Friday started with a disturbing report – a fuel tanker attack on the Jalalabad side of the Duranta Dam tunnel. Ambush teams operating less than a mile from the Taj! Not good news, so after the incident scene cleared out we went for a look-see.
This turned out to be a traffic accident, resulting in a large fire, which is a routine event on Afghan roads.
A trucker had hit an old leaky fuel truck and the resulting spill caught fire. The various civilian security services had got the story right by late afternoon after issuing an alert for an armed attack inside the Jalalabad movement box just hours before. The local military folks did not know what had happened until we gave them a heads up while clearing the scene.
The cause of the accident
If this had been an ambush of tankers with RPG’s, as initially reported, it would have had an immediate effect on the international reconstruction programs throughout Nangarhar Province. It would not have impacted American or Afghan military convoys on the road, nor slowed the flow of commercial traffic, but it would have showed an alarming amount of cooperation between insurgents and local people. That kind of cooperation, were it ever to occur, would lead to an exodus of most of the 50 or so internationals that operate in and around Jalalabad. The few who remained would have to harden – which costs money, lots of money. That reported attack represented critical white information concerning local atmospherics in a very key portion of the human terrain environment.
Here comes a US MIL convoy. Maybe they had no idea about a prior reported attack and thought this was a typical traffic accident - who knows? They were obviously not curious about the burned tanker or crowds of by-standers. And I'll bet a month's pay they did not note or report on what should have been an urgent white information CCIR (Commanders Critical Information Requirement). Fuel recovery - it takes a village to do anything in this country.
Today’s little drama illustrates in real time how our military is ignoring the effort to maintain situational awareness via the active collection of white information because of their focus on “red intelligence.” Tracking and targeting active combatants is what the military is designed and trained to do. It is also what they have been doing for the past 8 years. Generals McChrystal and Flynn can write all the papers they want explaining why this approach is missing the point and counterproductive. Historically, radical military change comes in the face of or after defeat. That will not happen here – the Taliban could not in a thousand years engage in a set piece combined arms battle with any ISAF military. They could not stand up to the Afghan Army either, with their tanks, artillery, gun ships, experienced leaders, and international mentors.
Focusing on the population – that takes getting out and living with the population. There is no other way. This is supposed to be what we are now doing with our military operations.
And there they go, no doubt straight through the city instead of on the truck by-pass, but what are you going to do? SOP's are SOP's.
You can see decentralized, white information-focused operations at work in the chaotic areas bordering the large military installations in the south. All trucks entering any ISAF base have to sit in lots, known as “cool down” yards, way off post for at least 24 hours. The trucks bring with them butchers, bakers, tea houses, mechanics, and assorted other small shop keepers. ISAF keeps a close eye on these areas where multiple base agencies have some jurisdiction. The Marines have security, the Brits are the local law enforcement. There is a constant stream of trucks, military convoys and civilian vehicles. The Marines are from a dismounted tank company who left their big beasts back home to come out as part of the Brigade Support Unit (BSU.) The BSU is built around an artillery battalion because the Marines do not really have Brigade Support Units, except for on paper, and when one mobilizes it is better to build it out of an existing battalion.
Brit MP's in the shanty town which has sprung up outside a main base; they appeared to be looking for somebody.The Marines out organizing the local merchants for an impending move. They have learned quickly how to get these things accomplished by getting Provincial government buy-in and support for their base expansion efforts.
The Marines who keep an eye on this lot have a remarkably deep understanding of who the regular shop keepers are, where they came from, and in some cases, what they were doing before. That is because they are bored being assigned to a base defense role and spend a lot of time out there because they can. This will pay big dividends in a few months when all these people will be forced to move across the highway when the base expands.
The Brit MP's were on the trail of something moving rapidly through the butchers, bakers, PCO shops and tea tents.Strykers heading out to the highway105 cannon mounted on a Stryker - that is a pretty cool looking piece of gear. On the hunt - the Brits are off to another part of border area to continue their mission.
If a young sergeant and a squad of dismounted tankers can master the civil terrain nuances of this sprawling, unregulated township outside one of their bases, do you think they could accomplish the same in a village cluster a little further to the south? When we are able to deploy like that, we will be able to obtain the white information needed to conduct a counterinsurgency. At that point we will have started down the track to winning in Afghanistan. Until then, we our wasting time, money and people.
The local butcher, propane, tire repair store.
There is a fad in the first world called “low impact environmental living.” Afghans are masters at real low impact environmental living: no refrigerators, no electricity, no cardboard packages or fast food bags, and if you’re lucky, a trucker will have a large bag of dried buffalo dung for sale to cook your food over. If somebody could just get these people access to the internet they could make a fortune selling carbon credits to Algore and friends.
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.
Adapt: Riding around in large armored SUV's is not adapting. Bullet proof vehicles seem safer, but in a country where the villains plant IED's large enough to flip a LAV or open ambushes with RPG's these vehicles are targets. Adapting means low profile so that you blend in with the ground clutter making it difficult to be recognized or targeted.
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.
Decentralize - Afghans operate commercially that way nation wide. In secure areas where there is a sustained ISAF presence the markets thrive. This is not a point which is lost on many Afghans.
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.
Harden: Living outside the wire in the south forces one to adapt to the situation as it is. Adding three feet to the exterior walls and topping them with concertina is not practical for outfits like ours because it costs money we do not have and draws too much attention. So we harden and this is just phase one - when we are done anyone coming over the walls will face a nightmare of razor wire, tangle foot and aggressive dogs.
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).”
More Harden : Lash the protector dog: fast, smart, mean as a snake, and like most Afghan dogs, friendly only to foreigners. He is less then a year old, and already the king of the compound. We have decentralized an important part of the compound defense plan - the running fast as a horse and biting the shit out of you part - to Lash
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.
It is proving impossible to get a read on “the Afghan street” since our Commander in Chief articulated the new set of tactics for Afghanistan at his speech at West Point. It is clear the dynamics on the ground have changed and that this change is being driven by the fact that our great communicator placed an arbitrary date on when we will be done and start going home. Of course nobody in Afghanistan or any place else on planet earth believes we will start to pull out in 18 months but that is not the point. Afghans currently populating positions of power have paid hefty sums to be appointed to those positions and are insisting on getting a good return on their investments before the gravy train leaves the station. My military friends have seen the same thing as they fight endless battles on the Niper net to get the food allowances and other petty cash paid to their Afghan Army soldiers without getting the Afghan senior officers they mentor fired for bringing the problem up in the first place. It is most depressing and leaves little for me to write about as I cannot blog on specifics which were told to me in confidence.
It is good to see the Army out and about in places like Kunar Province but this is not COIN because COIN takes living with and protecting the local population. Driving around glad handing the locals is OK but accomplishes nothing except adding stats to the unit ops board.
I am at the moment inside both the loop and the wire. There is a huge problem which we are trying to help fix and that is the “hold and build” portion of the “clear, hold and build” tactic which is our current strategy (even though it is not a strategy but I have been over that and will leave it for now.) Here is the interesting thing – as we talk with the Marines (the only outfit on the ground who has successfully done the clear part of the mission and have an institutional legacy of innovation and thinking outside the box) – I am recognizing a concept which is at the heart of the Tea Party movement as well as the current alarm in American at our elected representatives shoving massive government take overs of our economy down our throats. And here it is: our government is not capable of developing or executing innovative, cost effective solutions to unique problems. They are only capable of knee jerk reactions to events which have already happened all the while treating us citizens as if we are stupid, incapable of recognizing hypocrisy and too lazy to do anything about it. The American ruling class may be proved correct in their assessment of a lethargic, uneducated, disconnected population and if so then my fellow Americans deserve what they will get which is a nanny state from hell coupled with generations of debt.
Downtown Jalalabad, busy, noisy, crowded, and relatively safe. Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province is in the east which despite the degree of insurgent activity remains clam enough to allow everyone (except the US Government agencies and the US military who remain locked down behind the wire in their various FOB’s) to get projects and commerce flowing.
