A question for those who think the Afghan war is essential to maintaining stability in Pakistan

The argument about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons tends to be nested into a multi-pronged rationale for why escalation in Afghanistan is necessary -- very few people will say "the one and only reason we need to be in Afghanistan is to keep Pakistani nukes out of al-Qaeda's hands." But a lot of people (including John Nagl and Dave Kilcullen, unfortunately) will tack this on to whatever other justifications they've got, toss this one in there ominously. And why not? They probably think that even the slightest risk of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists is just about the most terrifying thing most Americans can imagine, and they're probably right.

I guess I should also make it clear that I agree about Pakistani stability being important. In fact, I think it's probably the most important feature of the entire war, and I have no qualms saying that regional stability in south Asia ought to be a bigger priority for America than the utter annihilation of al-Qaeda (which, like Rid, I think is probably impossible and possibly unnecessary) or the vaunted denial of the much-talked-about terrorist safe haven.

But lemme come to the point already: if you think that keeping Pakistani nuclear weapons safe is an important reason for us to stay in Afghanistan in significant numbers, then I want you to answer a question. Ready?

Why do we imagine that a third-party counterinsurgency campaign in the country without the nuclear weapons will be more effective in guaranteeing their security than small-footprint, foreign internal defense (FID)-oriented backing for the government that actually possesses WMD?

Can't we do more to prevent weapons from getting to AQ by engaging with the Pakistani government and military than by running around Helmand shooting at opium smugglers?

Plans for Afghan development aid getting it exactly backwards

Aid is a vital part of counterinsurgency, right? Development projects help back up improvements in security and win over support from the local population for the counterinsurgent and the legitimate government, so goes the thinking. We ought not be surprised, then, with this:

The White House is developing “clear targets” for both the Afghan and Pakistani
governments, possibly with specific timelines, as a way to signal that the American military presence will not last indefinitely, American officials said. It is not yet clear what the administration is willing to do if the targets are not met.

Among other things, the officials said, the administration will insist that Afghanistan fight corruption, speed up troop training and retention, and funnel development assistance to areas the Taliban dominate.

Emphasis in the above is mine. Only problem with the latter bit is that it's precisely the opposite of what we ought to be doing to help stabilize and legitimize the Karzai government. (A case can be made, too, that rapid expansion of the ANSF is similarly counterproductive to this aim.)

So why is it wrong? Well, it's pretty simple: pouring money and development assistance into areas dominated by the Taliban means that 1) everything we do will be much more expensive, 2) the prospects of failure are much higher, imperiling the government's overall legitimacy and control over areas previously deemed "quiet" and "safe," and 3) the enemy will gain from our efforts to the extent that any of them are successful in delivering benefits to insurgent-controlled (or insurgent-influenced) areas.

Control comes before collaboration. The support of individuals and groups is contested by the insurgent and the counterinsurgent through the provision of services and the suggestion of legitimacy, sure, but that only happens after one party is able to largely prevent the other from contesting territory and/or a subject population through force and security. The Taliban doesn't run sharia courts for the local nationals who work at Bagram; why? Because it's senseless to spend resources pitching a guy who cannot plausibly shift his support to the group that's unable to access or protect him. Pouring money and bridges and wells and so on into places that coalition or government forces cannot consistently and safely access decouples those resources from the counterinsurgent's most important tool: presence.

Kilcullen's been on this point lately, too: why spend all our resources in "red areas" when we've got a lot of light green areas we could be shoring up with those efforts? Why contest the hardest spots first? (And further, why work on connecting more of the population to a government that as yet doesn't seem to be competent enough to reap any benefit in legitimacy or support from being more closely connected to more of its citizens?)

There's a whole lot more to say about this -- it speaks to the "ink spots strategy" issues that Bernard and Christian have recently highlighted, and to which I've yet to respond -- and I hope to cover a lot more ground in a comprehensive Afghanistan "path-forward" post in the coming days.

