The Latest From Our Allies In Islamabad

The US is embarking on large scale operations in southern Afghanistan. That is the mission of the newly deployed Marine forces. The radical notion is to take the war up close and personal to the al-Qaeda and Taliban jihadists in their core zone along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

It is an operational concept which should have been executed years ago. We did not have sufficient forces in country then. We do now. Now we must deny sanctuary to Taliban and its affiliates all through the border region if we are going to accomplish the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing."

We must destroy Taliban as a militarily potent force in the critical border region if we are going to deny the Islamist jihadists any belief that they have, will or even can defeat the US militarily. In short, a successful carrying of the war to Taliban in south Afghanistan is a necessary, even a sufficient prerequisite for achieving the Obama announced end state of removing Taliban and its ilk as a threat to the US and its western allies.

The new American capacity for offensive military action in southern Afghanistan has alarmed the Pakistani military. It has been reported that Ashfaq Kayani, the General Big of Islamabad's army is most perturbed by the prospect of US troops actually doing something useful near the border.

His reasons?

Humanitarian. The fire-breathing Pakistani warrior is gravely concerned that American operations might cause a flood of refugees across the border placing a burden for relief efforts which Islamabad could not shoulder given the current global economic situation.

Just in case the Americans don't buy that argument, General Kayani has a backup. US offensive actions might result in Taliban (whether that of the Afghan variety or the Pakistani twin is unclear) making further efforts to interdict the Khyber Pass supply route.

The first of these contentions is inherently bogus from the American perspective. As the Marine Corps Commandant James Conway correctly noted, no one can be certain where the jihadists might move under American pressure. It might be added that any numbers regarding civilian displacement or jihadist fugitives are softer than soft.

One caveat is needed. If General Kayani has better information, perhaps based on HUMINT, than does the US, he might be correct in his apprehensions of a refugee torrent washing across the almost non-existent border.

The odds are good that Kayani has superior intelligence concerning Taliban numbers and intentions, including that of purposely generating hordes of refugees. Given the long-standing relations between the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Taliban in Afghanistan, such an eventuality exceeds mere certainty by a West Texas mile or two.

Taliban in Pakistan has long been in the habit of using civilians as a shield for its Heroic Fighters For Islamic Purity as has been recently, publicly acknowledged by the new Interior Minister in Islamabad. The movers-and-shakers of Taliban are knowledgeable in the ways of the West. These men are well aware of the rapidity with which the ever-so-sensitive Western chattering class can weep, wail and cry over the fate of "innocent civilians" caught in the sights of weapons wielded by Americans or other Westerners.

Like their politically calculating religious compatriots in the Gaza Strip, the leaders of Taliban count upon the bodies of dead civilians to snatch victory from the clutches of military defeat. It makes strategic political sense to the intensely cynical men behind the black turban wearing trigger pullers of Taliban to force civilians to catch the (literal) flak and, with their blood, gain the victory which combat alone would deny the Islamist jihadists.

The Western elites have shown a remarkable ability and willingness to displace responsibility for the deaths of non-combatants from its legitimate residence on the doorstep of Hamas to the Israeli Defense Forces. There is no reason to assume that the dark minds of Taliban have failed to notice that unjustified Western opprobrium forced the IDF to halt their incursion into the Gaza Strip without first having destroyed the combat potential and structural integrity of Hamas.

Rather than face defeat and destruction at the hands of the US Marines, the Taliban will cheerfully shove the civilian population in the area of operations out of their homes and down the paths to Pakistan. No doubt Taliban will assure that civilians die. They will make sure that cameras are available to flash images of torn corpses and wailing survivors to the world.

General Kayani has telegraphed Taliban's most likely strategic and operational response to the forthcoming American offensive operations. This was not his intent. It is the result. The Americans have been (fore)warned.

The US has three options now.

The first, most obvious was conveyed by General Conway. It is blunt, a good Marine's view of reality. "But in any event, we've got to do what we've got to do in the south."

The second is to prepare for the refugee contingency. The US can offer requisite humanitarian assistance to Islamabad. The Americans can--and should--insist that the government and military forces of Pakistan be good to go in handling refugees. This includes having the capacity to effectively separate Taliban wolves from the civilian sheep. A further pro-active step would be re-emphasizing the rules of engagement which serve to limit collateral casualties.

The final option is to call off the planned offensive sweep. The Americans could simply say, "Golly-gosh, General Kayini, we never thought about that. You're right. Can't have all those poor civilians stumbling through the mountains, maybe even getting hurt. Sprained ankles and who knows what other catastrophes."

