Let Them Fight Or Bring Them Home

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How We’ll Win in Afghanistan
By Bing West
former Assistant Secretary of Defense and combat Marine

Task Force Chosin, Afghanistan. More coalition soldiers have died in July than in any previous month in the nine-year war in Afghanistan. Last week, the soldier who slept on the cot next to me was killed. A rocket-propelled grenade fired from a snow-capped mountain in remote Nuristan Province killed Staff Sgt. Eric Lindstrom, a father of twin baby girls and the best squad leader in the platoon.

Strangely, our military leaders rarely talk about the battles here. They urge shooting less and drinking more cups of tea with village elders. This is the new face of war—counterinsurgency defined as nation-building, an idealistic blend of development aid and John Locke philosophy. Our generals say that the war is “80% non-kinetic.”

Although they welcome the largess provided by coalition forces, the village elders with whom our soldiers drink tea are intimidated by an enemy that prowls at night when our forces return to their bases. The Taliban is a highly mobile, amorphous force, with little popular support. But it is very willing to fight. Firefights are infrequent during the harvest seasons for poppy, corn and wheat, indicating that most local guerrillas are poor kids raised in a culture of tribal feuds, brigandage and AK rifles. The enemy leaders, more sinister and gangster-like, slip back and forth across the 1,500-mile border with Pakistan.

While our Special Operations Forces launch raids that disrupt the Taliban, our conventional soldiers carry out the less-adventurous “framework” operations—mainly presence patrols. With 80 pounds on their back, day after day they slog through the heat, dust and mud, waiting for the enemy to initiate contact.

Overall, too few of the enemy are being killed or captured to sap their morale. It’s like fighting Apaches in the 19th century. The hidden guerillas shoot from tree lines or mountainsides, making accurate return fire impossible. And we rarely bomb a compound, despite press headlines to the contrary. A week ago, a Marine, a British adviser and I watched a man scurrying back and forth at one end of a long building while we were under fire from the other end. The man was carrying something, but the Marine couldn’t decide whether the rules permitted shooting him. No army has ever fought with the restraint of the U.S. and its NATO allies.

In 2002, American social engineers contrived a democratic model that placed the power of the purse inside the ministries in Kabul, believing that central control would stifle regional warlords. When the resulting corruption and favoritism deprived the villages and districts of funds, the U.S. military established Provincial Reconstruction Teams armed with millions of quick-spending dollars. The hugely popular PRTs have provided the funding lubricant that enables local government to operate.

On both fronts—development and fighting—the U.S. military has surged forward this summer, just as promised. Given the vast, harsh terrain and the immense open border, instead of 60,000 American soldiers we actually need 100,000—and many more helicopters. Infantrymen wear down after hundreds of grueling patrols. Instead of a 12-month tour, the U.S. Army should rotate its units on a seven-month basis and keep their brigades intact, as do the Marines.

Regardless of these shortcomings, there will be progress over the next year. Gen. David Petraeus, the theater commander, knows how to defeat an insurgency. In the north, we don’t have to occupy every remote valley. Tribal rebels who just plain like to fight can be isolated in the harsh mountains to enjoy their privations. In the south, the Marines and the British are cleansing Helmand Province of the toxic mixture of drug smuggling and insurgent dominance.

War is not complicated. You have to separate the guerrilla forces from the population and kill them until they no longer want to continue. Al Qaeda, dominated by Arabs, is finished inside Afghanistan. The Taliban are Afghans, to be dealt with by Afghans. As he did in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus wants to recruit local forces to protect their own villages. That will expand the Afghan forces to 300,000 and stabilize the situation. On patrols, Afghan soldiers spot the enemy 10 times more frequently than do coalition solders. Afghan soldiers are brave, hardy, ill-disciplined, individualistic, temperamental and trustworthy.

A year from now, coalition forces should be able to gradually withdraw, replaced by robust support and adviser units embedded in Afghan security forces. We shouldn’t make this a NATO war, allowing the Afghans to stand back. We’re outsiders, no matter how many schools we build or cups of tea we drink.