Afghanistan: protracted war, but not Protracted War

In a post yesterday about a Dave Kilcullen talk on Afghanistan, I mentioned that he said that this conflict was not a Maoist Protracted War in the doctrinal sense. A comment which has received some interest for follow up (MikeF to name one in the comments section, and some others through email).

The second part of his statement on the matter was that it wasn't Maoist, it was Focoist. I didn't get that in the first cut yesterday because I had to write and run and didn't get everything down. But I think it's an interesting statement. Although one I can't say I fully agree with.

Now, I'm no expert on Focoism. But for those of you who know even less than I do, the model was set in Cuba in which the violence foments popular uprising as opposed to the other way around in Maoism. That's it in super-distilled nutshell.

So Kilcullen is saying that it's not Protracted War (not Maoist) and is Focoist instead. He was not saying it was not a protracted war (long). But I think what he was saying was incomplete. He's probably right in some parts of the country. But like a lot of things in Afghanistan, Focoism doesn't describe other areas (such as northern provinces with new-found insurgencies). The problem with Afghanistan is the disparities across cultural boundaries that do not permit overarching statements like "Afghanistan does not follow a Maoist template" to fly. I think it over-simplifies the issue.

I could probably talk about this specific topic for a while, but I'm interested in our readers' thoughts on it. Especially those of you who reacted to my original post with a "whhaaa?"

Diagnosis from Down Under

Today, the Australian Army hosted the Australian Army Symposium at their embassy in Washington. It was a pretty good program that included the Australian Chief of Army, Dave Kilcullen, Michael Evans, a commando battalion commander recently returned from Afghanistan, and some others. I'd like to talk more about Dr. K's bit, but for now I'll just throw out my notes from his talk. He talked about Afghanistan (no kidding), so this is it from his point of view with some editorial notes:

Afghanistan is not a traditional COIN fight, as outlined in FM 3-24, but is instead a stability operation. There are five phases to that drive the correlating instability:

1. Corruption in the Afghan government. Which drives...

2. Bad governance behaviors. Such as government officials seizing private property without eminent domain which alienates the population and drives...

3. Popular rage, discontent, and disillusionment with the government. Which of course in turn drives....

4. Creation of space for the Taliban to fill the political and military gaps. Which then...

5. Promotes poppy growth to fund Taliban activities. Oh, and since there's all this poppy money, that drives corruption of local government officials who want a piece of the pie....

And back to the beginning we go. I don't think anyone here will find that all terribly surprising. He next went into the Taliban strategy: Discredit, Exhaust, Inherit. This isn't a Maoist protracted war - but time is on their side. The longer the Afghan government remains illegitimate and bad, the harder it is for the West to justify their intervention, and then we leave the country to the Taliban.

Next up are Taliban tactics. Dr. K framed this discussion around Taliban organization, the elements of which are:

1. Main Force Column. 100-300 person force who are extremely mobile. They serve in Afghanistan for short durations (4-6 month tours) and are recruited and trained in Pakistan.

2. Local guerrillas. Local actors [maybe they're accidental??] who live in one valley and wait for the main force to conduct operations.

3. Village infrastructure. Local Taliban cells - could be military and/or political.

4. Support elements. Located in Pakistan and do finance, leadership, training, etc. [I guess even insurgents need the ash and trash that a uniformed army does.]

5. Terrorist cells. These guys run parallel, but not coordinated operations with the main force. [The description made them sound like the Taliban's version of SOF.]

Dr. K then said quite frankly, that we are losing. He laid out a number of reasons why and a couple ways to turn it around. Reason 1: "red-first" aid policy. We were doing reconstruction in areas with poor security instead of using the aid to solidify gains in "green" or pacified areas. The money quote for this one was from governor of a northern province: "Who do I have to shoot at to get some aid around here?" Awesome. Reason 2: a disengaged administration. He attributed this to the current and previous administration. He didn't seem a fan of the current and dithering debate going on currently.

