Maximizing Self-Interest

The NY Times has a good series of reports running on their website currently, written by a US Army lieutenent who was stationed in Kandahar. Unlike most of the high-level analysis offered by traditional news sources, Lt. Srinavasan's stuff is local, personal and micro-scale news, about his day-to-day challenges in dealing with Afghans in his sector. (I believe that he's writing about stuff that happened on his recent deployment, rather than posting real-time events.)

His latest column is chock full of interesting tidbits about the intricacies of dealing with locals, and neatly captures the shift that comes over an officious Afghan army officer when he realizes that he's not going to be able to take advantage of the newbies.

Unfortuately, the lieutenent's conclusions are probably spot-on:

But Captain Kalay represented to me the greatest frustration and disappointment of all: no matter how many troops, how much time, or how much money we throw at Afghanistan, no democracy can take hold and nothing will change unless this country’s leaders want it for their own nation. Captain Kalay is a powerful man — he has no incentive to want anything more than the status quo.........I was right about one thing though; this is indeed a math problem, not only to me, but also to Captain Kalay and every Afghan leader in this country. It’s about the maximization of self-interest. No matter how much Captain Kalay likes me, or even identifies with me, it doesn’t change the fact that he will act only to maximize his personal gain.

The truth of that was recently brought home to me when I was alerted to the fact that a man I considered a close friend in Afghanistan, and one of the best Afghans I had met thus far, was not as clean and as honest as I thought he was. He wasn't stealing from me directly, but he had kept certain information to himself and taken credit and profited personally from something I had worked very hard on. To make matters worse, the story of his deception was provided to me by another Afghan I had also considered to be trustworthy, but the revelation is causing me to question the trust I place in him as well.* Now I'm left wondering what kind of payment he will expect in return for revealing this secret.

*And yes, I did confirm the story through independent sources.

First installment of Lt. Srinavasan's story here. Second and third, here and here.

Ghost Riders

Take a few minutes and read this article from Canada's The Star about a group of expats doing difficult but vital work down in Kandahar.

As Tim Lynch at Free Range International has pointed out many times, the only way to truly influence the population is to be outside the wire of the big FOBs, interacting with them on a daily basis. These guys with "Team Canada" have been doing that for several years in one of the toughest operating environments in all of Afghanistan. ISAF, NATO and the Pentagon could all take a lesson from them.

If you roll into a village in Strykers and MRAPs, with wrap-around sunglasses and bristling with high-tech weaponry, it should be no surprise that the locals don't come running to have a chat. Too often, ISAF forces* look and act like Imperial Stormtroopers, fearsome, intimidating and alien. Not exactly the best way to get the locals to trust you.

*The U.S. Army is particularly guilty of this sort of behaviour. Note that this is entirely due to Big Army's restrictive force protection rules, and not necessarily the choice of soldiers on the ground. Those rules are the result of the fact that the American public in general has not yet grasped the concept that we can't have a war without casualties.

An important distinction to bear in mind is that "low profile" does not mean "low security." With the exception clients who require it, we never move in armored vehicles and always strive not to be "guns up." Knowing the environment and the people in it is a much more effective guarantee of security than all the armor and firepower in the world. I'd rather ghost through unnoticed with help of friends and allies than trust to armor and firepower. Better to avoid the confrontation in the first place than to count on winning it.

This country has a myriad of problems that need fixing, but it all starts with two simple concepts: jobs and security. Everything else can wait. Without sufficient employment to give Afghans the chance at a better life, and the security to enjoy that life, nothing else matters.

The Ghost Riders of Team Canada are doing both simultaneously.

COIN by Ke$ha

Until today, I confess that I wasn't familiar with the pop artist known as Kesha.*

*Who is apparently actually known as Ke$ha. I have no idea why. Not exactly to my taste musically.**
*Always been more of a fan of classic 70's and 80's music myself. Journery, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Guns 'n Roses....these are just some of the bands that populate my iTunes playlists. What can I say? My musically formative years were between 1975 and 1988.

However, this video from the IDF on patrol in Hebron is still worth watching.



I have no doubt that the squad leader will probably lose his job over this, and the rest of the squad will face disciplinary action. Still, I can't help but smile at the way young soldiers in every conflict try to make it their own and express a little optimism and individuality despite their conditions.

Incidentally, their patrol techniques suck, but I assume that's a result of pre-staging this video. I like to think the IDF can do it better than this.

