Obama's Afghan War Review- More Kinetic Ops

The Obama administration has released its year long review of progress in the Afghan War and there are a number of points being seized upon for discussion. One is the fact that we have conducted large numbers of raids and airstrikes that have killed large numbers of bad guys. To me that is an unalloyed good, heck any time we are stacking dead tangos like cord wood I get a warm fuzzy. But some of the reactions question whether this increase in kinetic counterterror (CT) operations means that our hearts and minds counterinsurgency (COIN) mission is failing or being marginalized. The answer is a simple no.

Our strategy in Afghanistan has always been a mix of COIN & CT just as it was in Iraq. Here is some information about both COIN & CT and how we employ them. If you recall back in the early days of the surge there was a huge uptick in combat activity, by the conventional combat forces and also by the Special Ops folks. That is the first step of a population-centric COIN operation. You must hurt the enemy, kill as many as possible, disrupt all of his activities and demonstrate to the local populace that you are the one who represents actual security. Only when that has happened can you expect them to trust you and to begin the real COIN operations of making their lives demonstrably better. We did exactly that in Iraq and after killing piles of insurgents, moving out among the people and sharing their sacrifice, we managed to help spin up an Iraqi security apparatus that could keep the people safe.

The problem in Afghanistan is that we have not and likely will not commit to the level of effort needed to produce those same conditions. I understand fully that the countries, people, terrain and history are completely different, but that doesn’t change how you fight a COIN war. President Obama stood in front of the Corps of Cadets at West Point about a year ago and told them he was going to reinforce Afghanistan with a significant number of troops, but far too few to actually conduct a COIN mission. But then he made the mistake that I believe will be seen as the moment he lost this war. He told the world that we will be leaving 18 months later. You can’t expect the locals to trust that we have their backs when they and the enemy know we are packing up our tents in a year and a half.

So we never really decided to really fight a COIN operation and consequently we cannot move into the areas that our kinetic CT operations have cleared of insurgents by returning them to room temperature. It is not too late to change that, and the Obama team has walked the July 2011 cut and run commencement date back somewhat. They now say any withdrawal will be conditions based, but I don’t think that is giving much comfort to tribal leaders considering helping us. They know the Taliban count time in centuries not election cycles.