Quote:
Originally Posted by JJ_BPK
We need more of this type of military assistance and a little less SERGE,, in most instances..
SERGE is the only answer sometimes, but it is not helping USA PR in the Middle-East or at home..
Outside of the maga-rich oil guys, the Muslim world needs basic 3R education combined with structured political & military training.
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Agreed that we need this kind of training, especially in Afghanistan. The Afghans, especially the Pashtuns, need to see their own people taking up the fight and taking the lead - the population will never be fully engaged as long as the US / NATO is seen as the primary fighting force. Plus, we really don't want to have to keep combat troops there forever (training and loggie support, sure.)
Different story in Iraq - some of the same factors, but it needed sufficient boots on the ground to control the ground. The surge of troops was one factor in the strategy - equally as important were the MiTT and SF teams that have made it possible for the Iraqi Army to step up as a full partner in the counter-insurgency. The most important thing we did there, though, was to get out of the Casey mindset of hunkering down in the major bases and trying to protect the supply lines between them, and actually put our troops out where the enemy and the key terrain (the population) was.
Problem is, politicians and unimaginative generals miss the point - if the surge (= more troops and only more troops in their eyes) worked in Iraq, it'll sure work in Afghanistan. I think that's wrong: the surge was a response to a particular set of issues, and adding troops was one factor in several that led to our success. Just throwing troops into Afghanistan won't help and might hurt unless we have a plan to use them that doesn't piss off the populace.
It's horses for courses - all insurgencies are local, and we need to tailor our responses to the situation on the ground and be as low profile as possible, but as high profile as necessary. And high profile doesn't seem to hurt us as much as a lot of people think in the ME, as long as we're winning. In the US, about 40% of our population either doesn't want to feel bad or wants us to lose anyway - but that's a different thread.