Case in point – the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents/contractors in Khost. There appears to be much confusion as to how this happened. At first we were told the bomber was a known asset who could freely come and go as he pleased. Now it is being reported that this cat had never been to FOB Chapman before but had provided “actionable intelligence” in the past and had some really hot scoop which drew down the senior guys from Kabul. Which is it? I don’t know or care because it doesn’t matter. The bad guys have smart bombs too and one of them found its way onto FOB Chapman. As I have repeatedly pointed out in past posts it is always easier and much cheaper to defeat a technology than it is to field it. How much does it cost us to keep the drones flying so that we can hit “high value target?” We don’t know because those budgets are classified but it took less than 100 dollars worth of explosives for the bad guys smart bomb to score a big hit against us on multiple high value targets.
Here is the question – how many years have they (the CIA) been doing the exact same procedure in the exact same place? Does not field craft 101 state that you cannot run a static agent operation from the same base for almost a decade? Especially when that operation is designed to target bad guys for termination – would you not think that maybe running off the same base with the same security procedures for year after year is a bit unreasonable?
Downtown Lashkar Gah – the capitol of Helmand province which is in the south. Not crowded, not noisy, not too busy, not that safe. The Taliban are costing the people of this region their shot at getting back to where they were in the early 1970’s. Do you think they do not realize this?
Our vaunted CIA never leaves the wire under any circumstances even in tame places like Jalalabad so all their intel comes from people who walk into the FOB’s. How good is the product they are producing using these risk averse intelligence gathering techniques and procedures? It is worthless – or as the general in charge of military intelligence put it “marginally relevant.” Maj Gen Michael Flynn is one of those general officers I would really like to know – a man who clearly is fighting the Counterbureaucracy battle with skill, insight and passion like a true patriot. The wires are currently humming with this report on the state of our intelligence efforts. It seems that after all the time, money, and blood we spent in Afghanistan we are unable to provide the war-fighter or decision-maker with any useful intelligence products.
This picture was taken today outside one of our secure bases in Helmand Province – that is a local Afghan guard doing the searching. I asked the ISAF guys at the gate who that guard was and how long he had been working for them. They had no idea. We have all the money in the world for MRAP’s, bat wing stealth fighter jets and aircraft carriers but no money for a simple bomb dog contract which would substantially increase the personal safety of the 1000 or so servicemen on this base. That is your Big Government at work – lots of smart people acting stupidly as a matter of routine. If you are a British citizen don’t laugh – this is one of your bases.
It appears the only “actionable intelligence” being generated on the ground is being generated by infantrymen on the ground which is to say generated by the Marines in the south (the only armed force consistently outside the wire and “on the ground” in theater.) My father, a retired Marine Corps general officer often told me the only intel he ever received in 35 years of active service worth more than a warm cup of spit was intel he generated himself with his Marines. My Dad hated the CIA, hated Special Forces – pretty much had no use for any “special” organization to include the Marines’ own Force Recon. All they had ever done for him was to get his Marines killed in stupid rescue missions which he was forced to launch in response to urgent requests from some “snake eaters” who had discovered that they could not, in fact, just melt away into the jungle when the NVA were in the area and on their ass.
Let me try a little application of common sense starting with the attempt on Christmas day to blow up an American airliner which was handled so amateurishly by the current administration. Mark Levin and the rest of the freedom media has that aspect of the story covered so I’ll take another angle. The underpant bomber (I know I should say suspect) who I shall now call Mr. Bacon-strip was in the tropical paradise of Yemen for demolition training. He was issued a pair of underwear with det cord sewn into it and a chemical ignition system and told to fly into Chicago and blow up the plane just before it lands. His detonator failed which allowed a journalist from Europe (of all places) to jump the little turd, give him some chin music (good thing he is not a SEAL or he’d be in legal trouble) and stop him from trying to ignite the explosives which apparently had caught fire and burned off a good portion of his Johnson. In response the “experts” at Homeland security issued a dictate that no passenger can have anything in his/her/their/its lap or watch the entertainment system or read a book for the final hour of international flights.
Two questions; was this a good operation from the oppositions point of view? (The attack in Khost sure was and I hear they even filmed it.) And what the hell is the purpose behind taking away everything from passengers on the final leg of an international flight? Conventional wisdom seems to be of the opinion that the operation was well planned and executed minus the faulty detonator and the response by American Homeland Security is stupid and pointless. Conventional wisdom is wrong.
I have taken more than my share of demolition classes over the years – the longest being a ten day assault breacher course (back in the 90’s that course was classified available only to us “special” folk – assault breaching is now a common infantry technique.) After that training I was very proficient with demolitions and would have had no problem figuring out a how to set off det cord with or without a proper detonator. My initial demolition training with the Marine Corps at The Basic School was just four hours after which my classmates and I blew up an old tractor – there was nothing left of it but a smoking hole in the ground. When you are working with educated, bright, motivated people like Mr Bacon-strip mastering demolitions takes little time or practice. So how long was he in training? Weeks? Days? Hours? Get the point?
Why is this Kuchi family camped out at the base of the Spin Ghar mountains with all those donkey’s at this time of the year? Let me guess; “engaging in appropriate, legal, and necessary international trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan?” You think? Of course not and the shame here is all you need to do is go talk to these people, slip them a modest amount of money and some antibiotics for the animals, and they’ ll be on their way without any dramas and without hauling tons of ammunition over the border for the bad guys who have taken the time to talk with them and slip them a little money.
Then the jerk goes to Europe, buys a one-way ticket to America with cash, doesn’t check in any luggage…..is that state of the art field craft for al Qaeda? Of course not; that little shit (…sorry I mean man caused disaster suspect) did everything he could to get caught by behaving in a manner which shouted to anyone paying attention “I am a terrorist.” This attempt was amateur hour and you know why I think it was? Because the guys pulling this little jerks strings had no intention of blowing up a plane. They wanted what they got – a failed attempt which embarrasses the U.S. (as if the current administration needs help in that area,) costs us tons of money to re-mediate and leads to what they really want which is the harassment and stigmatization of Islamic people flying into western nations. Remember the various organizations flying the al Qaeda flag are at war with us and they need to keep their base motivated just like we do. What better way then to finally force the United States to treat all Muslims as suspects with our heavy handed TSA? It will piss them off …. just ask Michael Yon who was recently detained at the SeaTac airport for exercising his constitutional right to call bullshit on a petty agent of the state who demanded to know his level of income.
What about the Homeland Security response to Bacon-strip? Why force people to remain in their seats for the final hour of a flight? I have heard pundits saying that the terrorist would just blow the plane up two hours before hitting the United States so the rule is pointless. I agree the rule is pointless as is much of crap we must put up with to fly around the United States but there is a certain logic to it. Terrorists are not going to blow up a plane two hours out because the plane then falls out of the sky into the ocean and nobody knows what happened nor do they really care. Remember the Air France plane which plunged into the Atlantic en route from Brazil last year? Not many people do and nobody knows why that plane went down. It could have been the first Mr. Bacon-strip for all we know but we don’t know and never will because the ocean is a big, deep, cold, dark place which knows how to keep a secret. Janet Nepolitano isn’t really a brain dead bureaucrat incapable of saying anything other than focus group pablum. She knows we can’t really protect our selves from terrorist aboard international airlines and has therefore put in rules that will hopefully get them to act outside the United States. If a plane full of mostly Americans gets blown up outside the US that is not her problem and if she is really lucky it will go down in the ocean and be nobody’s problem.
Turning our attention back to Afghanistan we see nothing but doom and gloom. This article, featuring expert analysis by retired Army General Barry McCaffrey says we should expect 500 casualties per month this summer. If you did not have a reason to ignore talking head generals before you have one now because McCaffrey’s opinion, shaped by unlimited access inside the US military security bubble, is about as stupid as anything else emanating from the Temple of Doom (a.k.a. White House.) Barry McCaffrey is one of those generals I have no desire to ever meet.
Armed AID workers? This is the model the boss and I have pushed for the past year and one we proved can work in the most heavily contested regions of the country. We are at it still but find it hard to generate more than passing interest from the various US government agencies in Kabul who are busy gurading their rice bowls as the coutry continues to slide into anarchy. Amy Sun is responsible for bringing real hope and change – in the form of a Fab Lab and high speed internet to the kids of Nangarhar Province and it has cost the American taxpayer not one red cent. Do you think that US AID of the Department of State want to reinforce her success by funding more Fab Labs? Nope. What they care about is their rice bowls and nobody is going to upset their apple carts by bringing in technology and programs which actually work.
