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Old 05-27-2011, 05:57   #61
bailaviborita
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morning rant

I'd say it is worse than "he didn't get the 30k warriors he asked for"- he actually asked for 80k- the 30 and 40k #s thrown around were low-ball options no-one really wanted until the Pres asked for them.

In terms of why Afghanistan is a nightmare now- I actually blame SOCCENT for that. We had a chance when we first went in to set-up a long-term vision and plan for where to go after the Taliban were overthrown. I have come to the conclusion that there was no plan for after the Taliban fell- and once they fell CENTCOM basically said "concentrate on Iraq". OEF-A became something that morphed into a mix between treading water and building a Westphalian nation-state. Over a short amount of time SOF lost all capability to do high-operational/strategic planning because the conventional HQs came in and trumped us. Even today we have little to no influence within the Afghan ministries and higher NATO HQs.

It is a tragedy that after almost 10 years SOF has such little respect at the strategic and high-operational planning levels. We rock at the tactical level- and some of our tactical level efforts bubble up to have strategic effects. But the bottom line IMO is that our field grades have little to no capability, interest, experience, or positional authority to affect things at the strategic level and do campaign planning.

As to our conventional brethren- yes, their massive HQs with 7-1 tail to tooth ratio is counterproductive- and yes they could leave tomorrow- but I'm not sure things would be much better- at least not perceived from the outside. I still argue that we have to up our strategic/operational planning capabilities and management of conventional and large-echelon forces before we'll look high-speed from the political realm. We could f--k up the strategic effort just as bad- all the while looking great tactically- and then what?
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Last edited by bailaviborita; 05-29-2011 at 05:48.
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Old 06-21-2011, 20:32   #62
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I have not been to Afghanistan, thus I have little to add to the debate.
I did find this article looking up acronyms and thought it might add to the discussion.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...-forces-strat/
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Old 09-30-2011, 15:35   #63
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Heading to Afghanistan this year to partake in VSO. I see that not many in the SF community are fans of this.

That being said, and wanting to be an effective tool for those QPs we are assisting, what are ways that I can prepare myself for the upcoming deployment?

Any tips, suggestions? I can take this offline is necessary.

Thanks.
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Old 09-30-2011, 18:42   #64
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Originally Posted by reco View Post
Heading to Afghanistan this year to partake in VSO. I see that not many in the SF community are fans of this.

That being said, and wanting to be an effective tool for those QPs we are assisting, what are ways that I can prepare myself for the upcoming deployment?

Any tips, suggestions? I can take this offline is necessary.

Thanks.
1. Please explain "not many in the SF community are fans of this."

2. I don't know, what can you do and what are your being asked to do? You might try reading and studying some VSO and COIN resources.

3. Plenty. Either get a JLLIS account and read the AARs from the previous two conventional units that supported, or contact the 1st Group Lessons Learned shop. This will be a lot easier if you have SIPR access.

Best of luck.

TR
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Old 11-09-2011, 03:33   #65
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Paradoxically??

Counterinsurgency (COIN) or Unconventional Warfare (UW) or Guerrilla Warfare (GW) or Irregular Warfare (IR)

The Long and Intimate relationship that Special Forces has with all of these began in a military conflict waged by American troops; in a local and typically against people they knew very little about.

Politics and society look at the affects of Counterinsurgency in terms of ethnic or sectarian divisions or violence. So are we look at a political compromise rather than seeking a total military victory characterized by several successful strategies? Or WHAT??

I bring this up becuase of the statements made by GEN Fuller.
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Old 11-09-2011, 13:57   #66
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MtnGoat View Post
Counterinsurgency (COIN) or Unconventional Warfare (UW) or Guerrilla Warfare (GW) or Irregular Warfare (IR)

The Long and Intimate relationship that Special Forces has with all of these began in a military conflict waged by American troops; in a local and typically against people they knew very little about.

Politics and society look at the affects of Counterinsurgency in terms of ethnic or sectarian divisions or violence. So are we look at a political compromise rather than seeking a total military victory characterized by several successful strategies? Or WHAT??

I bring this up becuase of the statements made by GEN Fuller.
Makes a lot of sense to me,MG.............

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Old 11-11-2011, 08:56   #67
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Counterinsurgency (COIN) or Unconventional Warfare (UW) or Guerrilla Warfare (GW) or Irregular Warfare (IR)
So is Counterinsurgency (COIN) a Special Forces Mission?
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Old 11-11-2011, 13:22   #68
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I think so. Foreign Internal Defense (FID) used to mean just that, helping a friendly power deal with internal threats AKA an insurgency or rebellion. It was primarily done by with and through by training HN forces, military and economic aid, and intelligence sharing. FID and UW were meant to be two sides of the same coin (no pun intended), employing similar skills and thought processes. Over time the term got bastardized to mean FID was HN Training, no more no less, like JCETS, JCS exercises, what your Bravo does downrange, etc.
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Old 11-19-2011, 17:06   #69
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On the "nightmare" subject...

