Afghanistan: Counterinsurgency v. Counterterror

A NY Times story about successes we have had making dead tangos( i.e. counterterrorism) has a bunch of people scrambling to use this to justify all kinds of nonsense. Let’s clarify a few things so that when the punditocracy commences flapping its collective gums you can translate. First of all we are using both counterinsurgency (COIN) and counterterror (CT) strategies and tactics in Afghanistan, just like we did in Iraq. Now let’s have a quick primer on what they both are.

Counterinsurgency- Focuses on securing the local populace to gain their trust and show them the path to a better life by partnering with us and their own government. It is a longer term strategy as the locals must believe they won’t be abandoned after they turn against the insurgents.

Counterterror- Focuses on capturing and killing terrorists and insurgents, which requires actionable intelligence as to their locations. Raids are generally conducted by Special Ops teams or drone strikes and if done properly the dead tangos can be stacked like cord wood.

During the Great Dithering, President Obama received differing advice advocating one or the other of these methods. Noted strategerist Joe Biden was in favor of a CT focus with his Magic Ninja plan. Gen. McChrystal and Gen. Petraeus believed that COIN was the way to go. The reality is that just like in Iraq our operations consist of a mix of the two. And you know what, when you start doing COIN and building rapport with the locals they can tell you where the bad guys are thus making your CT operations more effective.

Right now you have many of President Obama’s allies spinning our CT success as proof we can begin leaving next Summer just like he kinda promised. While we can certainly begin to cut troop levels regardless o0f the situation, simply killing a bunch of terrorists and insurgents will not create lasting stability. That requires Afghan government and security forces that can replace our troops. However it can put pressure on the Taliban and may even lead some of their surviving leaders to switch sides or think about making peace. But it will take some of both strategies, so let’s take a few deep breaths before we start packing up to go.