McCaffrey sites the Army debacles at Wanat and FOB Keating as examples of very clever fighters with ferocious combat capabilities who I guess are going to pick up their game this summer and put the whoop ass on us. The Taliban affiliates and their foreigner mercenaries can be cleaver and have demonstrated the will (occasionally) to advance under fire. But Ferocious combat capabilities? Like what? They throw everything they have after planning for weeks at isolated American troops and accomplish what? They can’t even inflict double digit casualties. When they mass like they did at both Wanat and Keating the American military (after the attack never before) lifts all its restrictions on artillery and air delivered ordinance, puts its SF teams and their Afghan Commando counterparts into the field, and proceeds to run down any group larger than two people who seem to be heading towards the Pakistan border. The SF guys I talked with who responded to the attack on FOB Keating are certain that they bagged every dirt bag involved in that attack. Even the Iraqis who, also suck at fighting, could do better than that. There are brave Taliban fighters and even a few who can hit what they are shooting at but small groups of brave fighters are no match for the American, British, French or even the German military because we know the two C’s; combined arms and cohesion.
We have been at this going on nine years. The security situation has steadily deteriorated in that time. We are fighting (for the most part) Pashtoon peoples who have some sort of Taliban affiliation. We are not fighting the Tajiks, Uzbecks, Hazara, or Turkimen peoples who populate the northern portions of the country. In this respect our current operations are not anywhere near as difficult or comprehensive as those mounted by the old Soviet Union. We spend billions to be here and most of that money is ending up in the pockets of Afghan elites and war lords or the corporate coffers of various European and American companies. It seems to me that if we had small teams of guys going about the countryside telling all who care to listen that we’ll pay 1 million dollars to anyone who produces a live Taliban and 2 million to anyone who produces a live al Qaeda foreigner that we would not only save billions but we would have finished this adventure a long time ago. That is just one hair brained idea – I have hundreds more. How about dropping plastic bags containing porno magazines, a loaded syringe full of heroin, 3 little bottles of good scotch and a cell phone which only dials 900 numbers into areas along the border which are known routes of infiltration. I know ….what am I thinking…plastic bags? Bad for the environment and they’ll produce greenhouse gases when burned so the program would need to purchase carbon credits from AlGore……
Yes that is a seriously stupid plan which would never really work….well it would work but the fallout would be intense and rightfully so. But I tell you one thing – at least it is a plan which is more than most the military outfits operating in this theater have.
I’m back after a month off to find things have changed very little on the Afghan street. Everyone I talk to thinks the international military effort is entering its final stage. I have been on the road for over a week and have talked with all sorts of folks from the military, USAID, and local Afghans. The lack of optimism regarding our effort was the common denominator in every conversation. We are not being beaten by the Taliban; we are beating ourselves.
There are military missions underway to be more proactive in making contact with and helping isolated tribal people. One such program is apparently classified but open sources point to series of “fly-away” teams, mostly military, who go into the deep hinterlands and stay in a village complex for weeks if not months at a time. Clearly that type of sustained contact is exactly what our COIN doctrine mandates and can do nothing but good. On the security front I saw a news report on TV about a flying column of Afghan and American Special Forces types who drop in on Blackhawks to stop and search traffic moving across the desert from Pakistan. Done correctly this type of security operation will be popular with the law abiding Afghan. But the ability to sustain any meaningful contact with the Afghan people still appears to be missing.
Traffic on the Jalalabad – Kabul road Christmas 2009. Traffic has always flowed freely on this vital route despite periodic low level attacks aimed mainly at fuel tankers.
What is important to note about the efforts described above is that both involve Special Forces. Those missions could easily be accomplished with line infantry (augmented with the same specialists the SF teams are using). But the SF guys have an advantage and that is they are experts in the next revolutionary doctrine in military affairs: counterbureaucracy. A recent Belmont Club post tells the story best. Here is the money quote:
In other words, they wanted to give the troops a chance against the bureaucracy. In that fight, the troop’s main weapon was the habitual relationship, a word which apparently signifies the informal networks that soldiers actually use to get around the bureaucracy. If done by the book most everything might actually be impossible. Only by performing continuous expedients is anything accomplished at all.
As you read through the article you’ll note that even the SF teams operating off of main FOB’s cannot always navigate the bureaucracy fast enough to move on important Taliban leaders when they surface and are vulnerable. It appears somebody in the SF chain of command figured out how to launch open-ended continuous operations as one mission allowing some of the teams in the south to make meaningful contributions to the overall security picture.
ANA checkpoint just west of Surobi, Christmas Day, 2009, Afghan security forces are getting more active in and around Kabul.
As both of these programs are based in the South one has to conclude that SF teams in the east and north are still struggling to get off base. The SF team in Jalalabad with their Afghan Commando counterparts were dispatched in force into the Kunar Province mountains after the ambush at Gangigal last summer. They should still be out there living in different villages and protecting the frontier with aggressive patrolling. If they were allowed to operate in that manner that is exactly where they would be. The troops I talk with at the pointed end of the spear know what needs to be done and want the freedom of action to go get on it but the bureaucracy above them will not accept the associated risks.
COIN is not that hard to do despite this recent article about a battalion commander operating in Logar Province who is being lauded for thinking “outside the box.” I am going to paste in comments from Mullah John who is smarter than most on things like this:
“COIN is the graduate level of war: complete nonsense. COIN is police work, a touch of CT with decent municipal services. To say that handing out welfare in Logar requires even the same level of military expertise as conducting Overlord or the Six Day War is utter rubbish.
It’s hubris designed to make Petreaus et al seem to be considerably more clever than they actually are and also serves to justify the continued existence of the US Army at its current size and holds out the hope however unlikely, that Zen Masters like the object of the article have the magical answer to Pashtoon objections to foreign armies being in their country: Poetry! Of course why didn’t we all see it and VON KRIEGE in the original German ! and Sun Tzu and captains being allowed to spend money EUREKA!
BTW thinking outside the box normally describes thought at odds with received wisdom and certainly with the entire chain of command.”
Neither Mullah John nor I are taking anything away from LtCol Thomas Gukeisen who is the subject of the article. He sounds like a sound tactician and we could unquestionably use more like him. Unit leaders like LtCOl Gukeisen operate in the COIN environment using what is known as “recognition primed” decision making which requires a solid understanding of current military capabilities, the history of warfare, and a bias for action. Operations such as Overlord (the World War II Allied invasion of Europe) require “concurrent option analysis” decision making by gigantic staffs which have to be fused together and synchronized by three or four star generals. Saying that the ability of a battalion commander to do basic COIN techniques is graduate level work is like saying the ability of a family doctor to diagnose a case of step throat by smell alone requires more skill than a surgeon performing intracranial neurosurgery…it is not only wrong it is weird.
A sign of commitment; bringing your kids over for a few months to enjoy the sights, sounds and people that make Afghanistan such a cool country to work in. My son Logan and daughter Kalie outside Little Barabad, Nangarhar Province, October 2009.
The Army has started changing up their operations by embedding the Afghan Army inside there combat brigades. They take care of the logistics. commodities and personal administration but the price is that all patrols are joint and done under US force protection rules. The effective administration of things like pay and leave may help reduce ANA attrition. But if you mandate that every squad which goes out has with it a four MRAP, 16 man American equivalent and that the patrol only go where the MRAP’s can go and that the patrol be cleared with multiple correctly formatted PowerPoint briefs then your tempo of operations plummets. It has to when you work inside the bureaucracy – that is the nature of bureaucracy.
The thing about talking “COIN” is that you are talking tactics not strategy. Tactics devoid of strategy are ultimately meaningless because they accomplish nothing of value. We have been very successful at killing Taliban commanders for eight years and have caused (relatively) little collateral damage. Yet killing guys doesn’t matter because there are dozens more ready and wiling to replace them. But you also can’t not kill them – you can’t let guys who attack your forces walk. The Taliban have tried several times to over-run and American position but have failed to inflict double digit KIA’s in any attempt while being shot to pieces as they try to withdraw behind the Pakistan border.
