Adapt, Decentralize, and Harden.

The string of failures starting with the Jihadi attack on Fort Hood by an American Army Major, followed by the fiasco of incompetence demonstrated by multiple agencies in the Christmas Day undie bomber attempt, followed by the CIA FOB Chapman attack were huge strikes.   Three strikes, but nobody is out because that is the nature of bureaucracies.   The only time large bureaucracies hold individuals accountable for major failures is when they can pin the blame squarely on a junior member – that is the way it is.

Major General Michael T. Flynn, USA has followed up his blunt criticism of the intelligence portion of our Afghan operations with a solid paper, co authored by Captain Matt Pottinger, USMC, and Paul Batchelor of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), on making   intelligence relevant in Afghanistan.   These men are at the forefront of the counterbureaucracy battle fighting against the tide of mediocrity that has defined our military efforts to date.   I am compelled to point out that the picture on the cover of an Army general officer who is engaging some key elders while wearing body armor, helmet, SUNGLASSES, and with a rifle strapped to his chest is illustrative of exactly how not to conduct COIN.   I don’t know if that was done  on purpose or not, but the last thing a general officer should be doing is showing up in his Ivanhoe armor and a rifle strapped to his chest to talk with local leaders.   No body armor, no helmet, no  rifle, and certainly no sunglasses is how a senior leader demonstrates calm, trust in his men, and physical courage in this environment.   My kids who have spent months at a time here could tell you that.

The Flynn paper defines the problems plaguing our efforts with insight and clarity.   The authors describe the efforts of several battalions who have gotten it right.   They focus on the 1st Battalion 5th Marines, who after clearing   Nawa of Taliban focused on identifying local centers of gravity which they could influence to improve the security situation on the ground for the local Afghans.   This is an important distinction – they focused on making the environment safe for the people, not for them, which in the context of Afghanistan military operations is not the norm.   ISAF forces focus their effort on “red” incidents not “white” information.   Red incidents mean IED strikes, which is to say the entire effort of most units is to find and kill IED syndicates, so they can drive around in their MRAPS without losing people.   White information is all about the human terrain on the ground, i.e. who is in charge of what, what are the major concerns of the people, what factors are degrading security for the average Afghan etc…     White information can only be gained by sustained contact with the local population which is exactly what 1/5 did when they settled into Nawa after clearing out the Taliban.

Faced with rifle companies spread thinly on the ground and without access to buildings, computers, internet, or even reliable electricity, the Marines adapted by spreading their intelligence thinly and tasking the rifle companies to provide the atmospherics needed to gain an understanding of exactly what was impacting the local population so they could deliver security customized to the needs of the Afghan villagers.   In a summer which saw a dramatic increase in casualties from IED’s countrywide, the Marines of 1/5 drove down the IED incident rate to zero.   The local people actually chased off Taliban IED teams themselves.   That is nothing less than astounding.   There were similar successes posted by American Army battalions which are highlighted in the paper too.   But I have to add that kind of success cannot last forever in an active insurgency – there were loses in Nawa this week to IED’s.

This white paper is full of good things but all good things must come to an end and at the end of this paper there are no good things which I can detect.   As the new Obama surge comes into the theater it  will bring with it massive new headquarters – a MEF forward for the Marines and an airborne divisional headquarters for the Army.   Of the 30,000 additional troops thrown into this fight, at least 5,000 of them will be found in these two headquarters units alone.   Adding layers of additional bureaucracy to the already bloated, essentially useless staffs here now will render the immanently reasonable suggestions contained in Gen Flynn’s paper moot.   Which brings us back to the consistent pattern of failure which defines the Central Intelligence Agency, The Department of Homeland Security, and the National Security Council.   Eric Raymond at the Armed and Dangerous blog defines the problem succinctly:

“When I look at the pattern of failures, I am reminded of something I learned from software engineering: planning fails when the complexity of the problem exceeds the capacity of the planners to reason about it. And the complexity of real-world planning problems almost never rises linearly; it tends to go up at least quadratically in the number of independent variables or problem elements.