Staff Sgt. Eric Lindstrom was quiet the night before he died. His squad was going into the bottom of a “punch bowl” with mountains all around, not a good place to fight.

For things to turn out right for us—to keep faith with Eric—we have to gradually let the Afghans do their own fighting, while supporting them generously. Afghan forces will need $4 billion a year for another decade, with a like sum for development. The crunch in terms of American support for the war will come a year from now. The danger is that Congress, so generous in supporting our own forces today, may not support the aid needed for progress in Afghanistan tomorrow.

Mr. West, a former assistant secretary of defense and combat Marine, reports regularly from Iraq and Afghanistan.


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Westwrite, 11/05/2009
Afghanistan Trip Report
By Bing West
former Assistant Secretary of Defense and combat Marine


Having recently returned from several successive trips to Afghanistan – thanks to the hospitality of Generals Mattis, Petraeus and McChrystal, and LtGen Dunford- I’d like to share a few thoughts. By way of context, let me state my frame of reference. As a former assistant secretary of defense for international security, I am familiar with Washington dynamics; but I believe COIN is decided at the small unit level, not in national capitals. I was 18 months in Vietnam, have written five books on COIN and made 20 trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. This was my third Afghanistan visit in quick succession (April-May, June-July and October). My observations are based on forty to fifty shuras and patrols – several on extended missions – that included numerous small-arms engagements and fire missions. I talked with about 500 marines and Afghan security forces of all ranks. The observations below are derived from that sample.

1. The coalition needs a formal, joint mechanism to attack corruption. For seven years, the coalition has relied upon personal relationships to persuade Afghan officials to act against their own selfish interests. We can persist with this failed “handcon” model, gambling that as security improves, Karzai will become as forceful as did Maliki. That’s a hope, however, rather than a plan. Let’s face it: Karzai wields the total sovereignty we gave him as a shield to rebuff reforms the coalition has recommended to insure that sovereignty can be safeguarded without the coalition.

The alternative is to insist upon an enforcement institution under joint coalition-Afghan control dedicated to throwing bums out of office. Karzai will throw a fit, pointing out that Maliki fired his anti-corruption minister. Nonetheless, enforceable institutional measures – similar to the Internal Affairs Division in a police department - are called for.

2. Measure meaningful outputs. The combat foot patrol is the essential tool for controlling the people. Some battalions send out 40 patrols a day, while others send out 15. This variation among units, driven by risk-avoidance at brigade level and above, is too extreme.

Our battalions are simultaneously pursuing two tasks: governance/development and security. These tasks are not the same. The former dedicates most patrols to areas that are relatively secure; the latter sends patrols to the front edge of contact. Every battalion knows where that edge is – where they will be engaged.

A Tactical Directive that provides parameters – not cookie-cutter requirements – for patrolling and other essential tasks would aid the battalions in determining where to allocate time and effort. It also would spark a healthy debate.

Of course one can fudge – walk around the wire and call it a patrol. But that won’t be the norm. The purpose is to encourage extended foot patrols. That requires on-call fires, and that will be controversial because it means restoring fires authority to the ground commander.

3. Risk-avoidance regulations from the top are frustrating the rifle companies. A field-grade officer in an Operations Center should not decide a fire mission during a TIC, or withhold fires until a UAV clears the battle-space. Second-guessing and questioning by officers not on the battlefield waste time and diffuse command authority. This imperils both the troops in contact and the larger war effort. Bad decisions by interfering officers off the battlefield risk Abu Ghraib-like publicity and public anger. The “silence as consent” rule served us well in Vietnam, Korea and WWII and should be reinstated.