We seem to be going down the same road as the Soviets did by restricting ourselves to the main roads and cities while clearing out the “Green Zone” of southern Afghanistan. We are rapidly building up troop strength and focusing almost all of our effort on the “Pashtun Belt” along the Afghan/Pakistan border. Our efforts are predicated on the getting the Afghan government capable of functioning independently. But that is not going to happen and everyone knows it. We do things under the “COIN” brand like building modern roads into the Kunar valley which, believe it or not, have produced a positive effect on the local population. There are now extensive rice paddies in the Kuz Kunar district of Nangarhar province which, thanks to the hard work of a four-man JICA team, produce enough rice per hectare to provide a better return in investment than poppy. The only reason the water is flowing and the rice growing is the modern paved road which the US Army paid to have built going into and through Kunar Province. The Kuz Kunar district can now be classified as self sustaining and therefore passified. Well, if we had a strategy with associated metrics it could be called passified….what it is called now remains unknown to those of us outside the military.
Kuz Kunar district of Nangarhar Province on the Jalalabad – Assadabad road
Building roads as “the mission” isn’t “COIN” despite our efforts positive impact on some formally unstable districts is not enough if your goal is to leave Afghanistan a secure, functional country. That would be a strategic goal but like the Russians before us we do not have a strategy, just tactics. Afghanistan will not be functional country anytime soon because the source of legitimacy for Afghan rulers has never been through an elected government. GoIRA as the military calls the Kabul government is and will always be perceived as illegitimate by a majority of the population. In that respect we face a similar situation to both the Russians and our checkered past in Vietnam. Check out this quote comparing Afghanistan and Vietnam from a recent article in Military Review:
Both insurgencies were and are rurally based. In both cases, 80 percent of the population was and is rural, with national literacy hovering around 10 percent. Both insurgencies were and are ethnically cohesive and exclusive. In both cases, insurgents enjoyed safe sanctuary behind a long, rugged and uncloseable border, which conventional U.S. forces could not and cannot cross, where the enemy had and has uncontested political power.
The article can be found embedded in this post at the American Thinker blog. The Vietnam analogy is one I have resisted in the past but I am rapidly becoming convinced that it is becoming a valid comparison. Look at this recent article about the Army Stryker Brigade operating down south in Kandahar Province. The Army Brigade Commander sounds exactly like one of his Vietnam era counterparts – check out this quote from him:
…He outlined how he intended his approach to work. [W]hen it comes to the enemy, you have leadership, supply chains and formations. And you’ve really got to tackle all three of those, Tunnell said. I was wounded as a battalion commander and they had a perfectly capable battalion commander in to replace me very quickly; our supply lines were interdicted with ambushes and they never stopped us from getting any resources, but when you degrade a formation substantially, that will stop operations. And then if you degrade formations, supply chains and leadership near simultaneously, you’ll cause the enemy in the area to collapse, and that is what we’re trying to do here.
Hate to point out the obvious but that quote is bullshit. General McChrystal can talk about counterinsurgency all he wants but it seems that commanders at the Brigade level pretty much do what they want based on what they know and what they know is how to kill people. COIN is a tactic – we need a strategy but have none because the National Command Authority continues to vote present. Without a strategy it is impossible to tell how well we are doing or predict when we will be done.
We are asking men and women from over 40 countries to fight so Afghanistan can join the core group of functional nations. Somebody needs to be leading this effort by creating a strategy with which we can define an endstate allowing us to estimate how we are doing and when we can leave. That would be the job of our current Commander in Chief – inshallah someday soon he will figure that out.
The Boss has a serious case of wanderlust and our collective success at running cash for work programs in Taliban controlled urban areas motivated him to go to the next level. For months all he talked about was Zarang – the capitol of Nimroz Province which is located on the border with Iran. Zarang attracted him because nobody knows anything about it so he loaded up the plane with himself and Team Canada (Tim from Panjwayi, Mullah John and New Guy Todd who is not really a new guy to Afghanistan but new to the outside the wire ops) and flew down for a reconnaissance in force.
Nimroz ProvinceDowntown Zarang – clean, quiet, safe, and dirt poor. This was how 99% of Afghanistan was back in 03 -04 ready for a little help and secure enough for outside the wire operations.
Michael Yon posted a white paper from Adam Holloway; a British MP who has made several trips to Afghanistan traveling both inside the official security bubble and outside the wire. Take the time to download and read the paper – it lays out exactly what we need to be doing and I suspect is just shy of 180 degrees out from the pablum we are currently fed by the legacy media. Here are some of the key points;
Afghanistan is just one area of confrontation in our wider struggle against political Islam, a struggle which we must win.
Afghanistan is no more important to Al Qaeda than a half dozen other countries. But it is strategically useful for AQ in generating propaganda footage of “infidels” fighting Muslims and Muslims fighting back.
NATO’s ill-conceived operation in Afghanistan is on the brink of failure. Support for UK and NATO forces is falling: only 45% of polled Afghans support a NATO presence in the south, down from 83% in the previous year.
Much of what NATO is doing is aggravation the problem and is making attacks in the UK and other NATO countries more likely, not less.
It is vital that Afghan territory is not used as a launch pad for future attacks; and that the Islamist minority cannot claim victory.
This can be achieved with a much smaller allied force. There is always going to be some level of insurgency in Afghanistan.
One can only wish that somewhere in America there is a political leader with this much common sense. I suspect the current masters of Capitol Hill will be articulating some sort of weak ass cut and run strategy which will result in folly. In fact here is another Brit – this one a legacy press guy who wrote and article today saying “Afghanistan withdrawl would be a folly.” He too seems to know a thing or two about what he is talking about and is worth reading.
It is in this context that I want to focus on our efforts to take care of an entire Province using a small Ghost Team detachment.
Team Canada is pretty good at blending in – there is more than one of them in this picture and so far nobody has been able to successfully identify who are the expats.
We still actually know precious little about Zaranj. The Mayor is Savar Khan. There are no ISAF forces in the city. We are not sure if they have ever seen NATO troops in this Province. There is a gravel airstrip with no control tower in the north end of the city and it took about 10 minutes of flying around to figure out that it was the municipal airport. The last 5 minutes of the flight included a brisk interrogation/warning from Iran which is less than a mile from the municipal airport.
Zarang is in perpetual drought with the canal intakes to the interior irrigation systems broken there is little water for farming. The Iranian border crossing is a major bridge and has a fraction of the Torkam border traffic in Nangarhar Province. The border is marked on the Iranian side by a massive wall complete with guard towers every 200-400 meters as far as the eye can see. There is one NGO, Education Concepts International, in town focusing on education and women’s programs. There are no UN or other international personnel in the entire Province of Nimroz. Farsi is the language of local government although most people speak Pashtu and some Balochi too.
We have rented a house and will be starting up multiple cash for work projects soon. It is going to cost a ton to get internet set up down there but everything else we need will come from the local economy and will be dirt cheap. The Mayor appreciates all the help but our focus is on the Governor and provincial irrigation situation. We’ll meet him on the next trip.
One international, a half dozen Afghan managers and a TCN finance manager and we will be able to run multiple projects for peanuts compared to what is being spent on aid in the rest of the country. Unlike every other USAID contractor we do not use brand new armored trucks, or have contracted expat security details, no need for the lavish compounds or food flown in from Dubai.
We may not produce fancy PowerPoint’s and professional presentations on our genius plans to get a project going nor do we have a large inside the beltway corporate HQ full of retired USAID and military officers.We have a dozen or so expats who know just one thing -how to get projects going at warp speed and for dirt cheap. We do not talk reconstruction we do reconstruction. Without the risk aversion based security postures that cripple the effectiveness while swelling the overhead of every other USAID project in the country.
The Boss doesn’t even try to blend in – with his language skills he gets by just fine. He is looking over a potential project office.