So what's the fix? My distillation of his options are quite simple: go big or go home [my words, not his]. Go big would entail giving ISAF enough troops to control the environment and turn back the Taliban. Go home would be the threat (and if necessary, follow through) of withdrawl to leverage the Karzai government to start governing effectively. The Iraq Surge was a sort of combination of the two and worked somewhat successfully. What he did say that would guarantee failure would be some half-assed measure that provided some more troops but not enough to control the environment with the attitude of "let's see what happens." So go big or go home.

I can't say that I disagree with that option set. Apologies for the scatter-shot of notes, but they struck me as interesting and worth sharing. Comments, as always, are welcome.

As if on cue...

...Dave Kilcullen gave a talk in Australia today and repeated the same talking points that he gave at USIP last month, and to which I referred in this morning's metrics post.

Kilcullen said hard fighting in Afghanistan would likely last another two years, after which insurgents would hopefully believe it was better to negotiate than continue combat with international and government forces.

That would be followed by a three-year transition to effective Afghan government and five-year overwatch period involving international forces as back-up, he said.

Tony Cordesman also has an op-ed in the Post today, entitled "How To Lose in Afghanistan."

McChrystal has not announced a need for more U.S. troops, but almost every expert on the scene has talked about figures equivalent to three to eight more brigade combat teams -- with nominal manning levels that could range from 2,300 to 5,000 personnel each -- although much of that manpower will go to developing Afghan forces that must nearly double in size, become full partners rather than tools, and slowly take over from U.S. and NATO forces. Similarly, a significant number of such U.S. reinforcements will have to assist in providing a mix of capabilities in security, governance, rule of law and aid. U.S. forces need to "hold" and keep the Afghan population secure, and "build" enough secure local governance and economic activity to give Afghans reason to trust their government and allied forces. They must build the provincial, district and local government capabilities that the Kabul government cannot and will not build for them. No outcome of the recent presidential election can make up for the critical flaws in a grossly overcentralized government that is corrupt, is often a tool of power brokers and narco-traffickers, and lacks basic capacity in virtually every ministry.

Unfortunately, strong elements in the White House, State Department and other agencies seem determined to ignore these realities. They are pressuring the president to direct Eikenberry and McChrystal to come to Washington to present a broad set of strategic concepts rather than specific requests for troops, more civilians, money and an integrated civil-military plan for action. They are pushing to prevent a fully integrated civil-military effort, and to avoid giving Eikenberry and McChrystal all the authority they need to try to force more unity of effort from allied forces and the U.N.-led aid effort.

If these elements succeed, President Obama will be as much a failed wartime president as George W. Bush. He may succeed in lowering the political, military and financial profile of the war for up to a year, but in the process he will squander our last hope of winning. This would only trade one set of political problems for a far worse set in the future and leave us with an enduring regional mess and sanctuary for extremism. We have a reasonable chance of victory if we properly outfit and empower our new team in Afghanistan; we face certain defeat if we do not.

Flashback to 2008: some perspective on the pace of our strategic realignment

Things have been sort of slow around here lately. August in DC is pretty awful, if you ask me: the weather is usually the worst of the year, the streets are clogged up with tourists, and nobody can get any work done because everybody goes on vacation. (This is especially true if you work with or around Europeans!) And so the torpid pace seems to have impacted us around here, or at least me.

None of this is really a problem for the Gentle Reader, I'm sure, seeing as you've likely been busying yourselves with Loren Thompson's new blog. Well, actually, it's the Lexington Institute's blog, not Thompson's personal blog. And he assures us (via Small Wars Journal) that "it isn't awful." Heh. So good luck with all that. I'm gonna stick to my "ill-mannered rants masquerading as analysis," personally.

So as I may have mentioned, I've been meaning for a while to jump into the Afghanistan strategy debate -- despite Dave Dillege's consternation, everyone else is. And maybe I'll get to that this weekend, but for right now I just want to take a look back to last November at some of Dave Kilcullen's thoughts.