The McChrystal Assessment stated that units should take risks equivalent to those run by the population. But senior staffs have altered none of the top-down directives installed to minimize risk. Only a four-star can take off his body armor without reprimand. Insisting upon 16 US and four vehicles per trip outside the wire guarantees episodic contact with the people. ETTs are often marooned on their bases. If a platoon wants to conduct a 36-hour patrol, it shouldn’t require a power point brief to brigade. Etc., etc, Eventually, companies stop trying to evade restrictive rules and settle into status quo routines. In theory, we endorse small-unit initiative; in practice, we prevent it.

Restore authority to the on-scene ground commander, regardless of his rank. If he makes a mistake, it’s on him. He’s responsible for the battle he’s directing.

4. Decrease tour length to nine or fewer months for line battalions. I have asked dozens of soldiers and marines about this. There is near-unanimous agreement that deployments on the lines over eight months are too long. Aggressive patrolling decreases as the length of tour increases. The troops wear down. Absences of a year strain families and provoke divorces. Plus, the average mid-tour leave consumes 25 days, requires command attention, causes administrative headaches and diverts lift assets.

This is controversial because many argue that a year is needed to build relationships. This is a recent rationale, however. Since COIN did not burst on the scene until 2007, building relationships was not the determining factor for the first six years of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, tour length was determined by the flexibility or lack thereof internal to the personnel procedures inside each Service. The Marines went one way, and the Army another.

Most leaders at the battalion level and below do not believe that it takes twelve months to establish “relationships”. SOF units and marines operate on shorter timelines, and no one is questioning their effectiveness. The ODA teams quickly develop relationships, regardless of tour length, because they are mature. Relationships with Afghan elders require either elderly (ahem, E6 or above!) NCOs and officers, or the coalition’s empowerment of squad leaders to commit resources and security pledges. We know the latter is not going to happen.

A year’s tour for PRT and brigade staffs is sensible. Every Afghan knows the phrase “PRT”. But the vast majority of grunts don’t develop relationships and lack the resources to rent friendships or cut deals. Rifle platoons often visit the same village only once every two to four weeks. The elders have seen coalition forces for eight years; they know that coalition troops are both forbearing and lethal and view them as interchangeable. Both the Marines with seven-month battalion tours and the Army with twelve or more months cannot be right. Twelve months is too long for a grunt platoon.

5. Maintain a balance between conducting COIN and shattering enemy morale. For 40 years, I have been a strong proponent of COIN. My book “The Village” describes 485 days of working in one remote village. But due to terrain and troop scarcity, we cannot establish such a continuous presence in most Afghan villages. On maps, the red spots of Taliban control look like measles. We will bump up against the practical limits of the “oil spot COIN”, even with 100,000 troops.

How can this be overcome? Currently, “partnering” means Afghan and coalition units share the same battle-space, with no clear supported-supporting command relationship. We need to replace that ambiguity with criteria that determine when a coalition battalion turns its battle-space over to an Afghan battalion or police unit. While counterinsurgency may be 80% non-kinetic, the intent is not that a battalion should spend 80% of its effort on development and governance. That would be equivalent to urging a police force to concentrate 80% of its manpower on community outreach and town hall meetings.

It is not self-evident how winning the hearts of village elders or linking villages to Kabul wins the war. Our soldiers believe that Afghans accept what we give them without reciprocating by turning against the Taliban. The elders don’t raise militias or recruits for the army, or drive out the Taliban. No movie scene like the uprising of the Mexican village in “The Magnificent Seven” has occurred. Instead, villagers - fearing the bombing that we are (rightly) trying to curtail - plead with migratory Taliban gangs to move on. A rural population – no matter how content with its government - cannot stand up to a tough enemy.

Population control means “framework” ops, defined as meetings in villages or districts, combined with thousands of patrols occasionally punctuated by enemy-initiated contact. The enemy fights like Apaches, employing maneuver warfare through his mobility. Local police turn a blind eye to the ubiquitous, subversive watchers (“dickers”). Tribal relationships result in few arrests, allowing the enemy to control his casualties by deciding when to attack.