Update: As it turns out, the two squad leaders responsible for the video have been disciplined by the IDF. Their punishment for making a dance video? To make an educational video for their fellow soldiers about NOT making dance videos. Hey, at least you can't say that the IDF isn't embracing Web 2.0. (thanks to the anonymous commenter for the tip to the update)

Unity of Effort

Matt over at Feral Jundi draws attention to yesterday's speech by incoming ISAF commander General David Petraeus (aka Super Dave), in which his main theme was 'unity of effort,' within the ISAF hierarchy, their civilian counterparts and the Afghan government.*

*Good luck with those last two elements. The Afghan government can't even manage unity of effort within itself, much less with ISAF and Western diplomats. And as for the civilian side, Ambassador Eikenberry was quoted as telling General Petraeus that he was "welcome at this (U.S.) Embassy 24/7." Well no shit, Eik. Thanks for the hall pass. Petraeus is the theatre commander in charge of 130,000 coalition troops, 100,000 of those American. Did anyone seriously believe that he might not be "welcome" at his own embassy? Exhibit A for why Eikenberry should spend the rest of his diplomatic career stamping visas in Bangladesh. With a supervisor watching him closely.

Unity of effort is one of the cornerstones of successful COIN theory, the idea being that all elements of the COIN-force have to be working from a common plan with clearly defined goals and joint operations to achieve them. Matt suggests that the 100,000+ contractors currently in Afghanistan should be included under this unity of effort umbrella, and wonders how exactly to make that happen.

Leaving aside the near-certainty that Super Dave and his staff don't spend a lot of time thinking about contractors,* there is a fairly simple way for ISAF to create a more effective working relationship with the contractor community.

*Let's face it: the bigwigs at ISAF don't put a lot of effort into thinking about the contractors working for them. Part of the value of contractors (to ISAF and the U.S. military) is that shit gets done without them having to think about it. Need supplies at that remote COP? Call a contractor. Need some extra perimeter security at a FOB? Call a contractor. Need a suck-truck to empty the septic tanks at Camp Phoenix? Call a contractor. Need anything done that won't be reflected on a promotion board evaluation? Yep, call those contractors and throw some cash at them.

There is a venue for Petraeus to meet personally with movers and shakers of the security community here. The PSCAA (Private Security Companies Association of Afghanistan) is the coordinating and lobbying group for all PSCs interested in working here long-term. (They're supported in their efforts by the Union of Private Security Companies, which is limited to Afghan-owned outfits and whose meetings I've had the unfortunate luck to attend.) Mostly it's a talking-shop and a venue for sharing complaints about the ineptitude of the Afghan government and the Ministry of Interior.* The irregular meetings are not particularly well-attended and usually degenerate into a bitch-fest pretty quickly.

*It's also a handy place to pick up tips on which MoI officials are susceptible to "success-guarantee fees." A wonderful euphemism, don't you think?

However, if General Petraeus (or any senior officer from ISAF) made it known that he would like to address the PSCAA, I'm sure that every country manager from all 52 licensed companies would be there, with most of their operations staff, and all on their best behavior. Spread among those 52 companies, there are hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts supporting ISAF and U.S. Army operations. Even the contracts that aren't written with PSCs directly usually involve a security element at some point.

A couple of hours with General Petraeus would give those country managers a better idea of what ISAF requires by way of support, and hopefully give Super Dave a better appreciation of exactly how integral to his efforts we really are. Even if we disagree on tactics and strategy (which we almost certainly would), there would be value in the discussion.

The ops and intel staffs at ISAF might even benefit, because there'd be a decades of Afghanistan experience among the PSC management in that room. Unlike the ten-months-and-rotate-out planning staff at Camp Phoenix and Bagram, most senior staff for private security companies spend years here, and they learn how to operate in Afghanistan very effectively.

So, Super Dave? Whadda ya' think? Want to come have some chai with your backup?

(Just do me a favor and leave Eik and Holbrooke off the invite list. This isn't a photo op, so they shouldn't mind too much.)

The Lone Guerilla Paradox

Over at DefenseTech, Greg Grant has a brief piece on a particular difficulty of COIN operations called The Lone Guerilla Paradox. Basically, as Grant puts it:

In a village, a single insurgent fighter represents a “monopoly of force,” controlling that village even if challenged by an entire battalion of government troops doing continuous battalion sweeps.
The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.

The comments section of the DT post are unsurprisingly alive with a bunch of back-and-forth about current ISAF practice, the pseudo-history of guerilla warfare (complete with bullshit examples) and some partisan hackery. Oh, and a bit of Obama-bashing just for flavor.

