If we lose hearts and minds, we will lose the war

WilliamCobbett

So Afghans know 'we' - ~AngloAmerican imperialists and Hilfswilliger - don't want an empire in Afghanistan; but 'we' will definitely stay beyond 2020 in a policing and partnership.
What empire has ever proclaimed its intention to rule by coercion indefinitely? - no, they want willing subjects, a constant source of Quislings. Kilcullen disproves his own argument. Vietnam for slow learners indeed. Bring the troops home now - and Pakistan too will start to simmer down....

Hayward Maberley

No one wins in Afghanistan. Not even Alexander the Great. The British had three campaigns for two losses and a draw, the USSR, having had its own US assisted Viet Nam withdrew. The Faux Texan and late encumbrance in the White House, having decided to illegally invade and occupy Iraq managed to drag NATO into the Afghanistan conflict.
The British should really have known better. Why?
Because my grandfather, with British Army in India for the late 1920s and early ‘30s, was stationed up in the NW Frontier Provinces. The Durand Line, the border that separated Afghanistan and British India, was drawn with no regard to the tribal territory of the Pathans or Pushtun as they are now called. His unit was attempting to stop Pushtun raiders and stock thieves. All really to no avail. Pushtun pay no regard to this so called boundary and live by the Pushtunwali code which even overides Islam in some cases.
Mr Cullen helped write the “new” counter insurgency manual for General Petraeus wrote nothing new. Knowledgeable acquaintances of mine, who served in both the the Malaya Emergency and the Viet Nam Farrago all say that there is really nothing new in what Mr Cullen has to say.
It took 12 years and upwards of 40,000 British, Commonwealth and Gurkha troops plus the British Malayan Police Force to finally beat the MNLA in the Malayan Emergency. That effort went into winning against 4-5,000 mainly ethnic Chinese from a particular language group. Sir Robert Thompson, the man who instigated “hearts and minds and boots on the ground” in the Malayan Emergency was spurned by the US and South Vietnamese in his efforts in the Farrago.I believe most of Australia quite rightly was more than a little nervous about engaging in yet another US military adventure most having learnt the lessons of history from the Viet Nam Farrago.
So how long will take in Afghanistan?
Long insurgency war? The longest insurgency with which the US had to deal was for 40 years in the US itself. “The Apache Wars” 1840s-1886. The only way the US won was by extirpating various bands of Apache, Kiowa and Navaho, for all these Nations were lumped together in the usual ignorant fashion as “Apache”. Then the US had the rest surrender to be imprisoned, often killing the leaders. Finally shipping the old, women and children out of the south west to Oklahoma and Florida. Where the US hoped they would either die out, be assimilated or lose their culture preferably in that order. These “Apaches” were defending their land from invasion and exploitation and their people from harassment, mistreatment and murder at the hands of miners and settlers. Thankfully many people of these First Nations have survived to reclaim their lands.
They cannot do this in Afghanistan, for I shall end with a reference to Alexander the Great. He took 6 months to conquer Iran, but it took him nearly THREE YEARS (from about 330 BCE–327 BCE) to subdue the area that is now Afghanistan. Moving eastward from the area of Herat, the he encountered fierce resistance from the local rulers of what is today the Pashtun satraps (i.e. Aspasio, Assakenoi and Saka clans) as well as the ancestors of the Pushtuns. In a letter to his mother, Alexander described his encounters with the eastern southern Aryans (Afghan Pashtuns) thus: "I am involved in the land of a 'Leonine' (lion-like) and brave people, where every Foot of the ground is like a well of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but Everyone in this land can be called an Alexander.” Local resistance and the difficult terrain made it difficult for Alexander's forces to subdue the region as many invaders have found the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan similar to a maze that often trapped outside invaders.
From "Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan" by Frank L. Holt, read and learn.

David Short

If this man believes that 'polls' in Afghanistan have any meaning at all, or should even guide western policy in the country, then he'll believe anything.

At no point does he say why on earth are 'we' there, a question that must be on the lips of every British, American and other allied soldier over there.

Would he feel it worthwhile if his own son died there?

There can be no comparisons with Vietnam, given that it was a conscript army there and we were still in the Cold War. Both facts meant there were major public demonstrations against Vietnam; the former because of self-interest and parental concern, and the latter because of Moscow gold feeding the anti-war frenzy.

The Taleban are not the Vietcong, and Kabul is not Saigon.

