by Eric Martin
Andrew Exum responds, in brief, to my post on the blurring of the lines between those that develop counterinsurgency (COIN) operational doctrine and those that counsel for its use as part of an overall grand strategy – specifically, I commented on the tendency of many high profile COIN practitioners to advocate using COIN-intensive tactics in theaters such as Iraq and Afghanistan in order to achieve our overarching goals.
Exum is right to point out that I treated the COIN community a bit monoilthically, and that there is a debate amongst COIN scholars about whether our not it would serve our strategic interests to undertake a long term (10-15 year) nation building effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the trillion dollar cost levels anticipated.
Otherwise, he mostly reiterates his position:
As much as it may stink, a population-centric COIN strategy may be the best way to protect U.S. and allied interests and advance policy aims.
Indeed it might, though I obviously disagree.
Still, it doesn't seem that those that understand COIN are opposed to implementing it – as Exum earlier claimed. At least not with respect to ongoing conflicts (if not with respect to initiating new ones). Nor is it the case that there are not significant strategic disagreements between the Bacevich school of foreign policy and COIN practitioners such as Kilcullen (as Exum also implied). The former camp does not believe that it is in our long term interest to attempt to reorder Afghanistan's and Pakistan's respective political and social orders – utilizing time intensive, resource exhausting, population-centric COIN doctrine - whereas the latter argues that such an approach is the only way to achieve our strategic aims (despite the costs).
Jason Sigger weighs in and tries to sort out the terms of the debate to ensure that the various sides are not "talking past each other." His post is worth checking out, as is Exum's response.
Exum is right to point out that I treated the COIN community a bit monoilthically, and that there is a debate amongst COIN scholars about whether our not it would serve our strategic interests to undertake a long term (10-15 year) nation building effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the trillion dollar cost levels anticipated.
I’m not really concerned with “scholars” unless they have done at least one tour… The guys doing it? Ask them if they want to be there 10 years from now after 7 tours – if they want their oldest born there. Ask them – they are the scholars IMO. If they say yes – drive on. Otherwise GTFO.
FWIW: Exum and Nagl have each done at least one tour (I think more). Kilcullen has been in and out of hot spots as well – and has a military pedigree (Australian IIRC).
Fair enough Eric, I looked for Bio/About Links and didn’t see much of that.
But then I’d ask you to give Totten equal consideration, seeing as he has been on the ground there in both wars for years.
He called the civil war in Iraq a long time before anyone else admitted it, and he has called Afghanistan a lost cause for a long time.
He called the civil war in Iraq a long time before anyone else admitted it
He also declared it “over” a bit before anyone else. Prematurely I think.
Sometimes Totten provides useful information. I read him around the time of Israel’s incursion into Lebanon and found value there.
Eric: I mean, the dude has done tour after tour in both countries (embedded) at his expense (help from readers, some MSM). He was about the first to reliably report that Iraq was descending into civil war; he has what should be Pulitzer Prize winning photographs (misappropriated by left and right both). He has been calling Afghanistan lost for more than a year… He has been pretty straight from the start – but he has right-wing cooties…
I mean, the dude has done tour after tour in both countries (embedded) at his expense (help from readers, some MSM). He was about the first to reliably report that Iraq was descending into civil war; he has what should be Pulitzer Prize winning photographs (misappropriated by left and right both). He has been calling Afghanistan lost for more than a year… He has been pretty straight from the start – but he has right-wing cooties…
One of the big shocks of this mess (other than that I fell for it) is that yuz guyes can dismiss Totten so easily.
He totally takes down your chicken-hawk meme. Beat that… He has a bias, which he recognizes, but you can not beat his reporting out of the ME for the last few years. Does anyone here want to call him a chicken hawk?
In short- find me a more honest and unbiased “war reporter” from your side who has actually been there for the duration… ? ? ?
Nagl was my commander for a short time when I returned from Iraq, and at that time had 17 years active duty.
I think he takes a military bias toward the idea: he is looking at how to achieve whatever objective is given to the military, not whether the objective is in itself a good idea.
Which is probably the correct position for the military to take: “how do we achieve what we have been asked to do?”
I tend to think it was/is less dismissing Totten as dismissing the chickenhawks who wave various bits of Totten’s commentary around. But you’d have to find particular points to discuss. This blanket approval is not me.
Also, embedding is not necessarily the best way to get a neutral viewpoint. Different, yes, neutral, no so much.
In short- find me a more honest and unbiased “war reporter” from your side who has actually been there for the duration… ? ? ?
I don’t know whose side he’s on, but Anthony Shadid has gotten more right about Iraq than just about any reporter I’ve come across. It helps that he speaks Arabic. Read his book “Night Draws Near” if you get the chance. It’s positively revelatory.
Otherwise, I tend to agree with what LJ said.
I do sometimes read him for info, but his bias is not just right leaning. Recall, he said this around the time of the shoe throwing incident:
I have briefly met many Iraqi journalists in Baghdad. They seem like decent people, for the most part, and are not as shifty as many other civilians I encounter.
Yeah, Iraqi civilians are generally pretty shifty. Nice.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/12/unsavory-and-sh.html
In July, he declared the civil war in Iraq over. Since then, thousands of Iraqis have died in civil war violence.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/07/the-plumage-don.html
In July 2007, he declared that Syria had invaded Lebanon. Not so much in real life.
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001483.html
That being said, I thought, again, that he did a good job on Israel/Lebanon, and I defended him when he was taking flack for his reporting on that subject:
http://tianews.blogspot.com/2006/07/knives-out.html
I think he takes a military bias toward the idea: he is looking at how to achieve whatever objective is given to the military, not whether the objective is in itself a good idea.
