I have no idea whether the strategic reviews ordered by Obama will check the free fall in Afghanistan, but here’s a suggestion: Instead of trying to import the counterinsurgency tactics it employed successfully in Iraq, the U.S. military should take a hard look at where it failed.
In a word: Mosul.
After years of much-touted offensives* by both Iraqi and U.S. forces, the northern city remains the deadliest piece of urban real estate in Iraq. A year ago, two large-scale Iraqi Army operations were supposed to break the backbone of the Sunni insurgency and end the cycle of violence fed by nationalism, crime, Islamic fanaticism and general despair. It didn’t. The 15-month tour of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, one of the most accomplished and proficient units in the U.S. Army, was by all accounts a mixed bag. Violence was reduced, but car bombs still wreak havoc, politicians are assassinated, IEDs kill innocents, and after local elections upset the political balance of power, Kurdish-Arab tensions threaten to escalate into war.
The lesson? There are simply too many actors involved in the multilayered conflict in Mosul for classic COIN to work. First of all, the fault lines are not sectarian but ethnic. You can’t protect the population by walling off neighbourhoods, because you wouldn’t know whom to wall in and whom to keep out. Second, you can’t cut off terrorist infiltration because you don’t have enough troops, and a single dirt berm doesn’t do it. Third, you can’t pay off the hardcore militants, because they don’t want your money; and you can’t pay off the gangsters because they don’t need your money. And fourth, you can’t stop the IEDs, because there’s always a jobless IDP willing to dump a pressure plate on a road for ten bucks.
A porous international border, lucrative smuggling routes, a restless refugee population, transnational jihadis mingling with local nationalists, and an explosive ethnic mix — if this rings a bell, it’s because the war in Mosul has more in common with the morass we face in Afghanistan than it has with Baghdad, Anbar or even Diyala. And the fact that the city remains a bleeding wound six years after the invasion should give us pause.
[*UPDATE: Here we go again.]
If you’re for making a tight analogy, you lost me.
If you’re for saying, how do we deal with complexities, I’m totally with you.
well you use a polygraph test that the Iraq government just passed by law to be used..
that will at least get 90% of the dum terrorist…
the cement wall of sadar city was a very good idea, it won the war in Iraq for them..
thanks to who,, how really come up with the idea to build a cement wall all the way around & make them run out of weapons after 2-3 months,,,, that’s why they had a cease fire, they new what was happing & it did happen, they ran out of weapons..
all of the Iraq tactics used in Iraq will work in Afghanistan.
but there will also be new tactics used.
it a different country then Iraq,, hills & so on;
the tactics will be like this?
the terrorist attack the bases with 100 to 300 people each time, & they leave before air support can get there, that’s because it takes 20 min for jet fighters to get there to kill them,,, so they attack for 10- 15 at most, then run off,, this new plan is going to change the hole war.
let me just teal you this,, if 300 terrorist attack a base in Afghanistan, the American jet fighters will have all day to kill them,,, lets just say they will not be able to attack them then run off,, i will not teal how…
But you will see what I mean & bee like what the,,, how the fuc% did he no,, then you will no..
Ian:
I may have lost myself there a bit… :)
But seriously, all I’m saying, you shouldn’t expect to duplicate success in an asymmetrical fight, and it bothers me that we only talk about the COIN showcase of Baghdad when 400 kilometers to the north there is this festering wound.
I guess the only analogy I’m suggesting is one of complexity, like you said = If it doesn’t work in Afghanistan, look at Mosul and you might just find the answer.
[...] Lindholm, in a post last year, suggested we look to Mosul as one indicator of where COIN in Afghanistan might lead. [...]