The Sky Is Falling! Nine US Troops Killed!

The usual crowd of situationally unenlightened, chronically concerned alarmists are in full throat again, bloviating this time on how the US is losing in Afghanistan. They are right.

But, and get a grip on this, for the wrong reasons.

The focus this time is on the penetration of a joint US-Afghan National Forces (ANF) combat outpost which was hit by an estimated two hundred Taliban type fighters. The incomplete defenses were penetrated and after a four hour close combat firefight, the attackers were repelled with a loss of nine Americans killed and a further fifteen wounded. Four (or more) AFN personnel were also wounded.

Hostile losses are undetermined but presumed high, particularly since the retreating personnel received the attention of air delivered fire.

This type of incident litters the landscape of all interventionary and counterinsurgent campaigns. It deserves on its merits a brief reference buried deep inside any real world newspaper. During the Vietnam War an affray of this magnitude would have been ignored by the NYT, the WaPo and the networks.

The trouble is this. We ain't living in the real world. Consider this not atypical lede from the Los Angeles Times--"Some wonder whether the insurgency is gaining, rather than losing, momentum nearly seven years after the U.S. helped oust the Taliban regime." Quote from: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/mideastemail/la-fg-afghan15-2008jul15,0,19594.story?track=newslettertext.

The article never identifies just who the "some" might be, but the Geek is waiting for the Get-Out-Now! bunch in Congress and elsewhere to start shrieking the usual cry of "We've lost the war!" Although the Times accurately describes the penetration of the combat outpost as a "raid," the framing of the attack and its aftermath connotes doom of the greatest sort.

Crap!

Before the surge in Iraq had taken hold, the Geek posted that the best the US could hope for when the full weight of the extra American boots on the ground was felt by the assorted black turbans in that country was not losing. Now, in Iraq after the surge bought time and breathing space for the Iraqi government (such as it is), the Geek can say with a straight face that the US has accomplished the minimum necessary goal. We are not losing and, in highest probability, will not lose the war in Iraq.

Any winning of that war must be left up to the Iraqis and the government they install.

The same pre-surge contention is applicable to Afghanistan. Right now, as has been the case for several years, the US can lose. Our minimum necessary goal is the same today in that country that it was a year ago in Iraq--not losing.

To achieve that goal the US must put more boots on the ground. As the Geek has harped on repeatedly, the most labor intensive form of war in counterinsurgency. There is no way around that.

Even with the greatest possible technological assistance such as UAVs and the most deadly firepower conceivable, counterinsurgency remains what it always has been, a matter of men on the ground.

The key to successful counterinsurgency is contained in three words. Presence. Persistence. Patience.

Presence means quite simply that there must be sufficient troops on the ground to effectively carry the war to the enemy. Enough troops on the ground to deter the enemy from seeking soft targets--which is not easy when the hostiles use suicide bombers directing their efforts against the softest civilian targets. Enough troops on the ground to limit the need for stand off weapons including airpower which are likely (as we have seen time after bloody time) to inflict unacceptable numbers of civilian casualties. Enough troops on the ground to provide the appearance as well as the reality of security to the uncommitted majority of the population, which constitutes the most important battlefield in this type of war.

Presence means that the troops have to be there long enough. Long enough to undercut the political will of those who support the enemy combatants. Long enough to kill the hardest of the hard core hostile fighters and long enough to demoralise those who are less willing to bare the hardships and risks of active combat. These requirements indicate that the effort in Afghanistan may last for years yet.

Patience is required because there are no tidy phase lines in counterinsurgency as there are in conventional war between parity opponents. There are few indicators of winning and losing that are nearly as harsh, stark and easy to grasp as the sweeping arrows or lines of contact on a map such as typified World War II or even the conventional opening days of the American invasion of Iraq.

The commanders on the ground in Afghanistan are well aware of the crippling lack of troops in theater. That is why the demand for an additional three combat brigades over and above the Marine Expeditionary Brigade deployed a few weeks ago. (The presence of the Gyrenes in Helmand Province has made its self felt to the discomfiture of the black turbans.)

Three brigades should be seen as an optimistic minimum. Certainly the two brigades proposed by the Nice Young Man From Chicago, Senator Obama, is too little. This offer shows that the NYMFC is situationally naive even as he attempts to capitalise on the fear and trembling produced by the Shootout at the Combat Outpost by declaring that Iraq is a dangerous "distraction" from the Afghan Front. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign16- 2008jul16,0,703814.story or take a look at the somewhat more neutrally framed http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i93McMPYxNe5I5luHeUstklGV2RgD91TSB880.

If the current administration had not been so blind as to the nature of counterinsurgency as well as the reality that the genuine war in Afghanistan would start the day after Taliban was toppled in Kabul, and al-Qaeda as well as Taliban beat feet across the border to Pakistan along with their Pakistani advisers and hand-holders, the US wouldn't be in the fix it is today.

The idea of "shocking and aweing" our way to victory in Afghanistan is and was every bit as wrong as a cat barking. Along with the civilians topside in the Pentagon and over at the White House and Executive Office Building, the senior uniform leadership of our military must be held to have been responsible for the current near disaster.

The flag should have been obviously and publicly dropped on the play way back in late 2001. Oh, the Geek realises that We the People and our "representatives" as well as the administration were pawing the ground and eager to go after the killers of 9/11. But, going a few months later in sufficient force to do the job correctly would not have required either the political courage or the expenditure of blood and money that playing fix-up does.

Fix-up is the game we must play. And, get a grip on this, it will be a very tough game to play and win. Not only will it require a lot more grunts in-country, it will mean a lot more bodies coming home in boxes or in pieces needing a hell of a lot of rehabilitation and support.

Beyond that, the game of fix-up--if we are to meet the minimum goal of not losing--requires finally recognising the actual importance of Pakistan and its FATA. We will have to do something about the sanctuary, the land of R&R, the place of recruiting and training. It won't be as easy as Iraq.

That's the real irony of things. Afghanistan--the "good war" is also the one that is hardest. Compared to what is in the future, the past in Iraq has been just a little walk in the sun.