If there’s one refrain a person familiar with both Iraq and Afghanistan should contribute to the debate on COIN tactics, it’s this: AFGHANISTAN AIN’T IRAQ. This may sound obvious, but judging by most of what I’ve read recently, the U.S. military is having a hard time recognising the crucial differences. Still, they’re learning. According to McClatchy’s Nancy Youssef, the 3-8 Marines deployed in Delaram are slowly discovering that whatever their new neighbourhood is, it sure isn’t Anbar:
In Iraq, American forces could win over remote farmlands by swaying urban centers. In Afghanistan, there’s little connection between the farmlands and the mudhut villages that pass for towns.
In Iraq, armored vehicles could travel on both the roads and the desert. Here, the paved roads are mostly for outsiders – travelers, truckers and foreign troops; to reach the populace, American forces must find unmapped caravan routes that run through treacherous terrain, routes not designed for their modern military vehicles.
In Iraq, a half-hour firefight was considered a long engagement; here, Marines have fought battles that have lasted as long as eight hours against an enemy whose attacking forces have grown from platoon-size to company-size.
The Marines are also getting to know what they’re up against:
When the Taliban does take on the Marines, it’s a different kind of fight, Marines said. For one, the Taliban’ll wait until they’re ready, not just when an opportunity appears. They’ll clear the area of women and children, not use them as shields. And when the attack comes, it’s often a full-scale attack, with flanks, trenches and a plan, said one Marine captain and Iraq veteran who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t sure he was allowed to discuss tactics.
Afghans ‘are willing to fight to the death. They recover their wounded, just like we do,’ said the captain. ‘When I am fighting here, I am fighting a professional army. If direct fighting does not work, they will go to an IED. They plan their ammunition around poppy season. To fight them, you are pulling every play out of the playbook.’
That almost sounds like something I’ve been saying the last 18 months or something…
But seriously, isn’t it ridiculous that people (not just the Marines) wait until they’re already there to learn this stuff? It’s not a secret or anything.
I know. But organisations are generally slow learners, and I guess the military isn’t any different. On the other hand, one tends to become humble pretty quickly in Afghanistan.
To save those Few and Proud a little bit: They were supposed to go to IRQ and trained accordingly.
So unfortunately they received the wrong training back home because someone made a decision at very short notice. Guess that’s just the Military ;)
Imagine how misleading the lessons learned of the past years are for major conventional war preparation!
http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2009/01/transferability-of-lessons-learned.html