suggests, people confuse security with engaging the enemy in combat? Or is it a hangover from the British empire, where paramilitary policing was a key way of securing unstable frontier regions (Pakistan's Frontier Corps and India's Assam Rifles are modern day examples of this tradition).

Digging in for the long haul

Unless you're a member of Pakistan's ISI, this insight into the Taleban order of battle in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal agency may be of interest...

"The map tells a war story of its own. Sketched by a Taleban commander, it is of a stretch of territory fought over in Bajaur between the Pakistani Army and the insurgents. The ground has been neatly divided into specific areas of responsibility for different Taleban units.

Weapons caches, assembly areas and rendezvous points have been carefully marked and coded. This is not the work of a renegade gunman resistant to central authority; it is the assessment of a skilled and experienced fighter, and begins to explain how more than 400 Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded since August in Bajaur....

Discovered along with the map in a series of recently captured tunnel complexes are other documents - radio frequency lists, guerrilla warfare manuals, students' notes, jihadist propaganda and bombmaking instructions - that provide further evidence of the Taleban's organisation and training." 

For me, "tunnel complexes" are a red flashing light, a warning signal that the west, in its Afghan adventure, which threatens to spill into Pakistan's tribal agencies, is engaging a determined enemy who is psychologically preparing for the long haul.

Pakistan army does heavy lifting

You often hear this. The US, Britain and Nato allies take on the Taleban in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan stands by idly, allowing the insurgents safe haven in the tribal agencies, or worse, aiding and abetting them.

This Times article, by Anthony Lloyd, tells a different story - Pakistan army and Frontier Corps units engaged in bloody ground fighting against a well-armed and determined enemy in the Bajaur tribal agency:

"Initially given the job of pushing up from Khar and recapturing Loesam, they immediately found themselves in pitched combat against a well-armed enemy equipped with mortars, rockets, heavy machine guns and satellite communications systems. Extensive tunnel complexes, piled with rations and munitions, linked a series of defensive positions....

The Army's push was slow and bloody as the insurgents kept melting away and reappearing to ambush and harry the advance." 

Nato's lifeline runs through bandit country

While reading this article in Foreign Affairs, I came across an astonishing figure: 84 per cent of the material for US forces operating in Afghanistan goes through Pakistan.

Let me repeat that. 84 per cent of supplies for US forces fighting the Taliban transits a fractured country which is gripped by an Islamic fundamentalist insurrection, and where the power-brokers - the army and military intelligence - are trying to play off the US and its allies against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

No wonder, then, that the Taliban are trying hard to cut Nato's main supply line lifeline.

"Armies were like plants..."

Syed Saleem Shahzad writes about the Taliban's strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan:

"The real strategy was applied elsewhere in the Afghan province of Nangarhar and the Pakistani tribal area of Khyber, which are part of the transit route for 80% of Nato supplies. In February, Nato convoys were targeted in well-organised attacks, so successful and effective that Nato was compelled to sign a deal with Russia on 4 April on land transit for non-military freight through Russian territory. But such a route risked putting the budget of the western forces under serious strain.

According to an anonymous senior member of the Taliban, 'cutting off Nato’s supply line from Pakistan is an important element in our strategy. If it is correctly implemented in 2008, Nato will have to leave Afghanistan in 2009, although we might need an extra year.'"

This reminds me of what T E Lawrence wrote in Seven Pillars of Wisdom: "Armies were like plants, immobile, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head".

In an era of global air transportation, we forget the extent to which armies still depend on long land and sea lines of communications for essential supplies - food, water, oil, ammunition and so on. These are vulnerable to interdiction by well-organized guerrilla and hybrid forces.

The Taliban are hard, we are soft

The story of British paratrooper Corporal Mark Wright, who died while leading the rescue of a comrade in Afghanistan, is one of great heroism. It also illustrates how defeating the Taliban is mission impossible.

In late 2006, Wright went to the aid of another soldier trapped in a minefield. He was mortally wounded when a rescue helicopter accidentally triggered land mines. Now a British coroner found that serious systemic failures contributed to Wright's death, including a lack of British helicopters in Afghanistan fitted with winches. According to the coroner, the lack of equipment was "simply about money".

What makes the Afghan war unwinnable is not penny-pinching bureaucrats. It is that western forces are obsessed with avoiding casualties, while the Taliban are not. The Taliban are hard, we are soft.

