Another Return of the Ruff-Puffs

For those of a certain age and youthful experience the term "ruff-puff" may mean something. For most the words need some explanation.

During the Vietnam War the US proposed and implemented an idea which was very good in principle but spotty at best in application. The concept focused on the creation of local, part-time volunteer forces comprised of residents in a given village or geographic area. These forces were officially called the Regional Forces and Popular Forces. The unwieldy bureaucratic term was rapidly transformed to "ruff-puffs."

This term carried a negative connotation. Most Americans in-country were of the view that the poorly trained and inadequately armed village militias were of no military utility. At the same time the government of South Vietnam was opposed to the creation of the ruff-puffs because it feared the presence of armed peasants who might show their displeasure with the less-than-legitimate Saigon regime by either joining with the Viet Cong or just plain shooting at Saigon's troops and tax collectors.

Actually the ruff-puffs showed a surprising capacity to resist the incursions of both the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese units. This capability was greatly enhanced when the Marine Corps in the First Corps Tactical Zone in the northern most part of South Vietnam had the very bright idea of embedding a Marine squad with the ruff-puff unit in a number of villages.

When the concept was tested it was shown to be quite successful. The Marines had the training, teamwork and personal firepower necessary to stiffen the will and ability of a village militia to stop even Main Force Viet Cong units from exacting supplies, manpower and intelligence from the protected area.

The Marines also had the capacity to call in assistance, both air and ground, if the threat force proved too great to be effectively countered. This ability was of almost immeasurable importance.

There was another, completely unplanned, benefit brought about by the presence of a Marine squad in any given village. This benefit did much to assure both the loyalty and the will-to-combat of the villagers.

The unforeseen benefit?

The Marines were hostages to American good behavior. In practice this meant the village and its fields were immunised against air strikes. No zoomie with an attitude or bad target coordinates would grease the village and its people. No free fire zone would suddenly grow to engulf the village as long as the Marines were present.

If keeping the Marines meant not shooting the much despised and usually corrupt district and provincial officials, that was a small price to pay. The panjandrums of Saigon breathed a long and quite audible sigh of relief.

The new combination of ruff-puffs and Marines went by the name of the Combined Action Platoon Program. It was a success. A big success.

And, as is often the case with good ideas in the military, the success of the CAP program assured its ultimate failure. The program was expanded rapidly. Too rapidly. Command and control suffered. Unit coherence was compromised. Quality control and assurance was eroded.

Even with its later less than splendid record, the CAP approach had much to recommend it. The residual institutional memory of CAP was in part behind the first Concerned Local Citizens and Awakening Council efforts in Iraq.

Nearly forty years later a similar, but far from identical effort started in Iraq, in Anbar province. The Concerned Local Citizens and the Awakening Councils were not analogous with the CAP program. Indeed, in many critical ways, the CLC/AC paradigm was quite different from the earlier model.

In one very, very important way the CLC/AC approach was identical with the CAP program particularly in its early days. The Concerned Local Citizens and the Awakening Councils were effective in denying areas and people to the insurgents. Like the CAPS of an earlier war, the CLC and the AC served to undercut and marginalise the various insurgent entities.

For years now both practitioners and historians of counterinsurgency have urged the development of a CAP type program in Afghanistan. The absence of such a program with its emphasis upon locals taking responsibility for the protection of the local peace constituted a very important missing link in the attempt to restore Afghanistan to the ranks of fully functional states.

Finally, almost too late, the US has announced the commencement of a program to arm and train local village militias. The announcement underscored the "long tradition" of Afghan peasants defending their homes and fields against invaders.

Well, duh. The Deep Thinkers at State and Defense just now find that out?

No. The prickly nature of Afghan peasants has been long known--particularly by those outsiders who have to deal with the man in the adobe or stone hut or the merchants in some wind swept and dusty bazaar.

This knowledge was a factor militating against the formation of an Afghan version of CAP.

Another, more important factor was the recognition that this sort of local militia would become a manpower drain on the overstretched US and NATO forces. But, with the advent of more US ground troops this consideration becomes less compelling.

However, as the Marines found out in I Corps forty years ago, a squad here and a squad there adds up pretty damn quickly to a lot of combat power spread about in very small packages. So very careful monitoring of the utility of this expenditure of boots is required. Cost-effectiveness measurement of a relentlessly honest (and realistic) nature is the sine qua non of success.

The final and most important reason why the Afghan village militia concept has been so slow in coming is simply the Karzai government. Karzai and his colleagues in the sham national government are quite painfully aware of how much the majority of the population detest the Kabul regime.

Karzai and many in his imitation government are members of the ethno-linguistic minority. While the boys in Kabul might get away with that if the regime inclined itself toward honesty and efficiency, both of these virtues elude them.

Not surprisingly, Karzai and his cohorts have been flat opposed to arming more citizens. The Geek doesn't blame them. Guns are a well demonstrated corrective to illegitimate government.

Apparently, Karzai has accepted the proposition that unless he risks the guns of the villagers, the guns of the Taliban are going to get him for sure. The Geek guesses the crooks of Kabul have taken the position that a risk is more acceptable than a certainty.

Village militias will not in themselves win the war against Taliban. But without the armed peasants, willing and able to deny freedom of movement, action and exaction to Taliban and its ilk, there can be no semblance of peace in Afghanistan.

The minimum necessary strategic goal for the US (and its allies) in Afghanistan is "not losing," It is assuring that Taliban and al-Qaeda and others of the Islamist/jihadist sort cannot claim an armed victory over the "Crusader states." Afghanistan will not quickly become any sort of model democracy let alone a secular state. That species of goal must be abandoned. Speedily.

The announcement that the US will organise and support a village militia program is an important indicator that realism has set in both in the field and in Washington. The increase in American (and wishfully, NATO) boots on the ground are an important, necessary but not sufficient step in the direction of implementing a realistic view in Afghanistan. Another highly necessary but, perhaps not sufficient, step is putting guns in the hands of the locals.

The next step will be strengthening both the resolve and ability of the villagers to impose and keep peace in their particular valley. This means we must take the best of the CAP program and improve upon it. In this case as in so many others involving war, history is the best and most certain guide.

We have the history. Do we have the wit and will to use it?