Which is probably the correct position for the military to take: “how do we achieve what we have been asked to do?”
I agree that this is the correct position for a military man to take. That’s what I want out of our military: can-do all the way. And Nagl is intelligent to boot.
Unfortunately, Nagl, Kilcullen and others are, in fact, starting to stray into the policy debate and are, in fact, arguing that the objective is itself a good idea.
The CNAS report that I cited multiple times is a policy recommendation piece – lead authored by Nagl.
The former camp does not believe that it is in our long term interest to attempt to reorder Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s respective political and social orders – utilizing time intensive, resource exhausting, population-centric COIN doctrine
Actually, I do not understand how COIN allegedly can “reorder” political and social orders. It is a method of combating insurgency on behalf of an existing political and social order, which order better be acceptable to most of the citizenry in order for COIN to have any chance of being effective.
I think Sigger summed this point up well:
I don’t think that policy makers develop COIN strategy – they develop a national strategy to meet political goals in Afghanistan (for instance), a strategy that can be partially met by military COIN operations but that also requires economic and diplomatic aspects. (bold added)
The real question regarding Afhganistan is the political goal, to which COIN is simply one means for implementing that goal. And the political goal better reflect something that most Afghans want, or COIN is doomed before it starts.
We cannot make Afghanistan into something we prefer simply by implementing COIN, even if we take a decade and spend billions.
Or as some might express it:
1. Implement COIN in Afghanistan
2. …
3. All of our pony dreams in Afghanistan come true.
“sort out the terms of the debate to ensure that the various sides are not “talking past each other.””
—always important to do, at least if you want new insights to emerge, or opinions to change.
Also, the if you ask the people who are doing the tours now, the results can be unpredictable. They could be more discouraged about long-term prospects, or more convinced its necessary to persist. I would bet they would have greater misgivings about leaving without an endgame that they can chalk up as a mission success, at least in some form.
eric – is there a white paper/etc. that you find most persuasive about what exactly to do in afghanistan. i know CAP had something a few months ago, though events obviously change quickly there.
I love you guys – but if you can’t give any credit at all over here??? Ahhhhh!
Come on OCSteve, I linked to a piece in which I defended Totten! Once!
dmbeaster: I agree. Though Kilcullen and others do not envision COIN from a military only perspective – they want to enlist non-military means.
p-diddy: That CAP piece is good.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/sustainable_afghanistan.html
In general, I prefer CAP to CNAS.
Ilan Goldenberg also just published a post that is a pretty good run down of the various takes for now:
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2009/03/the-case-for-the-middle-path-in-afghanistan.html
Just to note, every military school and class I have been in regarding this issue has emphasized DIME as part of COIN.
The military doesn’t want to do it alone.
jrudkis: Every COIN piece I’ve ever come across does the same.
“monoilthically”
great typo.
But it is hard to use some of that other power when you can’t even get the State Department to fill its billets in the area we are trying to do COIN.
One of the reasons the military ends up doing these tasks is that the agencies that are supposed to do it are either unwilling or unable to perform their function. The military of course is much better funded than State, but I would hope that our diplomats would step up and be diplomats.
I do not know whose “side” he is on, but CNN’s Michael Ware strikes me as an honest, first-rate war reporter with a big heart who cuts through the bullshit.
One of the reasons the military ends up doing these tasks is that the agencies that are supposed to do it are either unwilling or unable to perform their function. The military of course is much better funded than State, but I would hope that our diplomats would step up and be diplomats.
I think the “step up” part kind of underestimates the security concerns you mention earlier. Diplomats are not going to step up when they could get killed quite easily. They will come in and do their jobs when security is – if not ensured – at least reasonably expected.
But yeah, that’s one of the reasons why COIN is so hard to pull off. The non-military aspects require a certain semblance of security – at least in some regions that can “oil spot” out.
Diplomats are not going to step up when they could get killed quite easily.
I don’t think this is historically true: my cartoonish understanding of diplomatic history is that diplomats have often been at risk and taken that risk in order to serve their country.
33 State Department diplomats were killed working in Vietnam, one has been killed in Iraq.
OK, that’s a valid point jrudkis. But then, I don’t think our country is prepared to sacrifice the same way we did in Vietnam across the board. Compare, even, the KIA rates.
I think part of it had/has to do with a perception of the centrality of the missions to our actual security.
If this was WWII, I don’t doubt that our diplomats would be out in force where needed – even if in harm’s way.
(PS: Has it really been only one in Iraq? Why do I seem to remember more? Along those lines, aside from diplomats, there have been many NGO workers killed including, most famously, the top UN envoy Sergio Viera de Mello, along with 21 other members of his staff in that one bombing alone).
http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/
hsnews110-000002590894.html
This was my source.
In contrast, only one of the approximately 1,000 foreign service officers, who are generally responsible for interacting with Iraqis of all kinds, including local officials on reconstruction projects, has been killed (James Mollen, a Bush 2000 campaign worker and political appointee working on computer systems at the Ministry of Education). Two non-FSO Diplomatic Security Service agents have been killed, according to the State Department.
It is about a year and a half old, so maybe I missed something.
Having been to the US embassy in Baghdad, as well as the USAID compound, the risk of the people there is pretty low and the living conditions adequate (great for USAID): while there is indirect fire, it generally has early warning, and plenty of places for protection. And there was a nice pool with a bar.
Arguably diplomats don’t want to go because they don’t think they can actually get out to do thier jobs. However, my cousin is currently in Baghdad with the WA State National Guard primarily escorting State Department convoys (picking up in part for Blackwater, I believe). He generally takes people to and from the various Iraqi ministries in the city, and make those runs everyday, so I think the opportunities to get out are getting better.