Fritz

You should say it loud: a partnership with the Taliban is necessary. The West has to leave, the Taliban are the most modern power in that country, so the label of legality has to be gives to them. The best would be the implementation of a common big project, that would force the Taliban to give whatever they are capable to do, for example an Afghan railway. An Afghan railway would break the problems of nationbuilding into real problems people can agree on a work on easily. We have to give up expectations if we ever had them. Beating the sea is no solution for anybody.

Austin Barry

The Taleban has largely migrated to Pakistan, so what's the point of our staying in Afghanistan? We should just leave them to it.

elfraed

We will never have the resources to devote to doing the job properly. It is merely a matter of putting the best face on it and getting out, then repeating as necessary. That is the real lesson of all the Afghan wars...nothing is ever settled for very long. Lasting change is not in the nature of the place. In the meantime, my son who has served in two countries on five combat tours since 2001, will continue to go over.

Jon Livesey

There is a huge begged question here. Do we in fact want to "win" and what does "win" mean?

We don't need to win at all, and we get absolutely nothing if we do, except yet another imperial province that will gradually suck us dry.

The Bush-Rumsfeld strategy, which we seem to have forgotten, was in two parts. First attract terrorists to a fly-paper that we hung out for them. Second, bisect the Islamic world into two parts, geographically, ideologically and socially.

This strategy worked and can continue to work. It will cost us casualties and money every year, but it will leave the Islamic world in such chaos that they can never become a significant strategic force in the world.

All we want from the Islamic world is oil - I think they already gave us Algebra - and we only want oil until the point when we replace oil with nuclear power.

In twenty year's time, if we persist with oil substitution, Saudi Arabia will be dependent on us, Pakistan will be an Indian protectorate, Egypt and Syria will be failed states dependent on Israeli charity, and Afghanistan can go back to being the back of beyond. And Iran really can be kept in check by advanced weaponry.

Is there something better than this that we want, that the Islamic world is actually capable of delivering?

Peter Anson

Delusional and poorly written propaganda such as this is of no credit to the editor.

Eila Bannister

The comments thus far indicate the writers know their history but haven't learned from it; unlike David Kilcullen whose book 'The Accidental Guerrilla' should be required reading. Goodness knows how anyone could interpret Kilcullen's intention to be "to rule by coercion"! This man, who is intrinsically rooted in Democracy, has learned the lessons from history and shared that knowledge, well laced by first-hand practical experience, which we would all be fools to ignore.

Thank you, Spectator, for including this timely article. Perhaps those of your readers who disagree have been too busy reading history to realise there are over one hundred 'ethnic' conflicts currently in process on Earth? Or maybe they would simply prefer you to be quoting from Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui's 'Unrestricted Warfare'?

David Short

Jon Livesey is right. The best thing we can do to avert the much-overblown Islamic 'threat' is to get to an oil-free world as quickly as possible.

Which is why we should all buy gaz-guzzling 4 by 4's not electric smart cars.

GK

I don't think that the war is
because of oil. Only California
produces as much oil as the whole of ex Soviet Union.
The Americans tried like the Russians before them to establish their power in the region and failed.

Hayward Maberley

Mr Short,
You may think because there is no apparent conscription needed for both the Iraq Fiasco and the Afghan Imbroglio that there is no disenchantment or disatisfaction with the way troop numbers are being maintained. Are you aware of the number of Reserve and National Guard units that have been deployed to both. There has been a Congressional Research Service Report on that topic. It makes interesting reading.
CRS Report for Congress Updated January 17 2008
National Guard Personnel and Deployments: Fact Sheet @
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RS22451.pdf
The really interesting numbers, on the final page CRS 5, are those shown in a chart from September 2001- November 30 2007.
1,193,234 members from the Active Component of the US Defence Forces were deployed, there were also 254,894 from the National Guard and 202,113 from Reserves deployed. In fact just under 25% of those deployed were not Regulars as we would regard them in both the the UK and the Commonwealth of Australia.
This combined with the Stop-Loss Orders has placed Reserve/National Guard members and their families under great stress. The Stop-Loss Orders are acting almost like conscription as far as those people are concerned. Below is a selective time line on Stop Loss Orders

November 13, 2003: Army Issues ‘Stop-Loss’ Orders for Troops in Iraq, Afghanistan

Early January, 2004: Army Issues Further ‘Stop-Loss’ Orders

June 2, 2004: US Army Stop-Loss Forcibly Extends Soldier Deployments in Iraq

August 2004: National Guardsman Sues Pentagon to Prevent Forcible Redeployment

September 15, 2004: GAO: ‘Stop-Loss’ Deployments Having Negative Impact on Soldiers, Army’s Ability to Recruit