There was never a need for the elaborate security which was foisted upon the reconstruction efforts by our Department of State when we started the reconstruction programs years ago. There is now that we created an insurgency by failing to deliver meaningful aid while creating a central government that is the second most corrupt in the world. The Afghans see us riding around in armored vehicles with truck loads of gunmen fore and aft and wonder what the hell it is we think we are doing. I can’t blame them as I wonder the same thing myself.
The key to getting things done in a post conflict environment is to get things done quickly, with minimal footprint and then to get the fuck out. America uses large specialize corporations for USAID projects while relying on State Department Regional Security Officers to set minimum operational security standards. This is why some of these companies take years just to get their team set up in country and that’s not quick or agile. It is proving to be a waste of time, money and lives.
Zarang is a perfect test bed for implementing an outside the wire reconstruction strategy
Adam Holloway is right on target with his assessment of the correct way forward. Smaller, agile military formations complemented by small agile teams of reconstruction experts are not only cost effective – they are the only way to go.
We are going to a Province that has no international military presence and about which little is know and we are going to completely overhaul their irrigation’s systems (in every district) in three years. And we’re going to build schools and do woman empowerment projects too. If we are successful there will never be a need to send one Marine or soldier into that province to fight and die. Because that’s the cost of risk aversion – the forfeiting of brave men’s lives over folly and a lust for profit.
More interesting news is coming out of Kabul as the drive-by media continues its impressive efforts trying to explain our Commander in Chief’s continuing dithering on what to do about Afghanistan. His obvious attempt at moving President Karzai out of the way has ended in abject failure straining relations with the Kabul government to the point of breaking and driving Karzai right into the hands of the very people we have been trying to get off the Afghan stage. An excellent explanation on how the administration completely screwed themselves, the Afghans and the rest of us can be found in this Power Line post.
But the stupidity of our current administrations efforts are not what got the blood up this morning….what do you expect from a President with no prior executive experience and Hillary Clinton? This article from the New York Times about tribes resisting the Taliban is why I’m pounding away on the laptop in a Dubai hotel lobby. Authored by Dexter Filkins the article announces a new strategy to called the Community Defense Initiative which is designed to engage and arm the tribes in the east and south. The article talks about our bearded Special Forces helicoptering into Nangarhar Provinces Achin district with flour and some other nonsense to support the tribal chiefs who have run out the Taliban. It talks about other SF soldiers “fanning our across the country” to engage the tribes and support them in defending their lands and way of life from depredations by the Taliban. Dexter Filkins writes a great article and it is worth reading but unfortunately as in most things published by the New York Times it is complete bullshit.
Chief Ajmal Khan Zaizi who has been featured in a series of blog posts by Steven Pressfield and is a friend of The Boss. The Boss gave Ajmal a very competent Ghost Team member to start some major cash for work programs in his tribal area on the Pakistan border. We had worked out the logistics of going into the Jaji valley which is surrounded by areas under Taliban control and sent out a query to the local US Army COP about using their LZ to fly our guy out when he was finished. Here is the response we received:
Sir,
Thank you for your message. Any development project in Jaji would be great, but I would like to ensure that it ties into the district development list/tribal development list, in order to ensure that the district leadership is not undermined.
Unfortunately, Ahjmal Khan Jaji is not a tribal leader at all. I do not want you to come into this environment thinking that to be a fact.
Additionally, the security force of Amir Muhammad is an illegal force that is not endorsed by MOI.
The facts are that Azad Khan, the Jaji Sub Governor, has a great relationship with the tribes a focus for his district. The ANSF in this area (ANP and ABP) are a professional/legitimate force that does a tremendous job in keeping the best security for the people.
Yes indeed the Jaji Sub Governor has everything under control, the security situation is fine, and the tribes apparently content. That seems to be at odds with everything anybody knows about the portion of Paktia Province which borders Pakistan but there it is. How can the local American Army commander be so stupid you are no doubt asking yourself and the answer is he probably isn’t stupid – he is doing what he has been told to do.
You see the American military is an effective military leviathan which, unlike most other components of American society is focused on one thing – its assigned missions. Mission accomplishment trumps everything else for the military and they are expected and will forfeit their lives and the lives of their men to accomplish their assigned missions. The main mission for our military in Afghanistan is to nurture and support GoIRA – the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. In most places we know and work in the government is more of a problem for the local people than the Taliban. This is a well documented fact which has zero impact on the American military.
Tribal Chiefs like Ajmal Zaizi are focused on their people and must protect them from outsiders who try to take their lands, rape their children, and disrupt the delicate balance of tribal social mores which allow all to live in peace. I have not heard of one reported rape of a child by Taliban but you can find dozens of articles about Afghan Security Forces being accused of that heinous crime with a simple goggle search. So when a tribal chief drives all the unsavory characters preying on his people off his lands who is it that he is driving out? In Ajmal’s case it was both the Taliban and the GIRoA officials appointed by the Karzai government in Kabul.
Thus a western educated, populist style leader who has been on the run from the Taliban, who lost his father to the Taliban, who has driven out the Taliban, established good order and discipline in his strategic valley and even reached across the border into Pakistan to strike up alliances with the hard pressed Shia tribes located in the Parrots Beak area (didn’t know there were Shia there did you? Me either but I know how important that is and also how much those people need friends like us) is now considered by the U.S. Army to be an AOG leader. AOG means “Armed Opposition Group” which means Ajmal is now lumped in with the Taliban and drug barons.
If a tribe is strong enough to stand up to the Taliban it is also strong enough to stand up to crooked politicians appointed by Kabul and their pedophile policemen. In areas with a strong governor and decent infrastructure like Nangarhar Province the tribes do not have problems with Afghan Security Forces because they will tolerate no misbehavior and the governor would be prone to quickly, decisively and one hopes brutally deal with miscreants who rape and pillage the population they are supposed to be protecting. In isolated portions of the country with little infrastructure and a weak provincial government this is not the case and thus men like Ajmal do what they have to do to secure their people and that means driving predatory government and security forces off their lands.
The FOB bound local American military units have little ability to observe or understand what is happening. They rarely leave their bases and when they do they have such large areas to cover that they can do little more than a “drive by” to show the flag or hand out some food stuffs or meaningless trinkets. The Americans have a mission to support GIRoA. Tribes with the cohesion and combat power to drive parasitic representatives of GIRoA off their lands are by default bad guys even if those same tribes are also keeping the Taliban wolf away from their door.
I know that I make this point over and over but feel compelled to point out yet again that one cannot “do” counterinsurgency by commuting daily from a large FOB. The concept of “bearded Special Forces” fanning out all over the country to help the tribal chiefs is a joke. What needs to happen is to put American troops into these tribal areas to live with, train with, and become allies with those tribes. There is no other way and you don’t need “Special Forces” for that mission – regular infantry can do the job with no additional training. The SF guys should shave off those beards anyway – 8 years of incompetently planned and executed “HVT” missions have given them a bad reputation while accomplishing nothing of strategic significance. What the hell is this helicoptering into Achin district by the “bearded soldiers” to pass out flour all about anyway? They could drive into the damn district in less than an hour, rent a nice safe house, move in and hang out for a year or two thus demonstrating a little commitment to the local tribes while simultaneously actually learning something about the place and its people. If they were really smart they would leave the beards, shed the uniform, rent local vehicles and ditch the stupid MRAP’s – that way the bad guys would not be able to target them with IED’s so easily – but that kind of thinking appears to be a bridge too far for the army these days.
The American military is a world leading institution when it comes to developing and using emerging technology. Unfortunately that technology now allows our bloated, top heavy staffs to micromanage units in the field to an unprecedented degree. The results were predictable back in the 80’s when my Marine peers and I were first dealing with the impact of satellite position reporting systems, radios which actually worked most of the time and commanders who had video screens in their operations centers. What we predicted back then and are seeing today is the stifling of initiative on the ground combined with the removal of the tactical decision making by the commander on the ground. Our OODA loop has now been slowed down so much by the ability of multiple staffs far removed from the battle to insert themselves into the process that we risk becoming as slow and cumbersome as the old Soviet Army. If we do not step away from the computers, comfortable quarters, lavish DFAC’s and get our collective asses out into the field to really protect the population we are going to end up with another mark is the “lost” column. There is no excuse for that.
