Dig Deep

So I’m getting a little less positive today, and there’s no food or Hazaras involved.  Bottom line?  We don’t know what we need to know about the communities we operate in. 

Once again the focus is less on counterinsurgency and more on counter-terror.  The first one takes a lot of work and time.  The second one briefs better and we get better video out of it.

Wonder why we focus on that?

It is true that there is a counter-terror High Value Target (HVT) component to operations here that must be addressed, but it can not be the only effort in this campaign.  Simply because a soldier is involved in a counterinsurgency does not make him a counterinsurgent.  Most of our troops are still engaged in counter-terror strategies that would indicate the focus on kinetic operations (read “shoot shoot, kill kill).  There is a definite shift to other operations, as well, but unless the assorted players from the guy on the ground all the way up are versed and trained in counterinsurgency operations, we fail miserably.

The key opportunity is a lack of a clear plan and focused approach to that plan.  8 years in, we’re kind of rebooting the Afghan franchise.  Call it Taliban Hunt II, or whatever it is, but from McChrystal to the ground-level commanders, folks are buying in to the concepts of counterinsurgency at a level we’ve previously not seen.

Which is encouraging, but what we’re dealing with at this point is an interim period prior to the surge, where the naysayers will say “that’ll never work,” similar to what was said about the troop surge in Iraq.

Not that Iraq is a shining example of US achievement, but the surge did what it was supposed to do, and I believe the coming one will, as well.  Afghanistan is now “the” war instead of the “other” war, and that’s a good a place as any to be if one’s fighting a war.