Suite: 15

Almost didn't post this year. (Still counts if I haven't slept, yah?)

This was the first time since That Tuesday that I've actually been in New York on 9/11. Went up alone this weekend to help out my mom, in my childhood home.

As I drove back to my present home tonight, on the Belt Parkway, I could see --for the first time with my own eyes-- those twin pillars of light, tracing their starward trajectories opposite those described by the Towers whose memories they evanescently embody each year.

Zero-Seven hushed from the speakers. Late-night traffic was sparse. The Moon serenely choreographed its silvery swarms on the estuary.

I was Sad.

Still am.

This has been a year replete with Losses: Bowie, Rickman, Wilder, Schandling, Marshall, Vigoda, Finkel, Baker, Formerly-Formerly-Known-As, etc., etc.

And other Losses, FAR more personal. Losses of the kind that BAMPF the marrow from your bones, suck the mitochondria out of each and every cell, leave you gasping for joy like a COPD sufferer on Everest's summit. One of them I associate inextricably with New York (I fear seriously for my equilibrium and my breath, when next I set foot in Lincoln Center...or in pretty much any Irish pub...).

So, awash in the howling winds of all those vortices (and yet VERY consciously Mindful of one I've thus far been spared [Kenahorah-Poo-Poo-Poo]), revisiting That Other One seemed a bit much.


So, I almost didn't post.

It was the lights, done me in.

Photons, fired from the very site of such ruin were striking mine own retinae at just under vacuum-C, in real-time. 

Whatthefrak was I supposed to do with that??

As I've said before, I watched those Towers go up. From my sixth to my thirty-fifth years, they lived....and then they died.

And they were anything but alone.

Alas, it made me think of the status of the zeitgeist that lurched its charnel-fanged maw to our throats on That Day.

And that did nothing for the Sadness.

The three --variously-quixotic-- contenders for the Oval Orifice do not inspire.

One, whose tenure as SecState offered up a dreary litany of squandered opportunities (Green Revolution, Al-Maliki's Electile Dysfunction, Ukraine incursions, Arab Spring, "'Reset' Buttons" [Staples irregulars?]...), and a prickly, imperious tone that frosted every interface. It was dismal to a degree that rivals even that of her sodden successor at Foggy Bottom.

And another: notoriously mercurial, viciously thin-skinned, exuberantly-unburdened by any discernible capacity for critical, strategic thought...nor much in the way of raw material for such thought.

And, of course, the Upstart: affable, experienced, idealistic, congruent (at times to the point of unprecedented --and very refreshing-- self-deprecation)....but possessing his party's characteristic Achilles...well...LEG of a breathtakingly naïve conception of geopolitical realities.


So....Yah. Not sanguine.

Neither volatile bellicosity, reptilian manipulation, nor ostrich imitations stand even a Truth's chance on social media of bending the orbit of such Malevolent Clarity by so much as an arc-millisecond.

"Spectacle" attacks like the one having its Quinzeañera today seem to have fallen out of vogue (cf. Yiddish utterance, above), having been succeeded by Lone (/Known) Wolf, and platoon-level soft-target wetwork.

Decisively draining the political, ideological, and economic feeder streams of such "democratized" mayhem would require a multifarious deployment of subtle, nimble, attuned, toothy (with baked-in face-saving compromises), FOCUSED foreign policy, a global Counterinsurgency approach whose likelihood of arising from the daily briefings of any of these Misfit Toys' tenures on Pennsylvania Avenue is....well...


Let's just say that, amid everything else, I was aware of being rather ignominiously discomfited at the fact that I was in New York today.




And that Pisses Me OFF.




Troofer-Dipshit Half-Wit Mental Gymnastics aside, it's plain to any reasonably-informed, rational thinker from the pic below that the Towers' structural support system was exceptionally well-conceived...save for a low-probability but devastatingly exploitable vulnerability.

Alas that the same might be said for the security of the Republic and of its citizenry.




Damned lights.

Two In The Hand

I've sat on this report all day, watching updates and waiting for confirmation ("fool me once...").

By now, I'm reasonably satisfied that this is legit. Bill Roggio over at the Long War Journal reports:

Iraq's Prime Minister and the US military confirmed that al Qaeda in Iraq's top two leaders have been killed during a raid in a remote region in the western province of Anbar.

"Abu Ayyub al Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al Muhajir, Abu Omar al Baghdadi and a number of al Qaeda leaders in Iraq were killed during a security operation in al Thar Thar region in Anbar," Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki told reporters at a press conference in Baghdad, according to Voices of Iraq.

US Forces Iraq, the US military command in Baghdad, confirmed the report in a press release.

"A series of Iraqi led joint operations conducted over the last week resulted in the Iraqi Forces with US support executing a nighttime raid on the AQI [al Qaeda in Iraq] leaders’ safehouse," the press release stated. "The joint security team identified both AQI members, and the terrorists were killed after engaging the security team. Additionally, Masri’s assistant along with the son of al-Baghdadi who were also involved in terrorist activities were killed."

During the operation, one US soldier was killed in a helicopter crash, and 16 al Qaeda associates were detained. (emph. added)

My heart goes out to the buddies and family of the helo pilot who lost his life in this highly significant raid. It was surely not lost in vain, as this is otherwise all kinds of good news. First of all, it was predominantly Iraqi security forces, with support from US forces, that executed the raid, which again underscores the success the COIN portion of OIF has enjoyed in training and fielding an increasingly effective and professional Iraqi military (to say nothing of the assets among the indigenous population which it was able to utilize in obtaining the intel that guided the strike, intel which a cowed and cynical pre-Surge population would never have dreamed of providing).

Second, this strike has essentially decapitated AQI, demonstrating that even the highest of the high in that organization is vulnerable. The psychological impact of such a blow cannot be overestimated. You can say "Whack-a-Mole" till you're blue in the face...but it doesn't change the fact that these miscreants' prospective replacements, in addition to being less experienced and possessing less street cred, will slink about with the full expectation that the slightest misstep will leave them...well...blue in the face.

Which brings me to the last point (see bolded text above): Those "16 al Qaeda associates [who] were detained" were sufficiently high in the food chain that they were kicking it in the same safe-house as the two Top (mangy, flea-bitten) Dogs in the AQI hierarchy. The degree of detailed operational and organizational intelligence which can be wrung from these "associates" represents a veritable treasure trove of actionable information which will ripple outward to the lowliest torture chambers and bomb-making shacks. Even in the unlikely event that they are not singing like canaries inside of a Mosul Minute, the mere possibility that they'll make like a Muezzin  will force every Talib, Da'ud, and Hanif to scramble for new procedures to throw off the Pimp Hand of Justice. They'll get panicky. They'll get sloppy. And more and more of their thermal signatures will fade to ambient.

And, lest all this talk of strategic significance obscure it, two Very Bad Dudes have been shuffled off before they had a chance to wreak more bloody mayhem on the poor mother's sons and daughters who would have been shredded in the demonic dervish-dance of their demented demolitions.

High Fives all around for our brave and competent forces and their stalwart Iraqi allies.

Counter-Counterinsurgency

Obama's speech at West Point, and the politically calculated half-measures it proposed, are the occasion for the latest spot-on post by "Doctor Zero" over at Hot Air. Counterinsurgency is a Long Game, a dogged demonstration of dedication and integrity which is meant to woo a population from the camp of our foes to the circle of our friends. The President's dismal delineation of time-tables and "exit strategies" (Gods! How I have come to detest that phrase) signals the very antithesis of COIN's spirit. His short-changing of troop levels and characteristically naive reliance on NATO commitments (oxymoron spoken here) to make up the difference is nothing short of a declaration that victory (perish the thought that he should ever utter that word) is a long shot against which to hedge, rather than an unconditional prerequisite for joining the fight.

But, as Doctor Zero articulates with the usual blistering clarity, such is the monotonic tenor of the Obama presidency:

Every moment of the “historic” Obama presidency has been wrapped in the rhetoric of failure and decline. A nation slipping into endless debt, to buy off the social concerns of the moment, cannot help but feel helpless and doomed… because it wouldn’t be so quick to mortgage a future it believed in. To accept the leadership of Barack Obama, either in Afghanistan or at home, is to accept that triumph is a fantasy, and achievement is a relic of the past, so the only rational course is carefully managed decline.

 Indeed. Whether it is the ham-handed intrusion of government into the auto industry and banking system, or  the on-going attempt to effect a fateful phagocytosis of the health insurance market, this administration has broadcast with unerring consistency the message that the proper management of our lives and resources are so far beyond the ken of the "average" citizen that nothing short of Central Planning stands the faintest chance of achieving the goals of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Doctor Zero quite rightly makes the analogy between the confidence and vigor of a civilian population, and the morale of a military force. Per Obama, both are in need of careful control from the top, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of an orderly and placid mediocrity. Try as I have (and I have tried mightily!), I can find no evidence that he believes this Nation can or should aspire to anything higher.