If a western soldier is trapped in a minefield, his comrades go to great lengths to save him. This risks the lives of many other men and women, and costs a lot of money. Our soldiers do so because they come from a society which places great stock on preserving the life of an individual. Death is hard to take, even for professional soldiers.

If the soldier dies, an inquest is conducted, a verdict is handed down, blame is laid, and people are fired. In the process, fresh doubts are raised about the effectiveness of the armed forces, the competence of its leadership, and the validity of the mission in Afghanistan. The demands for withdrawal grow louder and louder.

If a Taliban fighter is trapped in a minefield, his comrades shoot him and move on. There is no cost, no inquest, no blame, and no doubts. The Taliban fighters do this because they come from Pashtun tribal societies where toil, disease, conflict and death are unremarkable, part of everyday life.

It doesn't matter how many reinforcements and rescue helicopters with winches are sent to Afghanistan. In ground combat, the mental hardness and endurance of the Pashtun fighters will ultimately win out.

Photojournalist on the frontline

Embedded with US forces in Afghanistan, John McHugh is one of the best journalists reporting on the Afghan war. Check out this video to see why.

McHugh uses text, photos, film, audio to great effect. In this slideshow, he mixes black and white photos and audio - no voice-over, just the sounds of helicopters, gunfire and men talking - to capture something of the atmosphere during a Taliban attack on a US mountain outpost.

Has the west been fighting the wrong war?

Times defence editor Michael Evans wonders if US General David Petraeus, the new CENTCOM commander, can win the Afghanistan war by applying his Iraq counterinsurgency experience.

A better question is whether, since October 2001, when the west invaded Afghanistan, we have been fighting the wrong war.

Just after 9/11 it was clear who the enemy was: al-Qaeda. Then things got hazy. The west invaded Afghanistan, and found itself fighting the Taliban. The US invaded Iraq, overthrew a regime which had no real connection with al-Qaeda, and found itself embroiled in a protracted insurgency.

The upshot? Seven years after 9/11, the west has fought two costly wars that it didn't have to, against people that weren't really its enemies.

In the last two years the fighting in Afghanistan has intensified, the security situation has deteriorated, and the conflict shows every sign of spilling into Pakistan's frontier provinces. It's not far-fetched to say that soon we will see the US routinely attacking Taliban inside Pakistan.

Petraeus may be able to contain the conflict, and, as British Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith suggested, reduce it to "to a manageable level of insurgency [that]...can be managed by the Afghan army". This will take several years at least.

But for what purpose? It's hard to see what strategic benefits the west will gain by intensifying the counterinsurgency. The only benefit that I can see is a short term tactical one: gain a temporary military ascendancy, thereby creating a position of relative strength from which to negotiate a political settlement with the Taliban.

Secret dealings with the Taliban

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, British senior commander in southern Afghanistan, had this to say about negotiating with the Taliban:

“We want to change the nature of the debate from one where disputes are settled through the barrel of the gun to one where it is done through negotiations.

If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this. That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable.”

Last Sunday Jason Burke revealed that the Afghan government and Taliban senior leaders have been holding secret peace negotiations. The talks are sponsored by Saudi Arabia and supported by Britain. He suggests why the Taliban leaders may be willing to talk:

"'They've been fighting for nearly seven years, living undercover, moving regularly, unable to go back to Afghanistan without risking a violent death. Despite the bellicose rhetoric and the successes of recent months, they have lost a lot of people and there is a certain degree of fatigue,' said one experienced Pakistan-based observer."

This news will be anathema to the "never negotiate with terrorists" brigade - the armchair warriors who believe that anything less than crushing victory is a "white flag of surrender", and that counterinsurgencies can be won solely through military means.

But really, what choice does the West have but to seek a political settlement? The Taliban can draw on a deep reserve of religious zealots from Afghanistan and Pakistan, and foreign fighters from elsewhere in the Muslim world. Unlike western soldiers, these men have no trouble understanding why they are fighting, and no problem dying for the cause. This war could go on indefinitely.

As I've written before, great generals and statesmen have routinely used negotiation as a way of ending war. Given that the Afghanistan fighting seems to have become stalemated, with both sides copping heavy punishment and fatigue setting in, now seems like a good time to talk.