At the time of this email interview, optimism about the new Obama administration's increased focus on Afghanistan was tempered by what seemed like a negative turn in the coalition's furtunes. Nine months later, we can comfortably say that this was more than a temporary blip. The U.S./ISAF mission seems almost certain to meet with some far less expansive definition of success, if not with outright failure. It was interesting to read back yesterday and see what priorities Kilcullen identified for the newly-elected president.

The email exchange starts with George Packer asking "so how bad is it [in Afghanistan]?" DK responds:

It’s bad: violence is way up, Taliban influence has spread at the local level, and popular confidence in the government and the international community is waning fast. It’s still winnable, but only just, and to turn this thing around will take an extremely major effort starting with local-level governance, political strategy, giving the Afghan people a well-founded feeling of security, and dealing with the active sanctuary in Pakistan.

Sounds about like today, right? Seriously, if you read those words in this morning's paper, wouldn't they seem consistent with what most of what we're hearing in the lead-up to the Afghan presidential election next week? But I digress. Kilcullen goes on:

A normal U.S.government transition takes six to nine months, by the time new political appointees are confirmed, briefed, and in position. But nine months out from now will be the height of the Afghan fighting season, and less than a month out from critical Presidential elections in Afghanistan. If we do this the “normal” way, it will be too late for the Obama Administration to grip it up. I think this is shaping up to be one of the smoothest transitions on record, with the current Administration going out of its way to assist and facilitate. That said, the incoming Administration has a steep learning curve, and has inherited a dire situation—so whatever we do, it’s not going to be easy. [emphasis mine]

Which is exactly where we are today: nine months out, and right at the height of Afghanistan's fighting season. And how about that progress? Well, the administration moved to appoint key personnel, along with engaging in an "AfPak" strategic review. That got us a bland restatement of the counter-terror, counter-sanctuary mission, along with some pretty vague platitudes about building Pakistani counterinsurgency capabilities and so on. Now we seem to be approaching the close of yet another "strategic assessment/review," this one conducted by GEN McChrystal's staff and a crew of subject-matter experts. But what's that going to tell us, really? Probably what we already know: that there has been little to no progress over the last nine months on the focus areas of the "extremely major effort" that Kilcullen identifies: "local-level governance, political strategy, giving the Afghan people a well-founded feeling of security, and dealing with the active sanctuary in Pakistan."

"[W]e are being both out-fought and out-governed for four basic reasons," he continued.

(1) We have failed to secure the Afghan people. That is, we have failed to deliver them a well-founded feeling of security. Our failing lies as much in providing human security—economic and social wellbeing, law and order, trust in institutions and hope for the future—as in protection from the Taliban, narco-traffickers, and terrorists. In particular, we have spent too much effort chasing and attacking an elusive enemy who has nothing he needs to defend—and so can always run away to fight another day—and too little effort in securing the people where they sleep. (And doing this would not take nearly as many extra troops as some people think, but rather a different focus of operations).

(2) We have failed to deal with the Pakistani sanctuary that forms the political base and operational support system for the Taliban, and which creates a protective cocoon (abetted by the fecklessness or complicity of some elements in Pakistan) around senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

(3) The Afghan government has not delivered legitimate, good governance to Afghans at the local level—with the emphasis on good governance. In some areas, we have left a vacuum that the Taliban has filled, in other areas some of the Afghan government’s own representatives have been seen as inefficient, corrupt, or exploitative.

(4) Neither we nor the Afghans are organized, staffed, or resourced to do these three things (secure the people, deal with the safe haven, and govern legitimately and well at the local level)—partly because of poor coalition management, partly because of the strategic distraction and resource scarcity caused by Iraq, and partly because, to date, we have given only episodic attention to the war.

Yep.