All of the discussion about whether or not the U.S. Army (or the Marines) can effectively wage counter-insurgency warfare, or whether they have in the past, misses the basic point. I guess that's to be expected, since Grant misses the salient issue as well.

Certainly, ISAF/Army/Marines has to be better at waging counter-insurgency campaigns. There's been much improvement in the last few years, and there will be more going forward. Also true is the fact that the ANSF needs to be be better at protecting their own people and more effective in the field. Again, they've improved but they still have a long way to go.

But, contrary to what Grant (and his commenters) seem to think, this was will not be won by ISAF, the U.S. Army or Marines. It will not even be won by the ANA and ANP. No conventional security forces will ever have the breadth and depth of coverage to truly eliminate The Lone Guerilla Paradox. They cannot be everywhere all the time.

To return to Grant's quote from above:

The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.

Not necessarily true. This war will be won when we reach a point where, in the absence of a security sweep, that Lone Guerrilla tries to exercise his "monopoly of force" over villagers and they turn on him and beat him to a bloody pile of rags. Because they believe it is in their interests to do so. That is the ultimate goal of counter-insurgency. It's not hunting bad guys with SOF night raids, it's not joint battalion-sized sweep and clear missions, it's not even improved irrigation and some reconstruction funding. It's convincing the general population to pick the right side and act upon that choice. All of those other elements are necessary but insufficient conditions for victory.

The Afghan people are not simply victims in this conflict; they are also the prize and, ultimately, the solution to the Paradox.

Shaping Operations

In advance of any major military operation like the Marine assault on Marjah a few months ago, U.S. forces conduct what they call "shaping operations." That particulary elegant euphemism covers the various activities that take place before the full assault is launched, everything from information operations (i.e. propoganda) to securing important avenues of approach or transit points. The most important element of shaping operations is the movement of small teams of Special Operations troops into the future area of conflict with the mission of killing or capturing Taliban leader or other key personnel. The idea is that the enemy's leadership and operational staff will be significantly eroded by the time the regular forces move in, thereby disrupting the Taliban's ability to resist.

Although the nature of the upcoming Kandahar offensive may have changed somewhat recently, with a seemingly greater emphasis on reconstruction and governance and less on purely 'kinetic' action*, SOF units down south are still engaging in these shaping operations.

*Another wonderful military euphemism. "Kinetic" = "shooting at bad guys"

However, the Taliban aren't stupid and have learned to conduct their own shaping operations in advance of the anticipated attack. In fact, one could argue that the bad guys have been doing such operations for a long time.

Recently, the Taliban have stepped up their campaign of intimidation and assassination in Kandahar, almost certainly in an effort to so degrade the government's ability to govern that any military success will be quickly undercut by political failure. As I said, these guys ain't stupid.

Couple of things jump out at me from the article, one small and petty and the other not so much.

First,

The insurgents have just as busily been trying to undermine that approach, by killing local officials and intimidating others into leaving their posts.
“They read the papers; they know what we are doing,” said a NATO
official here, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with his government’s policy. “It’s very much game on between the coalition and the Taliban.”

I know it's just a handy little phrase not meant to be taken literally, but these guys don't really "read the papers." Most of them can't read at all. They do know what we're doing, but it ain't coming from the New York Times.

Second,

The youngest victim was a 7-year-old boy, identified only as the grandson of a farmer named Qodos Khan Alokozy, from the village of Heratiano in the Sangin District of Helmand Province. According to Daoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor’s office in Helmand, Taliban insurgents came to his village and dragged the boy from his home at 10:30 in the morning, accusing him of acting as a government informant for telling authorities of their movements. They killed him by hanging him from a tree in the middle of the village, Mr. Ahmadi said. A spokesman for the Taliban, reached by telephone, denied that the incident took place.

Deny it all you want, but I seriously doubt that a 7-year old was hung from a tree because of some land dispute or a criminal enterprise gone wrong. Nope, that was classic Taliban all the way. No doubt the higher-ups in Quetta aren't going to be happy about the bad PR, but it would be a mistake to underestimate the ruthlessness of the Taliban's local operatives.

Was he an informant for ISAF or the ANSF? Quite possibly, but it seems unlikely that one could gain significant actionable intelligence from a 7-year old. More likely they made an example of the kid to send a message to the locals. Talk to the police and no one is safe, not even your children.



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