I was enjoying a morning cup of coffee on the Baba Deck with a group of friends just in from the States when we saw the signature of a tanker attack just up the road. That has never happened this close to Jalalabad before so we conducted a brief staff meeting which consisted of saying “let’s go” and headed up the road to see what was what.
Moments after the tankers were hit – photo taken from the Taj Jalalabad Baba Deck
The ANP had closed the Duranta Dam tunnel but recognizing us they waved us through and we continued through the tunnel at speed only to have the ANP on the other side of the tunnel wave us right on down the road and into the kill zone.
Approaching the ambush site – note the armed civilian – who knows who he is – running towards the firing. What is also important to note is the lack of vegetation or cover in the hills where the bad guys are and the U.S. Army OH58D Kiowa circling overhead. The men on the ridge line are Blue Compass convoy escort who are on the flank of the Taliban ambush squad
We saw a string of tracers stitch the road to our front and immediately pulled a hard left into dead space well short of the burning trucks to continue forward on foot. The firing was sporadic, just a few incoming rounds cracking well over our heads and we were not sure if it was aimed at us or spill over from the firefight we could hear to our right. The villains had a belt fed machinegun (probably a PKM) which fired a few bursts in our direction during the 5 or so minutes it took us to work towards the their flank. Just shy of the ridge they were on they decided we were more than a nuisance and started cranking rounds our way in earnest. We withdrew which was a disappointment because I had a new camera and wanted to put it to use.
There was a section (two) of Army OH58D helicopters circling overhead very low as they worked out who was who on the ground so I tried taking pictures of them but they came out crappy because it was a new camera and I’m not that damn bright when it comes to cameras
There are no villages up in the hills above the Duranta Dam, no vegetation and no cover. Once the Kiowa’s obtained good situational awareness they engaged the ambush team the bad guys were toast.T hey couldn’t go to ground, they couldn’t hide, they were in the open and forced to be on the move by pressure from a convoy escort team from Blue Compass and a few ANP troops who had followed them into the hills.
The first two tankers have been hit with multiple rounds and are leaking JP 8 all over the road
This was a more effective ambush then we normally see further west on the Jbad /Kabul highway. The terrain forced the shooters to be much closer to the road than they are when they ambush from the heights of the Tangi Valley further down the road. There were three tankers hit and dumping JP 8 all over the road but not burning. Three more were hit and on fire in the northern portion of the kill zone.
These trucks took a beating – there were no driver casualties just two escort guards who were reported injured
Shortly after the photograph above was taken the OH58’s got a firing solution and let rip with rockets and gun pods. Kiowa pilots seem to like getting close and personal and these guys were not staying above some hard artificial “ceiling” dictated to them from on high but were on the deck, spitting venom like a good gunship should. I doubt the villains had much of a chance – reportedly four were killed.
When you see this much fuel pouring out of a tanker you know it is just a matter of time before something bad happensThe truck drivers start some damage control efforts by sticking small tree branches into the bullet holes. They are covered in fuel but doing a good job at protecting the shipment they are responsible for.
The Kiowa’s ended this fight and the efforts on the ground turned to separating the leaking fuel tankers from the burning ones. This is an effort best watched from at least two ridge lines away and we had work to do so we headed back to Taj noting there were at least 50 fuel tankers lining the road just outside the kill zone. In the big scheme of things these attacks are meaningless; the loss of fuel is sucked up by the contractor who only gets paid for what he delivers. The numbers of trucks being lost are like-wise a problem for Pakistani truck companies and not Uncle Sam. The American taxpayer can’t buy a break like that in most places.
Napoleon reportedly said; “moral power is to the physical as three parts out of four”. Attacks like the one we witnessed this morning are always victories on the moral level for the Taliban. That is the problem for our efforts in Afghanistan in a nut shell. The Taliban do not have to be tactically good or win on the physical level, they don’t have to be smart or survive half ass ambush attempts. They just need to attack and if they lose every battle in the end it won’t matter; they’ll still win.
Convoy escort from Blue Compass telling us the “Taliban are nishta” after the Kiowa’s fired them up
The ambush squad who sortied out this morning to burn fuel trucks were clueless. They shoot up 6 trucks out of a convoy of around 80 and then found themselves flanked by armed guards, forced to move in open terrain where they were hunted down like rabid dogs by Kiowa helicopters. This also was a good demonstration of using PSC’s to perform tasks which are not cost effective for the military. It was our good luck and the villains bad luck that two helicopters were hanging around the area with full ammo stores when this went down. The pressure applied by aggressive maneuver from the convoy escort security element helped the Kiowa’s PID (positive ID) the bad guys and obtain permission to smoke them. It is rare to see that work out so smoothly. Too bad its not always this easy with the Taliban.
The last post generated quite a few interesting comments about the Steven Pressfield Blog, Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai, and the prospect of using specialized troops to embed with the tribes. With the election now decided this is an excellent time to talk about the tribes and more importantly a bottom up approach. The government in Kabul is not going to change – in fact they already fired a shot across the bow of the international community with a message that is easy to decipher. Checkout this email which came from a senior security manager in Kabul last night:
Dear All,
Last night the Lounge Restaurant in Wazir Akbar Khan was raided by police and all their liquor confiscated. They were also on their way to Gandamak but it was already closed. I made a phone call to the Regional Police Commander for Kabul who confirmed that the police is indeed conducting raids on restaurants 2 reasons:
Restaurants selling liquor are illegal
Restaurants are being closed because of an outbreak of swine flu.
You are thus instructed not to visit any restaurants until further notice.
Regards,
XXXXXXX
The restaurants servicing internationals in Kabul have been operating for over six years now and are licensed, legal establishments who pay a ton in taxes and other charges to the local government officials. All of them openly sell liquor and always have because it is legal for non Muslims to drink alcohol in Afghanistan and, with the exception of the Taliban rule, always has been. And Swine Flu? Are you kidding me? The Kabul government is doing what the Taliban cannot do (yet) and that is driving out foreign aid workers so they can insert their own Afghan cronies to steal an even higher percentage of foreign aid dollars then they are currently stealing. Greed is a terrible thing which is why it is mentioned so often in the bible. And the Koran too for that matter but who cares about minor technicalities like that these days? Apparently nobody in the senior ranks of international community.
The local Bad Guys smoked a tanker two days ago between Jbad and Kabul. There were no less than 200 tankers lined up behind this one which got through fine. The consistent trend we see is attacking lone trucks every now and then and running away. It is not a serious effort at disrupting the logistical efforts on this lone route west to Kabul.
The central government is a much bigger hindrance to the efforts of the international community than the Taliban is which makes the option of bottom up change very appealing. Author Steven Pressfield, one of my all time favorite writers, started a blog in which has has posted a number of interviews with Chief Ajmal Khan Azazi who has formed a 11 tribe alliance in the Zazai valley of Paktia Province. An area that is astride the Pakistan border and thought to be under Taliban control. The interviews are remarkable for several reasons like the fact that Ajmal’s tribal fighters have driven both the Kabul government officials (who they consider to be corrupt and ineffective) as well as various Taliban bands out of their tribal lands.
I know Ajmal and have had two meetings with him in Dubai. He is good friends with The Boss and we are trying to get some cash for work projects going in his area. As you read through the various interviews with Chief Zazai you will notice instantly that he makes perfect sense to those who understand Afghan history. Afghanistan has never been effectively ruled by a central government in Kabul and the one that is there now is no exception. If we want to try a bottom up approach it is going to have to be done by partnering with tribal leaders like Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai.
Hate to see this – an IED going off right across the street from the Taj
There is a plan which outlines a solid concept of operations for tribal engagement on the Pressfield blog. Major Jim Gant, an army SF Officer has written a paper called “One Tribe At A Time” and the link to download it is on the Pressfield homepage. It is a great paper especially where he relates his experience in the Kunar Province back in 2003. Major Gant succinctly covers why our current approach will not work and then goes on to recommend a strategy based of Tribal Engagement Teams. I like the part where he describes patrolling with his tribal hosts without body armor or helmets. If we are going to fight with the tribes we have to fight like they do and that means no body armor if they have none. Wearing body armor in the high mountains is stupid anyway but not all the tribes live in high mountain valleys – there are plenty of flat lander tribes too.