April 6, 2005: National Guardsman Sues over ‘Stop-Loss’ Deployment

January 14, 2006: Lawsuit Against ‘Stop-Loss’ Deployment Dismissed

January 19, 2007: Defense Secretary Gates Orders ‘Stop-Loss’ Programs ‘Minimized’

July 24, 2007: ’Stop-Loss’ Redeployments Reported Devastating for Soldiers, Families

May 2008: ’Stop-Loss’ Policies To Remain in Effect until Fall 2009

March 18, 2009: Army to Phase out ‘Stop-Loss’ Program by 2011

All of the above can be read @
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln&us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln_specific_issues=us_occupation_of_iraq_tmln__stop_loss__program

“Moscow Gold” well both Presidents Johnson and Nixon were desperate to have proof of such funding of anti Viet Nam Farrago organisations and protests. The CIA’s illegal domestic surveillance of US citizens, Operation CHAOS, spent much time, effort and US taxpayers money trying to do what their masters in Washington wanted but all to no avail.

Hayward Maberley

Ms Bannister,
I have read 'The Accidental Guerrilla' and also earlier Mr Kilcullen’s Phd Thesis
“The political consequences of military operations in Indonesia 1945-99 : a fieldwork analysis of the political power-diffusion effects of guerilla conflict” as well as his much publicised “28 Articles” and other journal articles.
Kilcullen himself may not wish to "to rule by coercion" as you say. But he does not have the final say on what is or is not done in the Iraq Fiasco or the Afghan Imbroglio. As the main premise is not Democracy but Energy viz.Oil/Gas.
Kilcullen may have learnt from history but his erstwhile employers/masters seem to never learn, as the two Georges say.
So more history.
There were two successful insurgency suppressions in the 20th Century.
That of the Huk in the Philipines which even then with US assistance took 8 years. c. 1945-1954. The Hukbalahap initially had much support as they had been the main resistance movement against the Japanese occupation. But they lost support of the people and they were never large and were isolated, in numbers maybe 60-80,000.
The other is the Malayan Emergency 1948-1960. To deal with this insurgency, Sir Robert Thompson became the main driver of changes in strategy and tactics culminating in the defeat the MNLA. At Thompson’s insistence, it was winning hearts and minds that would accomplish victory. Even so it took 12 years and involved a combination of 120,000 British & Commonwealth service personnel including Ghurkas plus Malayan Police and Specials against a peak of about 5-6,000 communist guerrillas who were ethnic Chinese from a distinct dialect minority.
Then later the British, las had the French, counselled the US to leave Viet Nam well alone. But the US even then, as more recently shown by the late unlamented Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, had scant regard for "Old Europe"
So the US headed off into another foolish and inconsidered military adventure. Harold Wilson ignored requests for British troops to be sent. Although I have learnt recently that British SAS may have been there at some time.
However he did send Sir Robert Thompson as head of the British Advisory Mission. Although the US took some advice from Thompson, concerning the village resettlement model used in Malaya. it was poorly implemented. Thompson's advice of boots on the ground, intelligence and the winning of hearts and minds was basically ignored by the US and the SVN Regime in SVN and in Washington. The US, as evident in the Iraq Fiasco and the Afghan Imbroglio, believed then as they do now in technology and firepower.
Read Chasing Ghosts by John J. Tierney. It is a study of the US involvement in unconventional warfare, starting with the early settlement of the Colonies. It takes in Revolutionary Terrorism use by Whig supporters of the Revolution against Tory Loyalists, the Confederate use of raiders, Indian wars of various descriptions through to all the early US colonial adventures in Cuba, the Philippines, Central America and on to Indo China and the current adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. It shows clearly that every time the US has to deal with an insurgency it needs to reinvent the wheel.

Lucy Morgan Edwards

He is right to say that protecting the Afghans should be our aim if we are to win their hearts and minds. But making Human Security a central plank of the policy was something the west decided 'not' to do back in 2001 when we choosing Afghan N. Alliance strongmen as our proxy to fight the Taliban. These are the people with whom Karzai still has to make faustian pacts, to keep them 'on side.' But these - our so called 'allies' - are the v same people running their own militias, who benefit from the largesse of illicit activities and who will intimidate the population into voting 'their way' this August. Although Kilcullen, rightly, talks about tackling the criminal element (mostly lumped together rather cackhandedly as 'Taliban'), NATO and the coalition has resolutely failed to tackle the 'illegal armed groups' - ie the militias of our 'allies'. Until that happens, there can be no rule of law, no end to poppy, no justice, no human security - and certainly no free and fair elections - in Afghanistan. Meanwhile we go on 'pretending' that our only enemy in Afghanistan is the 'Taliban'. Yet, despite Kilcullen's rather dubious polls, Afghans seem to be voting 'Taliban' by relinquishing territory to them. Possibly in exchange for the justice and security the west has so manifestly failed to deliver.