"Alright, Geek, maybe you're right on that fugitive from firepower thing, but what about the supply route? What if Taliban ups the ante by attacking there?"

Right, bucko, what if they do?

The Khyber Pass main supply route (MSR) is and always has been the most vulnerable component of the entire US/NATO/Other Concerned Nations effort in Afghanistan. The inherent vulnerability of the MSR has been worsened by the Pakistani military's less than resolute defense of it.

When assessing the liability of the MSR to interdiction, it is necessary to consider the capacity of Taliban (both varients, Afghan and Pakistani) to sever the artery. In the past this capacity has shown both expansion and contraction. It is legitimate to posit that Taliban will seek to expand its capabilities if the American offensive is conducted in such a way as to afford the black turbans the time and excess manpower necessary.

Unless one is willing to believe that American planners have their collective head inserted very far into an anatomically improbable location, it is most likely that the US has taken the MSR interdiction response into consideration. The tempo of combat operations will be such that it is diminishingly likely that Taliban will have the luxury of time, or, surplus manpower.

While General Kayini no doubt wishes otherwise, his warning about the Khyber Pass places a focus on the second factor which must be assessed when considering MSR vulnerability. It is necessary to evaluate the will and ability of the Pakistani military to defend the MSR, to prevent its disruption.

To date the defense efforts have been less than impressive. Even though the security services of Pakistan have had access to intelligence information from American assets, the ISI, constabulary and army have shown no particular inclination to take pro-active action, nor even to respond to an attack with notable effectiveness.

General Kayini has conducted an ancient bureaucratic and military maneuver, (generally dubbed CYA.) His dark and dismal warning of the MSR being severed and the flow of necessary supplies being choked severely is actually meant to excuse in advance the inevitable failure of the army, ISI and constabulary to either prevent or quickly neutralise threats to the MSR.

The Geek has a question for you, General Kayini. Which are you? A senior commander in the military of a dedicated and resolute ally in a joint effort against a serious enemy? A faltering member of a deliquescent regime? A sympathiser with Taliban?

You see, General, it's confusing. Your job title gives one answer. Your "warnings" give others.

The Higher The Rank, The Smaller The Mind---

--Or so it so often seems to the Geek.

SecDef Gates may have taken a firm grip on reality, but many of the highest ranking officers under him are charter members of the out-to-lunch bunch, uniformed division. The Secretary accepts the unpleasant feature of the world today and into the near-term. The major use of American combat forces will be as it has been for more than a decade now--stability operations.

As the Geek well remembers from his encounters over this subject years ago, the men with stars on their shoulders all-too-often will not march on the sound of reality. They prefer to hang on to the hopes of a conventional conflict.

The most recent outbreak of uniformed nostalgia for the good ole days of War As We Would Like To Know It eluded the mainstream media but was caught by by Wired News. Take a look, http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/some-observers-.html. Further details can be found on http://insidedefense.com/. This latter source can also shed light on internal inconsistencies within the massive military establishment concerning what kind of threat(s) our forces should be preparing to counter.

There is no surprise that the Air Force is particularly unhappy with the idea of stability operations including counterinsurgency, peacekeeping, and counter-terrorism. The majority of senior zoomies such as Lance Smith are jet jocks. The kind of guy who lives to strap on umpteen thousand pounds of thrust between his legs and pull back on the stick.

Experience shows that the fast-movers which are the heart and soul of the Air Force are massively irrelevant and even counterproductive in stability operations except in unusual and narrowly circumscribed applications. That doesn't help come appropriation time.

It doesn't help come promotion time either.

While it is easy to understand why the boys in light blue don't want to be thought of (or think of themselves as) a collection of airborne bus and truck drivers providing dreary logistic support to the actual warfighters, it is a little harder to understand why the upper echelon of the Army is unhappy as well.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey like his predecessor Peter Schoomaker have made mighty groans concerning the possibility that the ground-pounders are "off-balance" and less able to engage in conventional war. Joined by Marine Commandant James Conway, the two have viewed with alarm the tilting of American ground forces toward the requirements of stability operations.

The latest voice in the chorus is that of Admiral Michael Mullen, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gotta admit that is an impressive constellation of stars, right?

It is that. Impressive amount of tin on the shoulders and braid on the hats. Taken in totality, the pounds of tin and braid mean these men are fine bureaucratic politicians.

