Smaller footprint in Aghanistan?

[dennisw]

http://www.wreg.com/news/politics/sns-200910141852tmsahuffcoltq--m-a20091014oct14,0,7143274.story

The number of those on both sides of the political spectrum who share Biden's skepticism is growing. At the beginning of September, George Will called for the U.S. to pull out of Afghanistan and "do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, air strikes and small, potent Special Forces units."


It seems when faced with the difficulty of Afghanistan or any other complex third world issue, instead of making a major commitment of resources, the fallback position is to send in small, potent Special Forces units. Isn't this the way our battle in Afghanistan began? Does George Will have something here?

I posed this scenario to my son who is in Third Group and has been to Afghanistan numerous times. To my surprise, he thought this probably work. I know the foundational principle of counter insurgency is protecting the local population. How could that be obtained with just SF on the ground?

[Dozer523]

I'm all for the using "intelligence" (novel!) Not so crazy about "drones, cruise missiles, and air strikes":(. The use of "small, potent Special Forces units" sounds good:). Using small potent Special Operations units like Civil Affairs in conjunction with SF sounds really good:D. Maybe we need a new dashboard phrase "Full Spectrum COIN".:rolleyes:

[Marina]

The folks in Leavenworth are soliciting comments on full spectrum operations in regard to IW. They seem to think that calling it something other than warfare will be more acceptable to the civilian agencies needed for a full COIN effort.

One option would be more creative use CA and civilian-led antiterrorism assistance, along with CT using small spec ops units like you mentioned.

http://usacac.army.mil/blog/blogs/coin/archive/2009/08/14/irregular-warfare-and-full-spectrum-operations.aspx

Full disclosure, I work on AT programs. Antiterrorism assistance is capacity building for special units in foreign law enforcement, usually at the Federal level, with partner nations. On a bad day, these units are...well...{use your imagination}.** On a good day, they are our partners in combating transnational terrorism. AT is another element in full spectrum COIN.

The cost is incredibly low compared to big DOD operations. It takes years to make a difference, but it does work. See Colombia, Indo, PI.

**Edited by Richard.

[alfromcolorado]

http://www.wreg.com/news/politics/sns-200910141852tmsahuffcoltq--m-a20091014oct14,0,7143274.story



It seems when faced with the difficulty of Afghanistan or any other complex third world issue, instead of making a major commitment of resources, the fallback position is to send in small, potent Special Forces units. Isn't this the way our battle in Afghanistan began? Does George Will have something here?

I posed this scenario to my son who is in Third Group and has been to Afghanistan numerous times. To my surprise, he thought this probably work. I know the foundational principle of counter insurgency is protecting the local population. How could that be obtained with just SF on the ground?

Afghanistan has no real central government and never has. (The State Department needs to put away the textbook for Poly Sci 101 and get out something similiar to Anthropology 101. Higher level courses are too complicated for them...)

Let SF go in and help train local militias to protect their own turf. That way the LOCAL people have a stake in their own security. The "central" government can't do it... Go local.

[bailaviborita]

The COIN manual was put together without input from SF or SOF in general (not that we weren't at fault for that). Many disagree that what it says is the only way to do COIN. Many others would argue that each COIN instance is unique and that some call for more force, others call for more presence, and still others call for more soft power tools. Unfortunately, our COIN doctrine worked okay in Iraq- so many are arguing (the latest person I heard was Palin...) that we just need to so the same in Afghanistan.

The Army is on the brink of accidentally turning themselves into a truly flexible force capable of much more than just Major Combat Ops (MCO) or COIN in semi-developed countries (think Iraq)- at least at the conceptual level. China writing about hybrid warfare is nudging us further down that road- but those who want that kind of change are up against some powerful interests: those who think the Army should only prepare for MCO and those who don't want to get away from the "dress-right-dress" standardized, better-than-the-Wehrmacht force we have so meticulously created since post-Vietnam (everyone has their reflector belt over the right shoulder).

Bottom line is that there are plenty of examples in history of different tools being put to successful use depending on the context of the particular insurgency threat faced. That most of these were found out through trial and error and giving massive freedom of action to the lowest-level units possible is something that many have for some curious reason chose to ignore. That lessons can be pulled out of these actions for use in MCO is obvious- it would seem- to only the Chinese...