EnolaGay

There is no such thing as winning heart and minds! If you fire bomb and nuke a population like in 1945 you will be able to project a civil society on the ruins!

elfraed

We can send more troops in, and spend more money. The real crux of it, however, is hiring the tens of thousands of social workers needed to bring Afghans around to our way of thinking. To ensure we have enough, we would have to draft people and send them to uni, where a fair number would wash out. Even so, this raises questions of how capable they would be, and their cost-effectiveness in waging war 'on the cheap'?

Name and address supplied

I am a serving member of the UK military and served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan from Sept 08 to April of this year.

Yes...hearts and minds. Two in the heart and one in the mind...

We make almost every military decision based on how it will benefit us rather than how it will assist upon the people. We treat it as a British Army vs Taleban issue and forget the somewhat important middle bit which has to live there. This is a doctrinal issue; we are not, in my view, as adept at counter insurgency as we think. And these are Pashtuns, let's not forget, whose loyalty is conditional and is usually rented rather than bought.

We are fighting a guerrilla enemy according to maneouverist doctrine. A lack of permanent presence outside district centres mean that civilians living in remote areas are entirely vulnerable to Taleban advances, which we are well capable of beating off - but only temporarily. What is required are repeated forays into relatively unchartered territory and they MUST be followed up with a permanent presence. Civilians speak of a greater sense of security the closer to district centres they live. The brigade level sweep operations that take place at approximately six monthly intervals have to be abandoned in favour of smaller operations designed to deny to the Taleban access to more remote population centres.

Our attempts to use information and propaganda are derisory.

We are, in my opinion., disproportionate in the level of force used on occasion, leading to unneccesary collateral damage to people and to property. We are overly reliant on air strikes. 2000lb bombs are not the tools of a successful counter-insurgency.

Governance is a relative success story and the remarkable performance of Governor Mangal continues to stagger.

We continue to be obsessed with the link between the Taleban and narcotics, when the reality is that the relationship between drugs and elements of Afghan government and security forces is a far more fundamental barrier to progress.

I could go on, but I won't.

Dave

To "name and address supplied":
Keep your tail down, I would like to keep you around to advise the boys in the next war we get into.

In the H&M Dept: Stop trying to eradicate opium poppies. Instead learn to buy the whole crop at top rates. Opium changes into petroleum at almost 3 barrels per acre. More than that if you use microbe enhancement and throw the whole plant into the stew rather than just the buds. This will not run a modern industrial nation but it sure will fill the local needs, at least to a significant degree.
That way, cooperating with the allies brings prosperity instead of deprivation.

And get busy rebuilding the livestock. The Soviets almost did it in and what is left tends to be diseased. This means that with all that fine pasture, Afghanistan has to import both meat and milk.

These type of projects will provide the indispensable logistical support needed for counterinsurgency.

Tactically: Clear any given area
of enemy forces with company-sized (or even larger) patrols.
Saturate the area in question.

Then maintain presence with squad-sized (and smaller) patrols. This is necessitated by having large land areas to cover and damned few warm bodies with which to cover it.

In turn, this means you will have to procure APPROPRIATE
forms of air support. I would recommend building a turbo-prop version of the A1 Skyraider. It would be lightly armed with
machine guns and a few rockets as the heavy firepower is useless in the absence of the kind of fortifications etc we encountered in VN.

The idea is to have a craft with a good 12 hours of fuel on board. Equipped with advanced survelliance devices giving real-time information, its duties would be to go on station
and only observe unless and until one of the small patrols
ran into some difficulties. That would reserve the firepower for close support only
which is all that is needed, or useful, against non-industrial tribesmen.

And of course hire locals to act as scouts and auxillaries.
No performance, no pay.

All of which is very similar to
the combination of cattlemen, farmers, Texas Rangers, 4th Cavalry, Tonkawa scouts etc, that finally put the Commanche and their friends out of business. She will still wear the Yellow Ribbon for you, if you will but ask her.

PS: We did too pay attention to what Robert Thompson had to say and we did too put the Viet Cong out of business----permanently. The RVN was eventually ovverun by a massive conventional army, not by guerrillas. So it does work.
Good luck to you.