Possession of stars, however, does not mean that the individual is an experienced fighter of real wars. Neither does it imply that the man under the stars and braid has a grip on the nature of present and future wars.

The initial blundering in the planning and execution of our adventures in regime change in both Afghanistan and Iraq show two realities quite clearly.

Our senior military commanders were either intellectually bankrupt or moral cowards when they agreed to execute the lamebrained notion of "shock and awe" sponsored by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his neocon ninny brigade. Then, the events on the ground until quite recently demonstrated that our forces were far too heavily tilted toward conventional war with a symmetrical opponent.

American officers of stratospheric rank have never cottoned to guerrilla war. They certainly didn't like the counterinsurgency portions of the Vietnam War. Even way back when, in the late Nineteenth Century, unconventional approaches to defeating the Indians such as practiced by General Crookes were cast aside (as was Crookes) by the senior commanders in favor of less effective, more lethal conventional means.

Generals Smith, Casey et al, and Admiral Mullen are captives to a set of paradigms. Deadly paradigms because they are ill-suited for the world as it is and will be for some while yet.

The buried paradigm is that of war as a pursuit for professionals sharing common world views and values. It is the paradigm of a sand table exercise enlarged to cover thousands of square kilometers. It is the paradigm of Clausewitz with movement and concentration of forces ending in "bloody and decisive combat."

The surface paradigm is that of the post-World War II experience, culminating in the concept of the Air-Land Battle, which has been enshrined in doctrine for two decades and more. It is the paradigm that assured quick and bloodless victory over the hopelessly overmatched opponent in the Gulf War of 1991 and the conventional portion of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Air-Land Battle represents War As We Would Like It To Be to these generals and many like them. It is the kind of war, with its emphasis on breaking things and killing people, at which we are best prepared and equipped to wage.

The paradigms guiding the thinking of these generals (as well as lurking under Rumsfeld's concept of shock and awe) promise quick and decisive victory. Victory fast enough and cheap enough in American lives to assure the end of the war before the political will of We the People is exhausted.

Here is the subtext message upon which to get a grip.

The generals listed as well as Admiral Mullen and many others are desperately afraid of stability operations. They are more afraid of counterinsurgency than they are of death itself.

Why?

Simple. These men are scared of us. They are made fearful, not by any actual or potential enemy, but of We the People.

They are afraid that We the People and our "representatives" will lose the political will to continue the stability operation, the counterinsurgency, the peacekeeping mission, the counter-terrorist campaign when "victory" proves elusive and expensive in time and lives.

When that happens, they will be left holding the same bag as their predecessors following the self-inflicted Vietnam defeat. They will be left with the hollow forces, the empty appropriations, the testimony before hostile committees, the blighted careers.

Where does the fault lie?

It is easy to say it lies with backward looking, intellectually deficient military politicians more worried about careers, promotions, appropriations and glory than about the effective use of the military in support of national interest. That is the easy, attractive way to point the finger.

Or, we can take the harder route. We can look in a mirror.

The present and future reality is that Secretary of Defense Gates is right. Stability operations are and will be the order of the day. This unpleasant fact of life requires both the changes in military doctrine and orientation so recently undertaken.

But, it requires more.

Of our senior military officials, particularly the bureaucratic politicos in uniform, it requires honesty. It requires that they shift the paradigms that have served as pole stars for their entire careers. That is tough--damn tough. But, no tougher than slogging along looking for the ambush or the roadside mine.

Senior military commanders have to both adjust to the new reality of war and insist that We the People do the same.

The ultimate (perhaps unachievable) requirement is that We the People and our "representatives" acknowledge that there are no quick, decisive, and cheap victories in the offing. Wars today and tomorrow are going to be long, indecisive, and quite probably not completely satisfying in their outcome. That is the nature of all stability operations, most particularly counterinsurgency.

Presence on the ground, persistence over time, and patience are the prime requisites. This means the political will of We the People is the foundation for achieving the minimal acceptable outcome of any stability operation.

The minimal acceptable outcome?

Not losing. As the Korean War demonstrated, not losing is both the minimal acceptable and often the only possible outcome of a war.

We are and will be again in situations far more akin to the Korean War than World War II. We best get a grip on that.

Our future administrations had best get a grip on it as well. Getting into war is a lot easier than getting out of it without declaring defeat. Vietnam showed us that. Iraq is showing it again right now as is Afghanistan.

A hint to future administrations from the past: Don't march off to war unless and until you not only have a clear understanding of what is at stake, what is the desired better state of peace, and, most importantly, what is the definition of "not losing?"