Voluntary participation in any venomous IED network should result in swift prosecution by Afghan officials and, if convicted, execution as a deterrent. The equivalence of the Lindbergh Law, however, will not be implemented. Instead, there’s a tribal dynamic at work, apart from the coalition. In areas like Nawa in Helmand, the watchers fade away when coalition patrolling becomes pervasive. What’s happening? According to the sub-governor, many in the farmlands with allegiances to the local Taliban (the “small t” Taliban) simply declare they’re no longer part of the seditious movement and go back to farming without informing on coalition movements. (Of course, this means that if the weight of armed power is perceived as shifting back to the “small t” side - lo and behold! – the dickers will again appear. There is a strong correlation between being recognized as the toughest mother in the valley and not having to fight.

Our SOF has high morale due to a focused kinetic mission and the warrior’s satisfaction in kinetics well applied. A war in which SOF, aviation and Taliban-initiated actions result in most of the enemy losses is of concern. Although his leaders are routinely eliminated by SOF, the enemy does not perceive that he confronts a superior, implacable adversary when he encounters our conventional units. We should change that.

Our SOF is enemy-focused, while our conventional forces are population-focused. Many coalition battalions have red areas where they rarely venture. Unable to maneuver in armor, we respond with firepower when attacked, and await the next event. Spoiling ops are rare. Ambushes in populated valleys should not go without a punishing response. Conventional rifle companies in their respective AOs should supplement the Ranger battalion with raids about once every two months. That would help morale.

Granted we are overextended in the northeast, we cannot win by leaving the enemy intact inside sanctuaries in Nuristan or elsewhere. This does not mean more extended stays like at Barge Matal; it does mean we must jar the enemy by smashing centers like Marjah in Helmand and Ganjigal in Konar.

In sum, a balance must be maintained between population-centric COIN and blows aimed against Taliban cohesiveness. This is beginning to slip in our conventional units. A set of professionals should examine our conventional war-fighting style and ask if it can be improved, especially how and when to turn over the battle-space to ANSF. That’s the only way our forces can expand outward and, ultimately, out of the country.

Conclusion. General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker changed the course of the Iraq war by exploiting the change in Sunni attitudes. The Pashtun tribes, however, are deeply divided and lack the overall cohesiveness and leadership of the Iraqi Sunni tribal structure. Plus, it’s not their fight as long as the government exploits rather than offers them incentives.

Well-founded doubt about Afghan national cohesiveness and self-reliance pervades all ranks in our military. Gone is the post-9/11 zeal. There is no widely-shared view of victory or definition of what winning means. To the troops, framework ops are a job to be done, while getting home in one piece.

Nonetheless, our military created a capable force in Iraq and, by dint of example and supervision, somewhat dampened the level of corruption in that country. It was the persistence and toughness of the grunts that persuaded the Iraqi Sunnis to come over to us, the strongest tribe. Similarly, the Afghan people understand the decency and the lethality of our riflemen.

The theory of counterinsurgency is that villagers, once given security and services, will inform on the insurgents. In reality, the Pashtun Taliban aren’t oppressing the villagers, and the coalition doesn’t have the troops to provide security in many areas. So villagers hedge their bets- accepting projects from the coalition while keeping their mouths shut as the Taliban move about in small gangs.

Our grunts practice counterinsurgency. The Afghan army is out there with them. Can it succeed? Much depends on Pakistan and the porous border. Something will break there in the next year or two. An acceptably governed Afghan state can emerge, provided we continue the fight for years. That resolve depends upon our political leadership, not our military. Morale and performance cannot be sustained if the leading politicians do not lead.

Due to a porous border, a strong Afghan security force will remain essential after most internal districts are pacified. We are training Afghan security forces in our image; they wear heavy armor and rely upon our medevacs, fire controllers, ISR and indirect fire assets. So we’re probably talking $20 to $40 billion for years to come, distinct from the cost of US combat units. That will require the continuous support of Congress – again pointing to the requisite for resolve by US political leaders.

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