An in-depth examination of these points is probably going to have to wait for another time (and probably ought to be performed by someone with more granular knowledge of the situation than me, like maybe Andrew Exum, who was on the assessment team). But I think it's fair to look back and consider how, despite all the sound and fury, the last nine months haven't gotten us much closer to a time where this thing looks do-able. I'd contend that this has as much to do with structural, situational factors as much as it does misguided coalition efforts or resource constraints, though it's certainly encouraging to see our strategy, TTPs, and resource availability being reconsidered.

"The war in Afghanistan will be won or lost in the next fighting season, i.e. by the time of the September [sic] elections." That's what Kilcullen told George Packer last November. Well, the presidential election takes place in six days. And in a counterinsurgency, if you're not winning, you're losing.

I don't think we're winning.

Candide's take at COIN in Afghanistan (UPDATED)

Interesting talk today at USIP on counterinsurgency in Afghanistan with David Kilcullen and Andrew Wilder. Kilcullen was luminous as always, but although everything he said rings true, I am not sure where this takes us in terms of COIN strategy. Let me try to summarize his intervention in a nutshell and a (at least half-fictional) dialogue:

Kilcullen: So far we have attempted to defeat the insurgents rather than the insurgency. We need to change this and move from an enemy-centric approach to a population-centric one.

Candide: OK, that’s Galula 101, I get it. So that will require lots of boots on the ground, which is why we keep sending more and more guys.

Kilcullen: And since the Taliban’s strategy is to wait us out and intimidate the population rather than seek military engagement, this means that this commitment needs to be extended in time.

Candide: Uh oh, not sure this is going to fly with lots of NATO leaders who are hoping to get reelected.

Kilcullen: This is why this extended commitment can only be done realistically (and effectively) by the Afghans themselves, so we need to beef-up the ANA and ANP.

Candide: OK, so let’s train more people.

Kilcullen: Not that simple. Afghans will only resist the Talibans if they think that another form of government can bring them more security, justice and basic services (to put it simply). And it is worth training more soldiers and policemen (especially policemen) if you can make them accountable and ensure that they do not turn into security threats for the people they are meant to protect. Training more bad cops sounds exactly like what could make the life of the average Afghan more miserable.

Candide: Does that mean we should put everything on hold until the governance/corruption problem is solved? So what do we do now?

Seriously, if this is where the counterinsurgency is to be won, why isn’t there more thinking and effort put into good governance and accountability? Is it for fear of undermining Karzai? Or because the task is already deemed hopeless?

UPDATE: Here's the link to the AP story about Kilcullen's remarks. The lede:

An incoming adviser to the top U.S. general in Afghanistan predicted Thursday that the United States will see about two more years of heavy fighting and then either hand off to a much improved Afghan fighting force or "lose and go home."

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who will assume a role as a senior adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been highly critical of the war's management to date. He outlined a "best-case scenario" for a decade of further U.S. and NATO involvement in Afghanistan during an appearance at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Under that timeline, the allied forces would turn the corner in those two years, followed by about three years of transition to a newly capable Afghan force and about five years of "overwatch."

"We'll fight for two years and then a successful transition, or we'll fight for two years and we'll lose and go home," Kilcullen said.

"I think we need to persist," he said, but with "some pretty significant limits on how much we're prepared to spend, how many troops we're prepared to send, how long we can do this for."

Two more Kilcullen books forthcoming

Mike Innes at CTLab tells us that Dave Kilcullen will have a new book coming out with Hurst (which published The Accidental Guerilla in the UK) in each of the next two years:

Former anthropologist, Australian army officer and adviser to Gen. Petraeus, David Kilcullen's COUNTERINSURGENCY, based on the author's 'Twenty-Eight Articles' of Counterinsurgency Warfare, and THE NINTH WINTER, the author's new theory of competitive control, a mix of counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, counternarcotics and stablization operations, based on experience in Afghanistan since 9/11 will be published respectively in Spring 2010 and Spring 2011, by Hurst Publishers London, Oxford University Press, New York, Scribe Publishers, Melbourne and Foundation Books, New Delhi.