Needless to say, I disagree. And, as should be abundantly clear by now, I have officially abandoned the effort to give this administration the benefit of the doubt.

A properly resourced and inspired COIN force can achieve wonders, once it has shown itself willing and able to accept elevated risk, and to "walk the walk" for the sake of a host nation's population. An under-resourced and ambivalent COIN force sends the message to would-be insurgents and collaborators that they had best keep their powder dry, against the day of their inevitable abandonment.

So it goes with a people and their president. Tell us, in a host of ways, that we are ineffectual and in need of paternalistic control, and you offer us a choice: bow low before the beneficent State and accept its putative boons, or be moved by the affront to reclaim our dignity and repudiate your condescension. This American "insurgency" has taken the form of Tea Parties, raucous town hall meetings, and a rapidly growing grass-roots movement, self-organizing around the reclaiming of the muscular and pragmatic optimism which lies at the heart of the American consciousness. I live in hope (the real kind) that this insurgency will triumph at home....and in dread that its dark counterpart will do the same in the shadow of the Hindu Kush.

A Double Cross to Bear

Earlier, I linked to Dick Cheney's very excellent October 21 speech to the Center for Security Policy. Portions of this speech centered on the Obama administration's "dithering" on the question of how best to implement Gen. McCrystal's counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy for Afghanistan (mainly re: how many troops to send and how soon to send them). Embedded in the subsequent back-and-forth on that speech is an example of the sort of chicanery which is merely the latest in a series of deal-breakers for any vestige of a benefit of a doubt I may once have been inclined to give this POTUS' administration.

As summarized by this post by Stephen Hayes from the Weekly Standard, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' peevish prevarication went something like this:

"What Vice President Cheney calls 'dithering,' President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public," said Gibbs. "I think we've all seen what happens when somebody doesn't take that responsibility seriously." Gibbs went on, calling Cheney's comments "curious" and claiming that a request for troops from General David McKiernan during the final year of the Bush administration "sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months."

Gibbs is saying here that the Bush Administration --which, presumably, did not take the "solemn responsibility" to the troops as seriously as his successor is currently running out precious clock cycles to do-- let requests for more troops sit idly by, lacking a clear strategy for the mission of those troops. Pretty serious stuff. Too bad the charge bears not the slightest resemblance to what actually transpired, as cited by Hayes:

"The idea that we just sat on our f--ing asses--it's really a slander," says one senior Bush administration official. "It's just not credible that we didn't take this seriously."

In fact, the Bush administration did ask those questions. From mid-September to mid-November 2008, a National Security Council team, under the direction of General Doug Lute, conducted an exhaustive review of Afghanistan policy. The interagency group included high-ranking officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the office of the director of national intelligence, the office of the vice president, the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its objective was to assess U.S. -policy on Afghanistan, integrating a simultaneous military review being conducted by CENTCOM, so as to present President Bush with a series of recommendations on how best to turn around the deteriorating situation there. The Lute group met often--sometimes twice daily--in a secure conference room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. (The group used the room so frequently that other national security working groups that had been meeting there were required to find other space including, occasionally, the White House Situation Room.)

The Lute review asked many questions and provided exhaustive answers not only to President Bush, but also to the Obama transition team before the inauguration. "General Jones was briefed on the results of the Lute review, and that review answered many of the questions that Rahm Emanuel says were never asked," says Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley. Jones and Hadley discussed the review, and Lute gave Jones a detailed PowerPoint presentation on his findings. Among the recommendations: a civilian surge of diplomats and other non-military personnel to the country, expedited training for the Afghan National Army, a strong emphasis on governance and credible elections, and, most important, a fully resourced counterinsurgency strategy.

Jones asked Hadley not to release the results of the Lute review so that his boss would have more flexibility when it came time to provide direction for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Bush officials reasoned that Obama was more likely to heed their advice if he could simply adopt their recommendations without having to acknowledge that they came from the Bush White House. So Hadley agreed. (emph. added)

 Got that? An exhaustive, comprehensively interdepartmental review was conducted, comprising myriad meetings, and arriving at recommendations which bear a striking resemblance to those at which Obama's own review arrived. Further, those findings were offered to the incoming administration sub rosa, with the full expectation that  Obama's team could claim credit for them, and implement them seamlessly, and without the political complications of accepting (and having his flexibility constrained by) his predecessor's policy recommendations. See also this quote, via Power Line, from Kristopher Harrison, who served as Chief of Staff to the Counselor of the Secretary of State during the Bush administration, and was intimately involved in the review process for the strategy in Afghanistan:

It is also true that Obama's transition team asked us to hold the Afghanistan review findings, a request to which President Bush acquiesced because (as it was relayed to me) he did not want to box the new president into a narrow set of options. In March, when Obama announced his new Afghanistan strategy, I did not notice a single change from the new plan that we had given him...only Obama did not resource it with enough troops.

And how does this Great Uniter repay this professionalism and graciousness? Why, of course, by taking endless swipes at his predecessor's policies, and accusing him of squandering the chance to turn the Af-Pak theater around while "wasting" time wresting victory from the jaws of defeat (and landing some vicious body-blows on al Qaeda) in Iraq.

Whatever. Politics is politics, and class is optional. Obama plainly still believes that he can score political points by trashing the Bush administration, and he is probably right...up to a point. That point begins where the interests of the United States, of its troops and its allies become endangered by political maneuvering at the expense of substantive action on vital issues. On that frontier, Obama is demonstrably floundering.

The stated (and endlessly re-stated) rationale for Obama's sitting on the decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan lies with the results of that country's demonstrably tainted national elections. Makes a certain kind of sense, since one of the goals of COIN is the fortification of a host nation's confidence in its government by providing security and stability and civil affairs support. If that government is viewed as illegitimate, then there are hard limits on the amount of good which COIN operators can bring about in the field. Therein lies a not altogether incoherent argument for waiting till the the run-off election, and coordinating operations with the hopefully more well-regarded government which emerges from it.

And if we were talking about just about any place besides Afghanistan, that would be a convincing argument. But we're not, and if there is one thing about Afghanistan which has held true for decades, it is that any central government is going to be viewed with suspicion and/or hostility by the denizens of the largely unpaved hinterlands which make up the majority of the country's territory. "Legitimate government" is practically an oxymoron in the average Afghan's eyes, so the niceties of electoral politics in Kabul amount to less than a hill of rotted poppies. 

The task is not so much to shore up a government which is generally viewed as legitimate, as it is to establish pockets of security and the concrete promise of prosperity, by crushing the Taliban and its al Qaeda proteges, denying them re-entry into the communities from which we chase them, and training locals to shoulder the burdens of picking up where we, in due course, leave off. It is from those deeds that the legitimacy of the government which partners with us will arise, rather than descend from some abstraction of a polity, far away in an alien city, whose words the villagers and tribal elders of the primordial hills and steppes are somehow supposed to take on faith, pending the delivery on the promises of foreigners.

Naturally, however, this concept is apt to be just as foreign to an inveterate statist like Obama.

It is, however, worse than even such naivete. As per Mr. Hengists's superb and destined to be oft-cited post on the "pretext of principles," this whole matter of waiting on Afghanistan's elections does not bear scrutiny as anything but a smoke-screen, a cover story for what is more properly viewed as a political matter for internal consumption. Obama is struggling with the question of how to create political cover for the implementation (or  parsing) of a policy which both his hand-picked general and his predecessor's team have determined to have the lowest probability of failure in "The Necessary War."  As the Left wrings its hands about troop deployments, and the Right continues to be embarrassingly supportive of  the policy which Obama articulated back in March, the President feels his hands to be tied...and he is loath to take responsibility to cut the knot.

And so he plays the blame game, shifting responsibility hither and yon, while even NATO grows restive at the delay in declaring a clear course of action.

If there is one thing at which the Bush Administration displayed a singular talent (probably to a fault), it was absorbing the vicious and mendacious attacks of its foes. The Obama team's crass and dishonest attempt to shift its indecision onto its predecessors is hardly the worst political stunt in the history of the Republic, and it is a double-cross which --for all of Cheney's characteristic piss and vinegar in response-- the Bush team is uniquely well-prepared to bear. But it is the brave and long-suffering service-people in Afghanistan (to say nothing of the Afghans themselves!) who stand to be counted as collateral damage in this beltway boogie.

And that is simply inexcusable.