Point of origin for the IED that detonated across the street from the Taj. It is hard to know what to make of this – military grade explosives in a pile of marble chips next to the main road which goes off in the middle of the afternoon and hits nothing. There are no indications that this device was targeting anything let alone the internationals at the Taj Guesthouse. Is this a business dispute? A poorly made IED to target traffic on the main road to Kabul? Like most things in Afghanistan it is hard to imagine what this IED was all about.
The French used a similar concept during the Indochina War when they deployed the Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aerportes (Composite Airborne Commando Group) known by the French initials of G.C.M.A. They would send teams of volunteers (normally a junior officer and four sergeants or corporals) deep into the North Vietnam mountains to link up with tribes who rejected the communist government. Fifty years ago the French lacked the ability to resupply or even in some cases maintain contact with their inserted G.C.M.A. teams. The only way out for the G.C.M.A. team members was to be wounded, very sick, or mentally broken in which case an airplane would be sent to a remote strip for a medevac, if it were possible and it often was not. Some teams went out and were never heard from again, others ended up raising and commanding entire battalions of tribal fighters. None of the men involved received proper recognition for the unbelievably heroic efforts they put into the program because in the end they were tactically irrelevant in the large scheme of things. The Vietminh’s effective (and dreaded) 421st Intelligence Battalion targeted successful G.C.M.A. teams as soon as they surfaced and they knew what they were doing.
I’m practicing with the camera more – girls from Little Barabad village – a dirt poor Kuchi village across the river from Jalalabad
The Tribal Engagement Teams proposed by Major Gant would not have to endure the isolation, lack of logistical support, absence of command and control nor the multi-year long missions which made the G.C.M.A. such a bad deal. But 2003 was a long time ago and special forces troops have not been engaging tribes as Major Gant was able to do back then. Their reputation is not exactly great now that they are known more for universally unpopular night raids than for living out among the tribes doing the time/labor intensive work of counterinsurgency.
I think these TET’s do not need to be special forces troops anyway – a rifle platoon would be a better organization in most locations given that tribal villages are often clustered about farming or grazing land giving the platoon the ability to deploy its three squads into different villages which are part of the tribal cluster. Regardless of who does the mission one thing is certain and that is a tribal engagement strategy can’t be the central component of our Afghan strategy. It is an economy of force mission that would free up large numbers of conventional troops deployed along the Pakistani border. The conventional forces should be focused on developing the Afghan Security Forces (ANSF) so they can operate on their own if we ever to get our ground forces out of here.
These boys ran three miles with a Pashto – English translation book to see if they were saying “my friend can swim like a fish” correctly. We need to focus on these young guys because there are so many of them who want to learn. They want and need a future and if we don’t help create that for them…..
Despite the inherent coolness of an outfit like the French G.C.M.A. the best they could have done was nip around the margins of the Vietminh Army and they didn’t do that. But Afghanistan is different and the Taliban doesn’t have an army. Tribal Engagement strategies have another huge advantage which our military and civilian leaders do not want to talk about and that is they cut out the central government in Kabul. The biggest threat to our interests in Afghanistan is he blatant, in your face corruption that defines the Karzai government. If we don’t acknowledge this and find a way to work around it every penny we spent and droop of blood we lost will be in vain. When we eventually leave, the Taliban will return and Afghans who were foolish enough to believe in us and cooperate with us will be hunted down and slaughtered. In that respect the end game here will be identical to the end game in Vietnam.
Nothing about Afghanistan is easy or straight forward but the TET concept is worth a shot.
The best way to view the current state of play in Afghanistan is to start at the top of food chain and work down to what is important. The presidential election remains undecided and now Abdullah Abdullah has pulled out of the run-off election. Our Secretary of State says that means nothing. I agree but for different reasons; in the end it does not matter who is leading the country – the Afghan government will not be a proper COIN partner and will continue to be part of the problem regardless of how these elections turn out. Conducting a runoff will only give the bad guys more opportunity for mischief while accomplishing nothing.
Another big story from up the food chain concerned former Marine Captain Matthew Hoh who resigned from the State Department because he no longer knew why we are fighting in Afghanistan. As a fellow Devil Dog he will be spared my harsh opinion because that is the way us Marines roll – you want to hear us taking the piss out of fellow Marines you need to be wearing the Eagle Globe and Anchor. The only thing relevant about young Mathew is the level of play he is getting in the drive-by media.
This story is a brush back pitch to President Obama from his friends in the press announcing that the honeymoon is over. When the story broke Michael Yon and I chatted about it on the net and the first thing I asked him was how many Afghan villages had he visited that would not be thrilled to see a platoon of American (or ISAF but to the Afghans they are all Americans) infantry move in to stay for a long time? Like me his answer was very few. Michael has been over much of this country often riding along with the Bot or I. I have been in a lot more places than Michael and can name only a few that would not immediately welcome the semi-permanent deployment of American troops. On his most important point Hoh is wrong as wrong can be.
Army troops from the 4th Brigade chatting up the folks along the new road they built in Kunar Province. It is good to see American infantry dismounted and interacting with the local peoples in a calm professional manner. But this is not COIN – these troops will mount up and move on in an hour. They are not providing security to the local people they are just showing the flag which expensive, inefficient, dangerous for the troops because there is only one way out and one way back to their base. Better to go out and stay out then to be predictable every time you leave the wire
Mister Hoh stuck to his guns when offered a seat at the big table by the ambassador which showed commendable conviction and character. But the reason the military fights here is because it has been told to fight here. Once that decision is made the men at the pointed end of the spear fight for each other. That is the nature of professional warriors. If the host nation government isn’t a reliable partner – that is supposed to be a problem for the State Department. But hear me when I tell you the Afghan government is not going to change and it is a bigger obstacle to peace than the Taliban.
The overall security situation is what it is too; which not good in many places. The disturbing attack on a Kabul Guesthouse – which was UN MOSS (minimum operational safety standard) compliant and had some UN workers in residence again shows the bad guys can penetrate the tight security in capitol.
If it was the bad guys who attacked this particular target which just happened to be the UN team shipped in to monitor the presidential elections. Lot’s of people were unhappy about having those do-gooders running around and in this country when people are unhappy about you being here they let you know in unequivocal terms.
Weapons are not allowed in the official UN billets outside Kabul but they are temporary Guesthouses which there were not more internationals killed in this attack.
If the Taliban did this (which I doubt) the attack too is not enough to change the overall security picture. If the Taliban follow up with multiple attacks directed at internationals it would force all of us to operate like we did in Iraq back in 2005 and 2006. That would virtually halt all reconstruction activities until a massive security effort could be designed and staffed. That is not going to happen; all the sides in this conflict and all the surrounding countries are making too much money on the massive effort being expended in support of the Afghan reconstruction endeavor. The Taliban are Afghans and they know how the foreigner gravy train works.
This is not what you want to see driving down the road; Afghan and Pakistani Taliban. The dress gives them away; note the squared tunic bottoms on some of these cats – that’s a Pakistani thing – Afghans prefer rounded corners on their tunics and you can see both in this picture. I suspect there are new Taliban fighters hanging out on the road side so they can watch our convoys and the troops who have dismounted and are playing grab ass with the local kids. This is a standard tactic of de-mystifying the large scary looking MRAP’s.
If the Taliban had to strength and ability to really go after internationals they probably would but they don’t. But they can penetrate the Afghan security blanket which covers the capitol and cause all sorts of problems. The only way to prevent that and really the only way to have any real impact at all is to focus our efforts on the Afghan security forces. Our current mentoring efforts are not effective. We do not “embed” with the Afghans really. They are no Afghan liaison officers in any of the tactical operations centers resident in every battalion and brigade headquarters. An Afghan brigade HQ is a map table and a few radios – ours have dozens of people all with computer work stations and large video screens streaming in multiple feeds. We have hundreds of EuPol police officers here doing God knows what. They are not out with the Afghan police and seem to hang out in large purpose built buildings sending each other emails or surfing the internet. Kabul will be safe on the day you see EuPol officers or ISAF military out manning the checkpoints with the Afghans and not one day before that. Until then we will continue to see effective car bombing and armed raids. Check that – I doubt we will see more armed raids because in most of the Guesthouses I know in Kabul there are so many armed internationals that the bad guys would be shredded by the time they made it past the gates.
