They don’t mention this in FM 3-24, but it’s actually pretty easy to create an insurgent. Here’s how: An American patrol gets lost near the Pakistani border and finds itself conducting a KLE, or “key leader engagement” in the wrong village. The usual bunch shows up: snot-nosed kids, giggling teenagers and local layabouts, but definitely [...]
Archive for the ‘Afghanistan’ Category
How to Make More Taleban
Posted in Afghanistan on June 29, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Not with a Bang but a Whimper
Posted in Afghanistan on June 28, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Has counterinsurgency failed in Afghanistan? Two stories from an embed: — An American ISAF patrol discovers an IED on a treeless hillock near the Pakistani border. EOD is called in. Their Black Hawk lands on a local farmer’s wheat field, ruining his harvest. Dismayed villagers gather around to look at the destruction. The Americans, fearing [...]
McChrystalled
Posted in Afghanistan on June 24, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In the now-infamous Rolling Stone piece, General Stanley McChrystal and his staff — “a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs” — imagine the general dismissing Vice President Joe Biden in a press conference “with a good one-liner”: ‘Are you asking about Vice President Biden?’ McChrystal says with a laugh. [...]
Afghanistan: The ‘These Go to Eleven’ School of Military Strategy
Posted in Afghanistan on February 4, 2010 | 6 Comments »
One of the reasons I’m so tired of debating Afghanistan — and, frankly, of blogging about it — is that bad ideas just don’t seem to go away. It’s like talking to a wall: “Let’s destroy the poppy fields.” “But it’s a bad idea.” “Yeah. Umm, let’s destroy the poppy fields.” Or how about the [...]
Breaking: Finland to Surge 50 Troops to Afghanistan
Posted in Afghanistan on January 22, 2010 | 2 Comments »
Hey, who says we’re not pulling our weight? Finland has decided to send more forces to Afghanistan. The Cabinet Committee on Foreign and Security Policy, along with President Tarja Halonen, decided on Friday that Finland should increase its current deployment of about 120 soldiers by more than 50.
Corruption in Afghanistan: A $2.5 Billion Business
Posted in Afghanistan on January 21, 2010 | 4 Comments »
As if things weren’t gloomy enough, the UNODC report on corruption in Afghanistan is out: In the aggregate, Afghans paid out $2.5 billion in bribes over the past 12 months – that’s equivalent to almost one quarter (23%) of Afghanistan’s GDP. By coincidence, this is similar to the revenue accrued by the opium trade in [...]
Afghanistan: How the War Was Won
Posted in Afghanistan on December 5, 2009 | 24 Comments »
The United States won the war in Afghanistan in 2002. That’s right — seven years ago. How do I know? Because Bernard Finel says so. He even quotes some other dude as saying basically the same thing: This war should have been over the moment we disposed of the Taliban. Fellas. It was. And that’s [...]
Afghanistan: Obama’s Magic Numbers
Posted in Afghanistan on December 3, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Although Obama didn’t specifically say much about anything in Tuesday’s speech — in comparison, Bush’s January 2007 address read like a Petraeus PowerPoint — we did get a few numbers: 30,000. The number of extra troops to be sent to Afghanistan. It may be inadequate in terms of commonly used counterinsurgent/civilian ratios for COIN campaigns, [...]
Decision Afghanistan 2009: Full Coverage
Posted in Afghanistan on December 2, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Christian pretty much said it all, but let’s not forget the human dimension: During a nationally televised address Tuesday, a visibly tired and worn President Obama informed the country that he was going out for a pack of cigarettes and would be back in 10 minutes or so. At press time, it was already getting [...]
Where Are the McMasters and MacFarlands of Afghanistan?
Posted in Afghanistan on November 29, 2009 | 5 Comments »
Tom Ricks lists the top 10 COINdinistas, and Schmedlap, not unreasonably, takes issue with the omissions. My question, though, is this: who are the top practitioners of COINcraft — or whatever you prefer to call inventive soldiering these days — on the ground in Afghanistan right now? No, I don’t mean McChrystal and Rodriguez. Who [...]