Hot and Cold

In an editorial at the WaPo, B.U. professor Andrew Bacevich offers up some ideas on how the West might win its Long War against Islamist extremism:

Changing the way they live -- where "they" are the people of the Islamic world -- qualifies as mission impossible. The Long War is a losing proposition; it will break the bank and break the force.

Devising a new course requires accurately identifying the problem, which is not "terrorism" and, despite Washington's current obsession with the place, is certainly not Afghanistan. The essential problem is a dispute about God's relationship to politics. The proposition that the two occupy separate spheres finds particular favor among the democracies of the liberal, developed West. The proposition that God permeates politics finds particular favor in the Islamic world.

This conviction, which is almost entirely ignored in McChrystal's report, defines the essence of the way they live in Iraq, Afghanistan and a host of other countries throughout the Middle East.

At its root, this is an argument about what it means to be modern. Power, no matter how imaginatively or ruthlessly wielded, cannot provide a solution. The opposing positions are irreconcilable.

In confronting this conflict, the goal of U.S. national security strategy ought to be limited but specific: to insulate Americans from the fallout. Rather than setting out to clear, hold and build thousands of tiny, primitive villages scattered across the Afghan countryside, such a strategy should emphasize three principles: decapitate, contain and compete. An approach based on these principles cannot guarantee perpetual peace. But it is likely to be more effective, affordable and sustainable than a strategy based on open-ended war.

Bacevich recommends that we focus our kinetic or "hot war" interventions to the decapitation of terrorist groups, targeting their leadership in ways which minimize collateral damage (more along the lines of the Somali strike last month than of Predator-borne hellfire missile attacks). By "contain," he refers to the erection of infrastructure defenses by means of "well-funded government agencies securing borders, controlling access to airports and seaports, and ensuring the integrity of electronic networks that have become essential to our way of life," as well as decreasing dependence on foreign oil. Finally, by "compete," he means maximizing the benefits of life in democratic, capitalistic societies, and so offering an alternative to living within Islamist societies (rather like we did by exporting jazz and blue jeans to the USSR). The professor also suggests that, by "attending to pressing issues of poverty, injustice, exploitation of women and the global environmental crisis -- we might through our example induce the people of the Islamic world to consider modifying the way they live."

This strategy is very reminiscent of George Kennan’s “Long Telegram” approach to the containment of Soviet Communism. As far as it goes, it is sound. It is about using the benefits of liberal Western democracies to outcompete the ideological singluarity of Radical Islamism.

But it only goes so far. As I and others have pointed out, Islamism is not a centralized, hierarchical system like the USSR, but a distributed and multifarious network. Such networks are remarkably robust in the face of conventional efforts to disrupt them. The ideal strategy with such a beast is to approach it from as many angles as possible, and to attack key nodes relentlessly and intelligently.

The article’s approach is an essential component in an overall strategy which also includes the kind of COIN doctrine which has borne such bounteous (if of course imperfect) fruit in Iraq. However, I think the author fundamentally misunderstands the nature of COIN doctrine by characterizing it as a mere "hot war." Successful counterinsurgency depends as much if not more on civil affairs as it does on kinetic operations. Also, mere decapitation strikes of the sort which he apparently advocates as our sole military endeavor do nothing to provide the sense of security in a population which would enable it to even consider looking for alternate ways of living, while it is surrounded and submerged by the chaos which the Islamist groups will be undergoing as they scramble to replace their slain leaders. Forceful population protection measures MUST be present, so that those people will have a real opportunity to experience the contrast between fear and death and chaos on the Islamist side, and security, prosperity, and hope on the liberalizing side.

Some voices on the Right have suggested that Islam itself is The Problem, and that a worldwide effort to marginalize its practice and to discredit its tenets is the only sure way to achieve victory over the more virulent aspects of its practice. I could not disagree more. Attacking Islam, as such, will only further polarize those devout populations we hope to woo into modernity, and awaken xenophobia and a sense of threat to the underpinnings of their world-view. Rather, we should strive to foster the sputtering liberalizing tendencies within Islam itself. While the exclusivity and expansionism which is endemic to the Abrahamic religions (each of which posits a special relationship with the Divine which supersedes all other faiths) have proved especially refractory to liberalization within Islam, this does not mean that such liberalization/reformation is altogether impossible. It's just extraordinarily difficult.

The author’s gratuitous swipes against Western civilization’s treatment of women and minorities (not to mention the one against Sarah Palin) are offensive, unnecessary, and counterproductive.

A good article, but one which does not go far enough, nor acknowledge conditions in the real world.

Pushback in Iraq

Just came across this article over at the Long War Journal, in which Bill Roggio cites credible intel about the perpetrators of recent bombings in Baghdad:

Al Qaeda front group the Islamic State in Iraq has claimed responsibility for last week's deadly truck bombings in Baghdad.

The bombings, which targeted Iraqi's foreign and finance ministries, killed more than 100 Iraqis and wounded hundreds more. The bombings took place less than two months after the Iraqi security forces took control of security in the cities, and US forces withdrew to bases. The Iraqi government was also beginning to remove the concrete barriers that line the city streets.

Al Qaeda in Iraq said its "sons launched a new blessed attack at the heart of wounded Baghdad," designed to "wreck the bastions of infidelity."

The attack was designed to shake the Iraqi people's faith in the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and show that the Iraqi Security Forces are incapable of providing security...

A couple of thoughts: I had suspected and ---weird as it may sound to use this word in this context-- rather hoped that this might be the case. My fear had been that some new collection of insurgents was rising, and/or vying with the remnants of existing insurgencies to destabilize the hard-won gains in Iraq. The worry would be that a comprehensive power vacuum was perceived, which a variety of actors was emerging to fill. That would be Very Bad, since it would represent a groundswell of chaos the likes of which are devilishly difficult to turn back. This was the case in 2006, and it would be a long bet that the kind of lightning which Coalition Forces and their Iraqi counterparts were able to wield then would be available again.

Instead, it appears that the usual suspects have seen an opportunity to cash in on the anxiety which accompanied the withdrawal of Coalition forces from urban areas and back into their bases, in keeping with the Status Of Forces Agreement (SOFA). Further, if these miscreants did indeed succeed in bribing elements of the Iraqi Security Forces to soften up key checkpoints, then they get the "twofer" of undermining confidence in both the capability and integrity of the ISF. But fundamentally, if Roggio's sources turn out to be correct (and he does have a pretty stellar track record), then we are looking at a rather predictable tactical setback which will require proportional adjustments...but which leave the overarching strategy essentially unchanged.

Yes, Maliki appears to have jumped the gun somewhat on the removal of blast barriers in Baghdad and courting an array of foreign investors. Yes, the degree to which AQI can count on shelter and support from Syria still argues against loosening of the screws on Damascus (are you listening, Hillary?). Yes, some re-vetting and remedial training is pretty clearly in order within the ISF (though, for the most part, they are keeping the peace quite ably in most of the country). And yes, it may be prudent to work in conjunction with the Iraqi Government to revisit some of the pacing issues with respect to the total withdrawal of Coalition forces as per the SOFA (sidebar: would a truly "Imperial" power have sat still on its bases while this was going on?).

But AQI still is still not controlling any appreciable amounts of territory, and remains relegated to the status of savage vandals, whose lashings-out are if anything brought into higher relief due to the overall level of sustained security across the vast majority of the lately war-ravaged Iraq.

AQI's leadership are bloodthirsty nihilistic psychopaths, cloaked in the rhetoric of piety, but they are not fools; they understand as well as we do that the success of counterinsurgency operations keys on the host nation population's sense that their lives and livelihoods are effectively protected by their government and its duly designated (and appropriately controlled) wielders of force. AQI knows that it has precious few windows left for de-legitimizing the elected Iraqi government and its security forces. They know they have a non-zero probability of success if they can make the Iraqi people believe that it was only the presence of the Infidel Occupiers which enabled the Iraqi Government to keep the peace. They will try to shame that government, to paint it as an impotent lap-dog of foreign masters. They will try to make the people yearn for the harsh but sure hand of a strongman (Baathists) or a theocrat (Salafist Jihadis) to make the chaos go away. And they know they don't have long to make their case.

These are delicate, dangerous times for Iraq (beginnings always are). But thus far I have not seen any real game-changers. This is not something I am taking for granted, and neither should you. But beware also the inevitable cries of "Quagmire" in the coming weeks and months. This is push-back, and only triumphalist fools should be surprised at it. But only equally foolish defeatists would not see this as the occasion to dig in and push back even harder. Maliki appears to have slid a bit in the former direction (mainly for political purposes), and he's got a well-earned bloody nose for it. But in the past he's shown himself to be a tough and resilient leader when it's counted. This would be another one of those times.