If we want to rapidly build the Afghan Security Forces the only way to do it is to live and work with them 24/7. We need to adopt them, feed them, pay them, and watch after them. What can a US officer really do when the Colonel he is mentoring cannot feed his own troops because the money to buy that chow is siphoned off by officers above him? If they make a stink about it the Afghan Colonel is sure to be relieved and thrown out on the streets. The current mentors have guys fighting daily while dealing with problems they would never encounter in the American system. They do the best they can to support the unit they are assigned to mentor, but they are not really embedded. They live of separate compounds inside the Afghan compounds completely separate from their charges. Mentoring means leading by example while living and fighting with your host country troops. It does not mean setting up a parallel TOC, camp, cook house, offices, and coffee shop where the Afghans are not welcomed or allowed.
This is what the bad guys in the photo above were looking at. Army troops hanging out with the local kids. The MRAPS are big and look impressive but they don’t shoot TOW’s like the Hummers did so in Kunar they are essentially worthless and we are losing too many because they can’t shoot high enough in the mountains.
The military is bitching about the fact that the Afghan government is not a reliable partner and a big part of the insecurity problem. This is true but the military can’t change that. They can make the Afghan military part of the solution but not by treating them the way they treat them now. We need to get the troops off the FOB’s and out with their counterparts in the villages. We also need to pull out of areas where the local people do not want our help – which is not that many areas in the country as a whole.
Kunar farmer threshing wheat the old fashioned way
Every officer in all the NATO forces is taught the Principles of Warfare which are pasted in below:
Objective: Direct every military operation toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. “The ultimate military purpose of war is the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces and will to fight.”
Offensive: Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. Even in defense, a military organization is expected to maintain a level of aggressiveness by patrolling and launching limited counter-offensives.
Mass: Mass the effects of overwhelming combat power at the decisive place and time.
Economy of Force: Employ all combat power available in the most effective way possible; allocate minimum essential combat power to secondary efforts.
Maneuver: Place the enemy in a position of disadvantage through the flexible application of combat power.
Unity of Command: For every objective, seek unity of command and unity of effort.
Security: Never permit the enemy to acquire unexpected advantage.
Surprise: Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which he is unprepared.
Simplicity: Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and concise orders to ensure thorough understanding.
Not one of these rules are being followed in Afghanistan. Not one. The most important principal above is unity of command but we don’t come close. Gen McChrystal cannot tell his NATO subordinates to do a damn thing they don’t want to do- they will just call home to their respective capitols and tell the politicians to tell them not to do what they were just told to do but do not want to do. We have no mass and therefore cannot really do economy of force operations. Simplicity is a concept all but forgotten by the modern military and nobody can tell you in clear concise terms what the objective or our current efforts are.
The Kabul government will never be a reliable partner but the Afghan Army could develop into an effective force which, inshallah, could help drive Afghanistan into the functioning core of nation states (that should be our objective by the way.) General McChrystal should focus on that goal and continue with his efforts to send the REMF’s home, get off the FOB’s and get more troops into areas where they can protect the population.
Gunfire rippled across the morning calm of Jalalabad today. From what we have learned there were up to four gunmen who attacked the Nangarhar Hotel. Two were detected when they walking into the Hotel armed with AK 47’s and pistols. There was a Provincial Directors workshop in progress which was probably the intended target. As they walked up to the hotel they were identified and challenged by one of the 20 or so ANP soldiers who mill about the area and the lead gunmen opened fire. He hit the closest policemen who in turn shot the first bad guy dead and the second bad guy retreated up to the second floor and barricaded himself in his room. The Provincial Directors bailed out of the second story windows with at least one being directed to exit the building by the surviving gunman. So maybe they weren’t the target??? The police start to hammer away at the room and wounded the guy has holed up in and after 20 minutes he surrendered and is now in custody. Reportedly there may have been two more accomplices who got away.
Initial reports in the press reported this to be an assassination attempt on the Governor of Nangarhar Province, Gul Agha Shirzai, but he was not anywhere near the action. It is not clear to what this mornings dust up was all about. To show you how things work in Afghanistan the local ANSO guy reported that it was unclear what this attack was about or who the target was. In Kabul that report morphed into an attempt on the Governor, who was supposedly driving to the hotel, by two suicide bombers on the Afghan evening news. Now all sorts of Kabul based PSC’s are reporting similar nonsense in their country threat intel reports. The sole exception is Tundra Security because the Bot went to the scene to get the story first hand. One thing is clear – the gunmen were (as if often the case) as amateur as a guys with a guns can be. There were no suicide vest or explosives on either them.
Battle damage to the second deck of the Nangarhar Hotel where the cover man retreated to after he was engaged by the ANP. Photo by Shem Bot
Incidents like this gun fight cause those of us who work outside the wire to reassess our security environment – is Jalalabad a permissive, semi- permissive, or non permissive environment? These terms were once used by the United States Marines when we planned operations ashore. When my old unit 1st Battalion 8th Marines sent a rifle company to assist with the Kobe earthquake in 1995 they went without weapons or body armor – it was a permissive environment plus the Japanese made it clear that armed Americans were not needed nor welcomed. When that same battalion went into Albania in 1997 it was a semi permissive environment so they took the weapons and body armor but did not fire a shot at all the drunken locals who were milling about armed with looted AK-47’s. You don’t shoot people because they are armed, inebriated and unruly. The rules of engagement in semi permissive environments are very rigid.
The international aid community treats Jalalabad as a permissive environment – the US Military conducts all outside the wire missions in Jalalabad as if they are in a hostile environment. At the Nangarhar Provincial Police HQ in Jalalabad when members of the military (or their contractors) cross the street from the DynCorp side they have Nepalese guards stop all traffic – stand at the ready in the street with rifles while the soldiers hustle across the street in full armor. The soldiers I know who work there occasionally are embarrassed by this procedure understanding well what kind of message they are sending to their Afghan hosts. How long does it take to turn a permissive environment into a non permissive environment by treating it from the start as non permissive? Will we not create a self fulfilling prophecy if we do not at some point change he way we interact with the Afghan people?
The bad news of the day is about the American losses in the west due to an aviation accident involving three different helicopters which have killed 14 American servicemen. Aviation accidents routinely produce huge casualties and they are always bad news to all involved. One of the things to remember as the debate about Afghanistan continues is that the Taliban cannot, on their best day and when they throw all they have, inflict the level of casualties on our forces associated with aviation accidents (which most often occur in training.) They have tried twice to inflict heavy casualties by attacking undermanned joint U.S. Army/Afghan outposts in Nuristan over the past 15 months. First a well armed and equipped force tried to turn Wanat into the Alamo and most recently the same thing happened at FOB Keating. Each time the bad guys have suffered heavy casualties while inflicting single digit losses on the American defenders.
All losses be they from enemy action our aviation accident are painful. It is the price of war but what is important as we continue our efforts in Afghanistan is to remember just how ineffective our enemies are. They are getting better with the explosives which is concerning – especially the more advanced IED firing switches we are now seeing originating in Iran. But by and large they remain inept and ineffective. The Taliban cannot beat our military but our military can beat itself by remaining FOB bound while and focused on kinetic operations.
This is pro circuit work – 10 firing switches were recovered in Herat Province last summer and reportedly were of Iranian origin. Amateurs are not going to invest in screw terminals and the boards are from a mass production run. This is a high end commercial firing circuit which has been modified by somebody who knows what he’s doing.
The reason it is important to focus on the Taliban’s complete lack of ability to conduct meaningful military operations is that eventually they are going to get better and when they do what is our response? If we were serious about our efforts here the clear way forward would be to embed troops into Afghan formations and truly mentor them. Anything short of that is a fools errand planed and implemented not to win here but to kick the can down the road until America elects some adults to take charge of the levers of power.