I think the complexifying financial and political environment of the last few decades has simply outstripped the capacity of our educated classes, our cognitive elite, to cope with it. The wizards in our financial system couldn’t reason effectively about derivatives risk and oversimplified their way into meltdown; regulators failed to foresee the consequences of requiring a quota of mortgage loans to insolvent minority customers; and politico-military strategists weaned on the relative simplicity of confronting nation-state adversaries thrashed pitifully when required to game against fuzzy coalitions of state and non-state actors.”

There are few things in the world more complex than the  web of Islamic extremist organizations currently at war with the governments and peoples of the west.   One of those things  that is more complex is the situation we now face in Afghanistan.   We are supporting Afghan government officials who may or may not be more of a problem then the Taliban, we are trying to engage the population based on tribal affiliations which are not always clear or relevant, and we are identifying, targeting and killing “commanders” who have proven to be easily replaced.   William McCallister, in an interview by Stephen Pressfield does the best job of defining the complexities of the Afghan human terrain:

“Tribal identities exist in Afghanistan, but local communities and interest groups may not necessarily organize themselves based on these identities. Individuals tend to define themselves in terms of a group identity. A qawm, or solidarity group, is a collection of people that act as a single unit, which  is organized on the basis of some shared identity, system of values, beliefs and or interests. It can describe a family group or reflect a geographical area. It can specify a group of people united by a common political or military goal under one jang salar or martial leader. Members of a village; the inhabitants of a valley; a warlord and his retainers; a strongman and his followers; a bandit and his forty thieves, or the local chapter of the Taliban are all aqwam (plural).”

Afghanistan is a complex place where the situation on the ground can range from actively hostile to completely benign depending on the district, valley, town our isolated village.   An intelligence system designed to collect against a peer level threat with its associated defense, intelligence and political structures is not the optimal organization to employ in the counterinsurgency environment.   Add to that system layers and layers of additional bureaucracy and the results are a system designed to fail.   This comment from FRI regular E2 paints a bleak picture for the intelligence specialists assigned to the FOB’s.

“I read MG Flynn’s paper as well, and while he makes some excellent points, he failed to mention that part of the reason our intelligence sucks is that all our collectors are mostly stuck on the FOB.   That’s why we’ve become so hooked on technical intelligence. The kind of relevant intelligence that Flynn yearns for comes from meaningful interaction with the populace, period.   In my experience with Afghans, especially Pashtuns, if you suddenly roll up into their village with your MRAPs, Star Ship Trooper suits, and “foreign” interpreters (even if your terp is from Afghanistan, if he’s not from the neighborhood, he’s “foreign”), they will tell you two things: jack and sh*t.   We are reminded constantly that Afghanistan is a country broken by decades of war; no one trusts one another.   But trust is only obtained by building meaningful relationships with people, and our current force protection policies make the process of building rapport impossible.   As I sit here at my desk, on an unnamed FOB in Regional Command East, I would dearly love to grab a few of my soldiers and head out to the local market to see what’s going on in town today.   Perhaps I could report back to my leadership that local farmers are concerned about a drought next year because of the light snowfall this winter, or that the mullah down the street is preaching anti-coalition/government propaganda.   I’d get this information from shop keepers and kids that I’ve built a relationship with over the past few months.   But I cannot just walk off the FOB because that would be the end of my career. Instead, I’m going to check out BBC.com, call a couple guys I know like Tim, and continue to be disgruntled that I have NO idea what’s going on outside my FOB.”

Now here is the thing – as poor an effort as we seem to be making there are more then a few places where district level governance is developing into an effective effort.   I am almost certain that back in late 1986 the Soviets had won the Afghan War.   They were already committed to pulling out by then and nobody was really assessing the situation on the ground with an eye towards staying.   But as often happens in a counterinsurgency war, they had won, but did not know it.   I mention that only because it is impossible to say with certainty just how good or how bad we are doing in Helmand or Kunar or Paktia.   The only meaningful measurements are found at the district level which means sustained engagement.   If we can get off the FOB’s and do that….who knows?   I bet that when the tipping point comes we will not see it.   If ISAF can adapt by decentralizing their forces off the FOB’s and hardening in every district center it will change the trajectory of this war.