Dropping some COIN on Afghanistan

The Christian Science Monitor has a couple of excellent articles (Part One and Part Two) on the hopeful developments and lingering challenges in the implementation of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in the tribal regions of Afghanistan. Recommended reading, in that they lay out what appear to be the ingredients of a well-crafted COIN approach to the protection of civilian populations against the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in their midst. As usual, there is substantial mistrust and the weight of centuries of less-than-inspiring history standing in the way of the locals welcoming the Coalition forces who assume the risk of moving into close proximity with those populations (versus huddling in heavily fortified bases and emerging only to wreck things and kill folks)...but not so close that they violate traditions of privacy. Very tricky business, that.

Still, our people seem to be hitting all of the important marks: they are consulting with the local Tribal elders, staying visible, asking how they can help, and showing a willingness and capability to deliver on their promises. The results are, as expected, uneven, but this is not something which happens overnight. This passage in particular made an impression on me as a fine example of how COIN operations really begin to gain traction:

The troops admit there are no easy solutions. In the meantime, some soldiers are finding their own ways to win hearts and minds.

Pfc. Joshua Lipori has decided to learn Pashto, the prevalent language here. While standing on guard duty one day at a combat outpost in Sayadabad, he practices his fledgling Pashto with some passing locals.

"Tsenga Ye?" or "How are you?" he asks. "Jore Ye?" – "Are you doing OK?"

The Afghans stare in wide-eyed astonishment at the foreign soldier speaking their tongue. They whisper to each other in Pashto.

"See," one says to the other, "there are some good Americans."

This is a modest but meaningful example of how COIN operations are really more about building relationships then they are about killing insurgents (though the latter can help with the former...which in turn can yield actionable intelligence for more effectively performing the former, etc., etc.).

Of course, the Predator drone attacks continue. They have a very special importance in the "Clear" part of "Clear-Hold-Build." These should continue, but with extra-special caution, owing to the even greater sensitivity of tribal Afghan (predominantly Pashtun) people to 'collateral damage' than that which exists in Iraq. Beginnings are such delicate times, and we have scarcely begun to crinkle the paper on the surface of this onion we must peel. But for every tribal sura we can win over, for every village which sees its people breathe easier in the absence of enemies we are seen to be pursuing and neutralizing resolutely and successfully, we move incrementally closer to the tipping point which was passed in Iraq.

And there are signs that this combination of approaches is having the desired effects on our enemies in theater:

"I haven't ever seen this kind of language from senior Al Qaeda commanders before," said Daniel Lev, who works for MEMRI. "In general, Al Qaeda speaks in a very triumphant tone," but in the new book Al-Libi speaks of the group's dire straits and serious problems, Lev added.

"Such an admission of distress on the part of a senior Al Qaeda commander makes this a very unique book in terms of the author."

The signs of fragmentation and distress which come across in the aforementioned new book by senior al Qaeda leadership attests to the degradation of that organization by the relentless attrition which we have been visiting on its organizational structure. The more demoralized and --alas!-- desperate and brutal the Taliban/al Qaeda nexus becomes, the less they will be able to rely on the silence and passivity of those locals with whose lives they have become so interwoven. Even the title of this new al Qaeda book, "Guide to the Laws Regarding Muslim Spies," points to the paranoia spreading through the minds of our enemies. This is an advantage which can be greatly expanded through the implementation of intelligent PSYOPS. The need to vet recruits, spy on the membership (and on the spies!), and periodically (and not always accurately) purge suspected double-agents greatly slows the tempo and effectiveness with which al Qaeda and the Taliban can mount and maintain their attacks. It also signals weakness to those who are standing on the sidelines, trying to decide which is the stronger horse. Like Napoleon said, "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." True enough. But when the opportunity arises to magnify the scope of that mistake, it would be foolish to squander it. I can just imagine the havoc we could wreak with a few carefully-placed bits of disinformation...

The more we can trap al Qaeda and the Taliban in the vise between ordnance and ostracism, the greater our chances of repeating the spectacular reversals we won in Iraq. But it would be perilously unrealistic to think that we've done more than saddle up the camel on this one ("watch out, they spit").

"We shall not sleep, though poppies grow..."

This is just good sense, and good counterinsurgency.

For too long, the chief modality employed for depriving the Taliban of the revenues from opium production (not to mention protecting the lives of countless addicts abroad) has been the eradication of poppy fields. Trouble is that the main victims of that policy were the poor farmers who would monetize the poppy crop, owing to their ability to store that crop for long periods of time, and sell it off to feed their families (as previously discussed in the comments section of this post):

So, instead of torching the livelihoods of rural farmers, the emphasis is shifting to interdicting the products further down the supply chain, while simultaneously providing aid and instruction in the production of alternate crops. Thus, the farmers are not alienated to the point that they throw in with the extremists, while the poisons and profits are denied the true villains in this travesty. Smart.

The libertarian in me is strongly in favor of judicious legalization of recreational substances. The Sisyphean effort to regulate behavior is a costly and destructive boondoggle which destroys more lives than it saves, and squanders precious resources for a doomed and wrong-headed goal. However, the psychologist in me cannot deny the recent uptick in the number of clients who labor under their addictions to pernicious and ignoble mind-killers in the opiate family, owing at least in part to cheap and plentiful supplies of the "good" brown heroin (as opposed to the black tarry stuff from Mexico) in recent years. Any project which simultaneously makes it more difficult to maintain a multiple bag-per-day habit, while also starving the miscreants who throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls counts as a win-win in my book.

As for the costs involved in aiding Afghan farmers to transition from poppy to some other crop (which may be less profitable by a wide margin, but which allows them to come in out of the cold), they are non-trivial in an absolute sense. However, given the obscene excesses of spending and debt with which the Obama Administration seems hell-bent on saddling our grandchildren, this at least has the rare distinction of appearing to be money well-spent, and a drop in the reservoir, at that.

Balance Tilting Against the Taliban?

This afternoon, I was listening to NPR and heard a report on the "new" tactics being employed by US Special Forces operators in the tribal regions of Afghanistan. The report described public works projects, outreach to tribal elders, protection of civilians, and training of indigenous security forces. If none of this sounds particularly new to any of you out there, then do keep in mind that this was NPR. Any clear acknowledgment that this is precisely the sort of COIN strategy which had been implemented so very successfully under the Bush Administration in Iraq would have robbed the Obama Administration of its credit for a Bold New Approach in the 'Stans. Context is everything.

Still, I have long thought that some variant of the COIN doctrine which has been so effectively applied in Iraq could be adapted to take root in Afghanistan and Pakistan, provided the local conditions were taken into account and the strategy adjusted accordingly, and if the Jihadis would over-play their brutality hands as egregiously as they had in Iraq. Encouragingly (if tragically!), there have recently been growing signs that the latter may be occurring in Taliban-controlled areas of the 'Stans:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Villagers are rising up against the Taliban in a remote corner of northern Pakistan, a grass-roots rebellion that underscores the shift in the public mood against the militants and a growing confidence to confront them. More than a thousand villagers from the district of Dir have been fighting Taliban militants since Friday, when a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his payload during prayer time at a mosque, killing at least 30 villagers.

The Pakistani government is taking advantage of this tentative groundswell against the militants and gangsters and terrorists loosely assembled under the rubric of "Taliban," but they have their work cut out for them. Resentment against the atrocities perpetrated by Islamist militants is indeed growing...but that does not mean that the fiercely independent, downright xenophobic peoples of the tribal regions have any more love to spare for the interference of distant bigwigs in Islamabad or Kabul...let alone the US. It will indeed be a long row to hoe for the Pakistani government and military to convince the Tribes that their interests will be respected, their lives and livelihoods protected, and their insurrections supported against reprisals. There is a lot of unlearning to be done there.

Meanwhile, on the Afghan side of the border, Army Rangers and other operators are, as previously mentioned, hoeing that row as we speak. The extent to which the Tribal elders feel respected, their Lashkars backed up, and the influx of replacements for the miscreants they succeed in dispatching is successfully stemmed is going to make all the difference. Extremely valuable operational memory from Iraq is available to be deployed in service of this end, and the leadership of General Petraeus and his chosen officers should not be underestimated.

All in all, these are some tentatively promising signs on the COIN front in a far more complex operational environment than it has faced to date.

Oil Spots in Afghanistan

Just finished this nice little article over on the Small Wars Journal (PDF). Nothing there which is especially new to any who are conversant in COIN theory. But it does present in promisingly fine-grained operational detail some of the ways in which that theory may be applied in the 'Stan.