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...m-in-naglandia

Quote:
In 1928 Henry Ford set out to establish a carbon copy of an American town along with an industrialized rubber plantation deep in a Rhode Island-sized piece of Brazilian Amazonia. After upsetting the natives with American ways of doing things and failing to grow sufficient amounts of rubber trees, Ford’s son ended the experiment by capping the losses of “Fordlandia” at $20 million in 1945. Back in 1922, as if to explain this future debacle, the Washington Post had used the term “Fordism” to mean “Ford efforts conceived in disregard or ignorance of Ford limitations.” Today, we could use the term “Petraeusism” to mean “U.S military efforts conceived in disregard or ignorance of U.S. military limitations.” Likewise, we could use the name “Naglandia” to describe Afghanistan, a place where, much like Ford had attempted to do in the Amazon, the U.S. has attempted to establish a “New America,” albeit with the modern and contradictory political correctness that comes with our current obsession with “absolute tolerance” and our culturally-biased interpretation of Galula’s population-centricity in counterinsurgent activities. As if in some kind of twisted Shakespearean comedic tragedy, the U.S. military, traditionally an organization filled with political conservatives and Peace Corps-doubting Thomas’s, has turned itself into an organization that believes there is a Thomas Jefferson inside every Afghan and the solution to jump-starting an economy is to throw money at it. If only our losses could be capped in another seven years at the similar $240 million (inflation-adjusted figure) of Ford’s Amazon experiment.
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Old 11-20-2011, 10:40   #70
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This is a very well put article on SWJ. A must reading IMHO.
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Old 12-21-2011, 12:25   #71
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I think this video points out why Afghanistan is a nightmare.... you build an Army around indviduals that have been kick out of their village, city, family to join the National Army. What better people!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F80...feature=relmfu
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"Berg Heil"

History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over."

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Intelligence failures are failures of command [just] as operations failures are command failures.”
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Old 12-21-2011, 18:16   #72
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MtnGoat View Post
I think this video points out why Afghanistan is a nightmare.... you build an Army around indviduals that have been kick out of their village, city, family to join the National Army. What better people!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F80...feature=relmfu

What a clusterf**k of an army.........
I'd bet a girl scout group could whip their ass's and send them home crying.........

Big Teddy
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SF is a calling and it requires commitment and dedication that the uninitiated will never understand......
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Old 12-22-2011, 08:04   #73
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Quality of ANA SOF?

In view of the video posted above, perhaps the QPs can speak to the quality of ANA SOF elements? I would think and hope that they are far above and beyond what was seen in the video; or are drug-use and lack of motivation a problem across the board?
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Old 12-22-2011, 11:46   #74
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As far as the Quality of ANA SOF question.. I will answer it this way.. Every Military "SOF" Elements have there "issues". More than others. ANA SOF is the best they have. I would say, no punches here and sorry if I piss you off. They are as good as a US NG Infantary unit. Best YES.. Drug use YES.. Lack of discipline, ETC and ETC..

You can just search here for your answer of the quality.. USSF has it's owe issues.

Leadership is the biggest issues with ANA military.. top DOWN!! We have contractors training all levels and IMHO don't do Jack SHIT really.

Okie - conventional troops doing this training??? REALLY.. We don't enough SF let alone SEALS, MARSOC MSOT elements to train people here. If a Marine's or Army units can train the basic skill level one "STUFF". Why can't they teach the conventional units. Alos who is the Air Force going to train.. LOL I understand why your asking the WHY Question. But conventional is around the world training foreign country's conventional units, while SOF is training the SOF elements. I fell IMHO it is a Great program.

For my time here I have see ANA Officers take money from there soldiers to pay off their commanders to get their NEXT RANK. At one time we started to pay ANA and that pissed some officers off. ANA Enlisted now know how much they made each month.. WOW This still happen to some degree.
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"Berg Heil"

History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over."

COLONEL BULL SIMONS

Intelligence failures are failures of command [just] as operations failures are command failures.”
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Old 12-22-2011, 11:56   #75
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I say other nightmare in Afghanistan is the mangagement of Linguist. Local Terp (LNL) and U.S. hire Linguist. The bases for companies taking over the mangagement of Terps was due, from what I was told, to Embezzlement of funds from or of U.S Military Terp mangagers.

So if a Terp at a local U.S. Firebase. SOF or Conventional was making $800.00 to $1500.00 a month and then had a U.S. military mangager take his and every other terps pay. Say 8 terps.. if one terp made $1500.00.. Well now the U.S. Companies that manage terps now make $3000 to $5000 per Terp, but only pay a terp $650 to $940 a month. While the U.S. military Point Of Contact (POC) acts as a manager for the company fill out time sheet and pay invoices for the company to then charge the US GOVT for there management fees.

I could go on.. But I think you see the ONE MORE nightmare here.
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"Berg Heil"

History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over."

COLONEL BULL SIMONS

Intelligence failures are failures of command [just] as operations failures are command failures.”

Last edited by MtnGoat; 12-24-2011 at 08:26.
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