I do so love reading about this COIN stuff; I'm routinely, forehead-smackingly floored by just how smart it is, how it balances force with (admittedly utilitarian) philanthropy, routing the fruits of each to where they will do the most good. It is an imperfect learning process which balances risk with benefit, and often falls short in its execution. But I see this as a feature, not a bug (I am quite fond of that phrase). When you link the rising and falling of your fortunes with the people you seek to woo and win, your intentions can become plain in the ways in which you recover from those inevitable errors. The first (or at least the third) time coalition forces suffer casualties and do not respond with a hail of angry, ill-aimed bullets, some will see exploitable weakness, while others will see that-much-more plausible partners in deals they just might honor...And we'll get better at telling the differences between these groups.

Pakistan is one rabid rhinoceros of a wild card in all this, of course. But one of the benefits of successful COIN operations is the insulation of a local population from the influence of external actors who have not shown themselves to be as capable as agents of desirable change. This a necessary, though most assuredly not a sufficient condition for success in the AO. But applying pressure on the assorted avatars of the Taliban on both sides of the Af-Pak "border" by mounting credible competition for the hearts and minds (and bellies and skins) of susceptible populations cannot help but raise the temperature of the situation to a more malleable condition.

At that point, we best aim our hammers really freakin' true.

Blood In The Water

I've been thinking quite a bit about pirates lately. Mainly, I've been hoping that we've not come to a time in which that statement will no longer be funny (AAaarrrr).

First things first. President Obama deserves a definite "attaboy" for this one. End to end, the President appears to me to have handled it spot-on right. He authorized force, but did not appear to try and micro manage on an operational level. Also, he did so on the D-L, and so refrained from complicating the operation by giving it too much focus from the Head of State/Government (drawing derision from some on the Right for focusing on domestic issues, and so appearing to denigrate the seriousness of the unfolding situation). He has also said many of the right things about how the US plans to treat piracy in the days to come.

It's this last part which is so very very crucial, though. As important as it was to treat the Maersk Alabama incident with due seriousness and strength, it is arguably at least as much so to stand strong against piracy at large. These attacks on the lawful conduct of trade on the high seas signify an efflorescence of anarchy which simply cannot be tolerated. It is an assault on the fabric of Civilization itself. I know: sounds a little histrionic. After all, what's a few fire ants to a wildebeast?

Part of why pirates are funny today is that they are so quaint and dated. There's a reason for that. The laws on what do do with pirates in the 18th and 19th centuries made for a lot of stretched necks over those peg legs. Faced with all those laws and guns and ropes, would-be pirates judged it prudent to look to other career options. So, quaint.

Now, what happens when a growing group of people discover that the ropes are gone, and the guns are muzzled under labyrinthine layers of legalisms? What happens when they start making more money on one run than their families had made in many combined generations before them? Suddenly, not so quaint.

People will tend to do what they can get away with, if it serves their ends as they define them. Part of what civilization does is to constrain the "what they can get away with" part. In return, it extends the range of defined ends which people may act to serve. On the whole, folks tend to do pretty well out of the bargain. But successful populations can tend to attract predators. At best, they develop defenses which keep the wolves at bay. At worst...well, pass the horseradish, Elaine.

Quoth Andrew McCarthy:

“Civilized” is a much-misunderstood word, thanks to the “rule of law” crowd that is making our planet an increasingly dangerous place. Civilization is not an evolution of mankind but the imposition of human good on human evil. It is not a historical inevitability. It is a battle that has to be fought every day, because evil doesn’t recede willingly before the wheels of progress.

There is nothing less civilized than rewarding evil and thus guaranteeing more of it. High-minded as it is commonly made to sound, it is not civilized to appease evil, to treat it with “dignity and respect,” to rationalize its root causes, to equivocate about whether evil really is evil, and, when all else fails, to ignore it — to purge the very mention of its name — in the vain hope that it will just go away. Evil doesn’t do nuance. It finds you, it tests you, and you either fight it or you’re part of the problem.

Like the Jihadis or the narco-terrorist, or the garden-variety street sociopaths, Pirates feast on the neglected flanks of the the civilizational beastie. They use its unwieldy bulk to their advantage through brutality and guile. And to the extent to which they perceive vulnerability, they concentrate their efforts with terrifying intensity. I am more than passing concerned that the legal niceties which can make Western Civilization so cushy may also be encouraging the re-emergence of these "atavistic barbarisms." When a group of dinghy-borne yahoos with AK-47s, RPGs, and handguns can command a $20m ransom (which they then split with complicit officials of a rubble-state like Somalia), and face no penalty greater than a jail cell which is better than their homes, and the real prospect of returning to those homes ere long, it's fair to say that their inhibitions will not win the day.

Nothing focuses the mind like a hanging, wrote Samuel Johnson. Perhaps it is time to revisit this concept. Operating in international waters, and so perceiving and exploiting great huge chasms in the carapace of law enforcement, these marauding parasites are proving all-too adroit in using the timidity and inertia of our civilized societies to their advantage. They are testing the will of those societies, and that will must not be found wanting. These pirates must be interdicted in the act, very harshly punished for the perpetration, and find no safe harbor for the planning and exploitation of their rapine escapades.

We may be able to buy time by attempting to circumvent the corridors which these pirates patrol (though the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean routes are crucial and devilishly difficult [impossible?] to by-pass). But ceding territory (and I'm not just talking about geography here) to opportunistic predators is little more than an invitation for them to take more ground. And they know it.

Whether it is a reluctance to use military force, an aversion to the idea of armed and trained merchant crews, or a porous babble of maritime statutes, we are in danger of setting some very perilous precedents here. If we do not push back against these eruptions of chaos, we simply enrich the medium in which they proliferate. President Obama has been speaking some of the words, and taking some of the actions which indicate that he is aware of the deep connection of this issue and the wider counterinsurgency which we currently wage. I will continue to watch very carefully the ways in which this is handled in the days and months to come.

Let's hope we have more than a bit of the captain in us.

Totten in Sadr City

Short and linky tonight. Just read this excellent article over at Michael Totten's site about the history and current status of the infamous Shiite slum in Northeastern Baghdad. It is yet another in a swiftly-growing list of stories which highlight the subtle intelligence (in both senses) utilized by the US military in its COIN operations, as well as the breadth and depth of the positive changes taking place in Iraqi society as a result.

The Mahdi Army and its Iranian Quds Force enablers are going to have a hard time of it in their old stomping grounds, by all appearances. For one thing, it is increasingly clear that the valor and professionalism of the US military has rubbed off on their Iraqi proteges. For another, the citizenry of Sadr City and environs are seeing for themselves how their lives have improved under American and Iraqi protection. This is not a thing easily forgotten.

A nice tonic to end the day. If you agree, do consider dropping a little something in Michael's tip jar (scroll to bottom of post); his caliber of journalism is a lamentably rare thing these days, and it's impossible to encompass an environment as complex as Iraq without people telling these stories.

Required Reading on Afghanistan

Courtesy of FormerSpook, comes this lengthy but indispensable essay by Fred Kagan on the challenges facing General Petraeus and the Obama Administration as we prepare to ramp up our efforts in the Af-Pak theater. As I have written previously, the tasks of adapting the sophisticated counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy which has been so successful in Iraq to the profoundly different terrain and cultural milieu in Afghanistan represents a formidable set of tests for the resiliency and resolve of our military and diplomatic corps. Kagan lines up nine general categories of challenges which we face, and offers suggestions on how to develop plans to overcome them.

Those of us who are diligently watching the fledgling Obama administration's handling of the geopolitical tasks which it has inherited would do well to read this essay very carefully, and to pay very close attention to the signs that its prescriptions are being followed. This is one which Obama absolutely has to get right, and simply throwing troops into the theater without such a carefully thought-out strategy is a recipe for a very costly disaster. Still, Obama has so far been smart enough to keep Bob Gates on as SecDef, and has shown no inclination to mess arround with the command structure of our military (most notably, he has tasked CENCOM head General Petraeus with developing the strategy for winning in Afghanistan. Very good sign, that). This is going to be a very difficult campaign, requiring steadfast and intelligent committment. Let us hope most fervently that Obama is made of the sort of stuff which it will take to see us through it. As Kagan sums up:

This essay does not provide a plan or a strategy for success in Afghanistan. It provides, rather, a set of guidelines for thinking about how to develop one, and for evaluating plans articulated by the administration, its generals, and outsiders. Ultimately, a plan for winning in Afghanistan has to be developed in Afghanistan, just as the plan for winning in Iraq was developed in Iraq. It is a truism that any plan must involve not only the U.S. and allied militaries, but all relevant civilian and international agencies, and must deeply involve the Afghans themselves at every level. Our military and civilian leaders understand that truism. We have failed to date in accomplishing the objective not because we haven’t known that we must, but because it is very hard to do.

But hard is not hopeless in Afghanistan any more than it was in Iraq. The stakes are high, as they always are when America puts its brave young men and women in harm’s way. President Obama has an opportunity in the difficult challenge he faces. So far, he appears determined to try to do the right thing. He deserves the active support and encouragement of every American in that attempt.

Again, Obama has seen fit to keep some very capable people at the reins of this very balky beast. Let us Hope that he gives them everything they need on the dark and dangerous path they must walk.

Court Case Highlights Charitable Front

Life has been rather complex of late, and promises to be even more so as Thanksgiving approaches, so posting has been light, and may remain so in the coming days. Apologies and best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous Turkey Day.

Via the Counterterrorism Blog comes this article by Matthew Levitt, on the significance of the recent verdict against the Holy Land Foundation, an Islamic charity which has been found guilty of serving as a front for financing terrorism (in this case, Hamas).

This verdict is important on several levels. First off, it sets an important precedent for eschewing the politically-correct cultural-relativist narrative which holds that organizations such as HLF should be immune from scrutiny because they serve the interests of a given group...even if it is widely acknowledged that their sub rosa dealings possess a far more sinister character. Financing terrorism trumps any other benefits which such an organization can claim, and must be dealt with accordingly.

Perhaps more fundamentally, though, this verdict highlights the way in which a Global Counterinsurgency like the Long War must be waged:

As I argue in my book, “Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad” (Yale University Press, 2006), Hamas’ charitable and social welfare networks are both the secret to the group’s political and terrorist success as well as its Achilles heel. A strategic approach to Hamas should include not only disrupting the group’s operational capabilities, but also targeting its financial and logistical support networks. Front organizations like the Holy Land Foundation should be shut and prosecuted, to be sure, but such efforts must be complemented by serious efforts to fund and empower accountable, nonviolent Palestinian entities -- public and private alike -- to assume the responsibility for (and enjoy the resulting public support from) public works and social and humanitarian services should be a central goal of counterterrorism officials, peace negotiators, economists, and development experts alike. The international community could and should beat Hamas at its own game of providing social services to build grassroots support, though in this case support for moderation not extremism.

A COIN force must operate in such a way to show itself a credible guarantor of the safety and security and prosperity of a host nation's population, in order to dislodge that population's loyalty from the insurgents who also vie for its allegiance (or at least acquiescence). So, too, on a larger scale, those who would delegitimize the radical/militant actors which seek to garner support among suffering people by co-opting their hopes for a better future must find ways of offering even more promising avenues toward those futures than the radicals can do. This is arguably the most vital front on which this Conflict is fought.

As covertly radical groups like HLF find it more difficult to secure the funding with which they funnel capital into the coffers of bombers and throat-slitters under the guise of charitable works, the resulting vacuums offer opportunities for more legitimately beneficent organizations to take up the mantle. This is yet another example of how we can do well by doing good, and I hope the free nations of the world (hopefully under the leadership of a US which keeps its eyes on this multi-generational prize) follow through.

This was a good start.

COIN of the Realm

I really need to get over to the Small Wars Journal more often. Sure, there are many articles which even a mildly-to-moderately conversant layman observer of military matters like myself will find hopelessly esoteric and specialized. But almost as often, one will happen across a gem like this article by Col. Robert C. Jones (.pdf), on the subject of counterinsurgency (COIN).

What sets this excellent little (3-page) article apart is the degree to which it is able to distill the extraordinarily complicated brew of COIN doctrine down to its most fundamental principles, yet do so in such a way that it serves as a very practical skeleton for a host of tactical decisions across a wide variety of disciplines, by showing how they are unified under the umbrella of a single overarching strategy. This is no mean feat of data compression, given the dauntingly dynamic complexity of COIN ops as they are executed in the real world.

The Populace

The populace is the center of gravity for both the insurgent and the counterinsurgent.
Both the governance and the insurgent arise from the same populace to compete for sovereignty. To attack the insurgent is to attack the populace, and only addresses a symptom of the greater problem.

Every populace has both the duty and the right to rise up in insurgency when governance fails, and those failures cannot be resolved through legitimate means (U.S. Declaration of Independence).

Insurgency is fundamental to man’s nature. While poor governance is always viewed through the eyes of each unique populace, virtually every man will become an insurgent when he cannot feed, clothe, shelter, and secure his family, and when he has no hope for a better future. Hope is directly linked to the powerful human emotions of pride and respect, and must not be underestimated. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is instructive for the counterinsurgent, and often it is failure high in the hierarchy that sparks insurgency.

The segment of the populace that one must focus on is the one that supports the insurgent. Design programs to address their concerns, and do not simply rely on the “loyal” segment of the populace to help suppress the rebelling segment. (Brits in U.S.; U.S. in Viet Nam and Afghanistan did it wrong; U.S. in Civil Rights movement did it right).

Here, Col. Jones opens with a shot which lands at the precise geometric center of the bull's-eye. A true insurgency is not something which arises out of nowhere, nor merely out of the narrow interests of a small group (or, if it does, it does not last long enough to be of serious concern...as the Weather Underground learned during the Sixties and early Seventies in the US). Instead, it emerges from a widespread and serious failure of governance to meet the needs of its populace. As such, insurgents perceive themselves to be fighting for the good of their community. The task of the counterinsurgent is to prevent the people of that community from feeling likewise, by demonstrating (not just declaring) that the insurgency can meet their needs less well than the government with which it competes for their loyalty and/or acquiescence.

By acting to shore up the essential functions of good governance (e.g., the provision of security, public health, infrastructure, and opportunities for prosperity), a comprehensive COIN operation acts to de-legitimize the claim which the insurgents can stake in the discontent of the people. Simply lopping off even key members of an insurgency can scramble its operational capabilities and degrade its effectiveness as a fighting force, to be sure. But, absent the undermining of the narrative through which an insurgency continues to recruit members from the host nation's population, such purely kinetic operations will do nothing save "reset the conditions of failure."

The last paragraph of the section I excerpted above speaks to a potential misunderstanding of COIN operations which is as serious as mistaking them for mere "Surges" in troop levels. Mounting a successful counterinsurgency is more than simply recruiting a cadre of "our guys" and pitting them against "their guys." Unless the underlying dysfunctions in a host nation's governance are addressed, then "their guys" will always have a renewable supply of recruits from among a population caught in the crossfire and hungering for a Change.

This is a lesson which we would do well to remember as we endeavor to implement COIN strategy in Afghanistan. Simply luring some tribes away from the Taliban and turning them loose may provide local pushback to the AQ-Taliban insurgency, and as such is not without value. But a counterinsurgent force must be able to insure the security and stability of communities which cooperate with it, facilitating improvements in the quality of life and providing a credible promise that those improvements will be sustainable over time (the "Clear-Hold-Build" policy), or else the insurgency will retain the ability to punish such cooperation, so no sane person would offer it.

Articles such as Colonel Jones' are essential because they provide a clear overview of a strategy which is all-too easily lost in a thicket of details and thus fundamentally misunderstood. At its root is an elegantly simple proposition: people long for security, justice, and opportunity, and will fight for them if they have to. Offer them realistic hope for these things, and they will judge you to be on their side in that fight.

And, lest any of you think that we are meddling unduly in internal matters when we engage in COIN operations far from our shores, let me remind you that local insurgencies like those in Afghanistan and (to a far lesser and ever-diminishing degree) Iraq are actively abetted by actors such as al-Qaeda and Iran, to serve aspirations which are ultimately global in scope. The work of counterinsurgency in any one theater is self-similar to and reciprocally linked with that global counterinsurgency which constitutes the core task of the Long War. We lose sight of that larger arc to our great peril.

So, read the whole thing.

Taliban Trash Talk

Bill Roggio over at the Long War Journal writes about how senior Taliban spokesvermin have seized on the statements of certain Western officials to score some free talking points:

Over the last week, several senior Western officials have said the International Security Assistance Forces could not win the war militarily and that negotiations with the Taliban were necessary to secure the peace. Brigadier Richard Blanchette, a British general who serves as the spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, advocated negotiations with the Taliban and said no military solution was possible in Afghanistan.

Kai Eide, the United Nation's Special Representative in Afghanistan, echoed Blanchette's statements. "I've always said to those that talk about the military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more political energy," Eide said on Oct. 6. "We all know that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political means. That means political engagement."

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the outgoing commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said winning the war was “neither feasible nor supportable” and the West should work to reduce the level of violence in the country.

The valor and dedication of British troops in theater is generally above reproach. My issue is not with them. But something is clearly awry with the general officers across the Pond. The very notion that active-duty Brigadier Generals during a war could toss off statements like these, with major policy implications, not to mention the potential effects on troop morale, is stunning. What did they think would happen when they opened their tea-holes in this manner?

This is what:

The Taliban said the al Qaeda-linked group is "on the verge of victory" while the West is engaged in "a series of artificial gestures and a hue and cry about talks."

The Taliban issued three prior statements on the reports of negotiations between the Taliban and Western and Afghan officials. The statements derided the negotiations and said the Taliban would only settle for a complete withdrawal of foreign forces. One of the statements was issued by Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

The first statement, issued by the Taliban on Sept. 28, rejected any idea of a peace agreement. "The Shura Council of the Islamic Emriate of Afghanistan considers such baseless rumors as part of the failed efforts by our enemies to create distrust and doubts among Afghans, other nations, and the mujahideed," the statement read. "No official member of the Taliban--now or in the past--has ever negotiated with the US or the puppet Afghan government... A handful of former Taliban officials who are under house arrest or who have surrendered do not represent the Islamic Emirate."

The second statement, signed by Mullah Omar on Sept. 30, made it clear the Taliban believed it was close to victory. Omar offered the West harsh terms for peace. "If you demonstrate an intention of withdrawing your forces, we once again will demonstrate our principles by giving you the right of safe passage, in order to show that we never harm anyone maliciously," Omar said.

The third statement was made by Taliban military commander Mullah Baradar on Oct. 3. "We reject an offer for negotiation by the Afghan's puppet and slave President Hamid Karzai," Baradar said. "[Karzai] only says and does what he is told by America."

So, these are the sorts of people with whom we should be engaging in "tough and principled diplomacy?"

Now, to be perfectly fair, the Brigadier General (BG Mark Carleton-Smith) went on to speak in terms which were very much in keeping with counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. It is indeed not possible to defeat an insurgency through typical brute-force attrition tactics (though we can quite severely degrade their logistics and command structure through relentless surgical strikes, which is what we have been doing for some time now in Afghanistan and, increasingly, across the border in Pakistan). "Clear-Hold-Build" depends on a sensitive understanding of the societal dynamics of an insurgency's AO, such that a combination of diplomacy, social and infrastructure development, and straight-up bribery can turn segments of the population against the predator/parasites in their midst. Part of this is turning some of our enemies into allies against their more intransigent co-insurgents, which the BG quite rightly points out.

Still, as I wrote in the comments section of the LWJ post, the BG's statements to the effect that no military defeat of the Taliban is possible do invite mischaracterization, even if --in their full context, and given an understanding of COIN doctrine-- they are technically correct. They do not signal resolve and strength to those who we would call upon to risk all in support of a counterinsurgency strategy against the hard core Taliban and AQ who would raze their clans if they should so much as take tea with us.

At the very least, individuals in such influential positions should pick their words with far greater care.

It should also be pointed out, though, that the British general officer class has not exactly had a stellar record when it comes to distinguishing situations which call for negotiation from those which are better suited to more kinetic sorts of problem-solving.

Pakistani Pashtuns Tiring of Taliban?

Yesterday at the Long War Journal, Bill Roggio posted about the efforts underway by the Pakistani government and military to reach out to the multifarious but predominantly Pashtun tribes straddling that nation's embattled border with Afghanistan, and enlist their aid to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda "miscreants" in their midst:

Pakistan has touted its tribal strategy as being crucial to it security plan, but the rise of the Pakistani Taliban and the existing tribal dynamics work against the government.

The idea of using the tribes to fight the Taliban is not new in fight against the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan. The government raised lashkars to fight the Taliban in North and South Waziristan in 2004 and 2005. The Taliban, then led by Nek Mohammed and Abdullah Mehsud, routed the lashkars and fought the Pakistani military to a stalemate. These battles led to the government to negotiate a series of humiliating peace accords in North and South Waziristan, and beyond.

But today, the Pakistani government is engaging the tribes throughout the tribal areas and the greater Northwest Frontier Province and possibly inside Afghanistan.

Naturally, this brings to mind the enlistment of Sunni tribes in Iraq, whose Awakening Movement and its mobilizations of local security forces (the "Sons of Iraq") have proved so instrumental in facilitating the implementation of the Petraeus counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, along with a surge of troops and fundamental changes in the deployment patterns and rules of engagement for those troops. However, these comparisons need to be made with great caution, as the situation on the ground in the Af-Pak theater is qualitatively different, and presents a far more complex challenge than even Iraq had in store:

The Pakistani government has to coordinate different strategies for each individual tribe, making the task of tribal engagement difficult. "The dynamics [with each tribe] are very different, as is the strategic situation of each tribe," the source stated. "The biggest single hurdle is that there is no over-arching body to coordinate tribal resistance In contrast to the TTP [the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan]."

The Pakistani tribes are operating as distinct, local fighting forces, while the Taliban can coordinate their activities across the northwest and inside eastern Afghanistan. The Pakistani government claimed the Taliban and al Qaeda are pouring in from Kunar and neighboring provinces in Afghanistan to reinforce the legions fighting in Bajaur.

The challenge which this operational environment poses cannot be overstated: In Iraq, the Sunni tribes which began to push back against AQI well before Petraeus' COIN doctrine came on-line arose from a relatively homogeneous geographical and socio-cultural medium. There were common frames of reference and relatively well-established channels for communication and coordination, even as rivalries continually percolated. This showed in the seeming ease with which those tribes were able to act together when common interests were perceived -- at first for the Insurgency and its Jihadi agents provocateurs, then against the latter, and ultimately for the Nation of Iraq.

By stark contrast, the tribes of the isolated and perennially ungovernable hinterlands which stretch between Afghanistan and Pakistan live within an almost unimaginably rugged terrain in which historical divergences within formidable geographical contraints have given rise to a motley and mutually mistrustful melange of societies. Herding cats would be a mere trifle alongside the challenge of getting these people to work with each other, let alone with a Central Government and outsiders:

The problems are complicated by the tribes' unwillingness to cooperate with the government and the military. "We keep the government away," a senior tribal leader in Lakki Marwat told Geo TV. The tribes fear cooperation with the government will further turn the Taliban and sympathetic tribes against them. "If we became part of the government they would become an excuse, a liability, a rallying cry against us," the Lakki Marwat tribal leader said. This attitude prevents the military from providing the needed security to oppose massed Taliban attacks.

Other tribes claim to be equally opposed to the Taliban and US and NATO forces operating across the border in Afghanistan. "For us, the Taliban, NATO and the United States are all equals," a tribal leader in Bajaur said.

It is noteworthy that there should be such seeming agreement among many of these disparate groups that the Taliban represents at least a potentially malign force capable of meting out vengeance on those who stray from its agenda. That some tribes support the Taiban/AQ axis, while some bitterly oppose it may be seen as an exploitable bifurcation in the tribal ecosystem, one which the Pakistani government appears to be attempting to leverage (which seems to have gotten the miscreants' attention).

In this, it may be that the broad outlines of a viable battlespace for COIN operations is taking shape. If the fear of retribution for resistance against the Taliban, AQ, and their allied tribes can be credibly mitigated, it is conceivable that a more organized resistance could coalesce. The key would be to establish relationships with the tribal elders that are deeply informed by the nuances unique to each tribe, yet coordinated toward the attainment of a common purpose. This would take a special breed of field operators, led by an uncommonly perspicacious commander. Someone like....David Petraeus. As head of CENTCOM, Gen. Petraeus would be in the position to deploy conventional and (especially) Special Forces into the AO which could train and support local militias against their Taliban and AQ foes...not to mention rival tribes (which would likely be seen as a nice perk).

This possibility sheds an interesting light on what might otherwise appear to be another in a series of depressing accounts of counterproductive appeasements, in this case the overtures of Afghan president Karzai toward Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Karzai is a very smart man, with ample grounds for comprehending the malignancy represented by Islamist forces in the region. I don't think it is entirely out of bounds to speculate that by making an amnesty offer to those Taliban who choose to come in out of the cold, he is intentionally applying pressure to fracture lines within the Pashtun tribes which may be on the fence, separating the more intransigent elements from those who might be flipped. If so, it would be a cunning gambit which would make any subsequent COIN operations in the area a bit less difficult. If not, then the net results could still be exploited to good effect. At the very least, it could sufficiently disrupt the logistics and organization of AQ in the area enough to undermine or destroy the development cycles of any planned attacks on US or European interests.

If anything, this underscores the danger of simply throwing troops at Afghanistan, and potentially alienating the very people who are showing signs --albeit tenuous and sputtering-- that they might make enemies of our enemies. To borrow a phrase, this will take more scalpel than hatchet.

One Ring to Bring Them All, and In The Darkness Bind Them

Over at the Counterterrorism Blog, the estimable scholar on Islamism, Walid Phares is interviewed on the nature and status of the fight against al Qaeda and other Jihadi organizations. It is a quick but very rewarding read, in which Dr. Phares, with characteristic clarity and comprehensiveness cuts through many of the dangerous misconceptions about Salafist Jihadism (such as looking at groups like al Qaeda in isolation or, much worse, treating Islamist terrorism as a mere law-enforcement matter).

Phares maintains that the essence of what we are fighting is not a particular group, nor a set of tactics or regional conflicts, but a coherent ideology which exists independently of the various visible shapes it takes on the world stage. One passage in particular stood out to me:

SMITH: In the years since 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, we’ve been talking about Al Qaeda as if it were a global force, with a reach extending from South Asia to the Maghreb and beyond. Then we’ve heard about Al Qaeda “the label” and “Al Qaedism.” From what we now know, how many of the ideologically sympathizing terrorist groups, from the Philippines to Algeria actually have connections to Al Qaeda and its leaders?

DR. PHARES: Again, many experts - unwilling to accept the reality that Jihadism is a global ideology and movement - went in different directions trying to explain the phenomenon away from its real and historic roots. Perhaps the little linguistic and cultural knowledge that was available pushed these analysts to adopt conclusions alien to the essence of Al Qaeda. In the Arab political debate there is not such thing as “Al Qaedism.” There is no such thing as Al Qaeda’s label or branding. The reality is simple: Beyond Al Qaeda and all similar organizations there is a one global ideology called Jihadism. If we compare this with the “Lord of the Rings” tales, Jihadism is the “ring,” a strong force that lords and leaders use in their quest for expansion. These lords such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri come and go. But the “force” - or ideology — remains and produces more leaders. So, Al Qaeda is a central organization for Jihadists, but there are Jihadi groups around the world, most of whom look at Al Qaeda as the great center. But again, this constellation, if you will, is the product of an ideology and of doctrinaires. If we fail to understand this, we fail to properly analyze the future.

Aside from geeking out over the spot-on Tolkien reference, I am impressed by the incisiveness of the observation. While many devote a great deal of breath and ink and pixels to the proposition that Osama bin Laden must be brought to justice (which he must) or that al Qaeda must be crushed (ditto), what is far less frequently discussed is the importance of discrediting the central ideology which animates these particular perpetrators and forms the wellspring of future foes.

Military prowess alone does not extinguish the flames in which Jihadists are forged (though sustained and humiliating defeat on the battlefield does weaken the claim to Divine favor for their cause). "Soft power" such as economic and diplomatic pressure scarcely scratches the surface of the great, lumbering engines which churn out "Lions of Islam" like the Uruk-Hai of Isengard. The dark breath which fills their lungs as they cry out to their god before dissolving in an angry cloud of ball-bearings and body parts comes from a far deeper source.

The "Cracks of Doom" for this particular Ring lie within the fissures which exist throughout Muslim communities worldwide, the chasm between their hopes for a proud, prosperous life, and the grinding despair of a civilization lacerated by a long slide along its collective rock bottom.

As the doctrine of counterinsurgency is applied in more of the regions in which the insidious whisper of Jihadist fanaticism and fantasism holds sway, the security and empowerment and self-determination which it brings will raise the temperature toward the Salafist melting point. As we have seen in Iraq, when pushed in this way, the true, desperate brutality of the Jihadi soul bares itself with the unmistakable contours of evil, and the people respond accordingly. Whether it is Zarqawi bombing a wedding in Jordan, or AQI baking the sons of tribal sheiks alive, the hideous nihilistic reality of Jihadism exposes itself when pressed, like the inscription on the One Ring becomes visible only in fire.

The seductive lure of appeasement and moral equivalency and retreat to the comforts of our Hobbit-holes must be resisted. In these epochal times, we are all Frodo Baggins.

COIN Chameleon

Via the WSJ comes this very thought-provoking editorial by Ann Marlowe, about the perils of assuming that the precise set of COIN tactics which have all-but prevailed in Iraq can be transplanted to Afghanistan with any expectation of similar results. It's a lovely, tight little piece which I hope is widely read (or is based on widely-known ideas). For example:

Afghanistan's problems are not the same as Iraq's. Its people aren't recovering from a brutal, all-controlling tyranny, but from decades of chaos and centuries of bad government. Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is largely illiterate and has a relatively undeveloped civil society. Afghan society still centers around the family and, for men, the mosque. Its society and traditions are still largely intact, in contrast to Iraq's fractured, urbanized and half-modernized population.

As I have previously written, Counterinsurgency (COIN) is a very subtle bit of business, the very essence of adaptability and flexibility. The core of it is a detailed understanding of the host nation's population dynamics and threat/asset profiles, guided by a warrior sociologist's study, analysis, intelligence (in both senses of the word), and real-time intuition.

Some might claim that the success of the COIN doctrine in Iraq was a too-good-to-be-true confluence of historical and socio-cultural factors which made Iraq atypically ripe for successful application of the Petraeus/Nagl/Odierno style of COIN operations. Alternately, one might argue that the demonstrable success of that style of operations in Iraq means that it can be successfully exported to other AOs with little change (as Obama and his people seem to be suggesting). Both of these analyses would be shallow and unhelpful.

Arguing that Iraq was uniquely well-suited for COIN ops is like arguing that the distance of the Earth from the Sun is uniquely well-suited for the emergence of life. The argument dissolves in a puff of tautology on even a casual examination: In both instances, the setting and the set emerge together, and artificially parsing them into cause and effect is an exercise in intellectual laziness. The particular type of COIN theory which emerged to handle the situation in Iraq looks as it did, beyond general parameters, because it was designed for Iraq. Before the Coalition arrived, Iraq existed, with all of its alliances and fractures and subtle loyalties and resentments. It was these dynamics which informed the design of the particular applications of COIN doctrine, just as that doctrine evolved together with the dynamics which it influenced. Similarly, although the distance from the Sun has remained more-or-less constant (though solar output has varied over time...), and formed the initial conditions for life to emerge (i.e., allowing liquid water to be stable on the surface), that life has also acted to regulate the conditions on the planet to maintain a homeostatic balance which continues to be favorable to life. To suggest that the success of the Surge was a matter of blind luck as to the conditions in Iraq is akin to arguing that the uncanny suitability of the Earth for organic life must be evidence of Intelligent Design.

Of course, as Marlowe's editorial proposes, it is equally foolish to assume that the particular constellation of force structures and tactical configurations which worked in Iraq could have 'scalable' results in Afghanistan. The primacy of the tribal (or even 'lower')-level social unit, coupled with the geographical and ethno-social isolation of widely-distributed sub-groups in almost extraterrestrially remote and rugged terrain militates against the kinds of urban-level operational philosophy which took root so relatively readily in post-Saddam Iraq. Further, the very active and destabilizing effects of the Pakistani military and intelligence machinery in abetting a relatively thriving Taliban/AQ presence, safe across the border within a beleaguered, nuclear-armed, twitchily sovereign nation defies any facile comparisons with even Iran. For Obama to continually carp on the idea that he can graft the relatively heavy force-footprint model of COIN operations which worked for Iraq onto Afghanistan smacks of the sort of shallow, opportunistic "me-too-ism" which so typifies his foreign policy style, particularly with regard to military matters.

The simple point is that a species of COIN strategy does need to be applied to Afghanistan...but it must arise out of a careful synthesis of multiple, far-flung threads of data and wisdom pertaining specifically to Afghanistan, where it will shift its shape into something more adapted to its surroundings. When it comes to COIN, this is a feature, not a bug:

Counterinsurgency is not one-size-fits-all. While there are best practices, they must be applied in a nuanced way. In poorly governed countries where insurgencies are likely to arise, the solution may vary from valley to valley.

It shouldn't be hard to see that adding men, helicopters or projects is not always the solution. But then, a would-be commander in chief who announces his prescription for Afghanistan before setting foot there has a lot to learn about America's top job.

Of course, for Obama to pontificate about what sorts of strategies and tactics should best be applied within Afghanistan is revelaed to be an even sillier exercise when one remembers that the head of CENTCOM, within whose Area of Responsibility (AoR) lies Afghanistan, is none other than David Petraeus himself. Talk about teaching your grandmother to suck eggs! For Obama to pose for the cameras as a man standing boldly ahead of the curve on the application of a policy he less-than-presciently opposed, and presume to dictate to one of that policy's chief authors is the very height of chutzpah.

The complexity of the tasks which await us in the Af-Pak theater is simply too daunting to entrust to strutting greenhorns and shallow thinkers.