A winning Afghanistan strategy?

[anotherlife]

The US has lost the war in Afghanistan. So, why doesn't the pentagon do this as follows. Tell the Pakistani Pashtun tribes to annex the Pashtun lands of Afghanistan, which is like a third of that country. Then the pentagon could tell the Kirghiz tribes to take the north, and declare the east as a new independent country, under the there operating "Alliance". This way, Afghanistan will be just a quarter of what it is now, so a lot easier to control from Washington. Your take?

 

[shadow355]

Your are making it to complicated.

It does not make any difference if you separate this, or separate that.

If you take 10 tracts of land and separate them into tracts of two, for a group 5 tracts.....your tracts are separated...but you still have ten tracts. You are not fighting soil, or real-estate ; you are fighting and enemy force that is very mobile - blends in with the civilian populace.....and gets intelligence from a civilian populace and corrupt politicians and corrupt military leaders.

It would take U.S Special Operations to go in and train the inside population in fighting, guerilla warfare, urban combat, low intensity conflict, "Buddy Aid ( First Aid ) , and some other classes. Just like the Vietnam conflict - especially in this conflict.....you need a force multiplier. The Morale inside those countries needs lifted greatly from so many years of being beaten down and oppressed. The Taliban ruled........and ruled with a fist greater than the Nazi's. Spurts of conflict does not win a conflict. You start at one edge of the area , country, city, or what ever.....and you go the end.....eradicating the enemy, as well as enemy support. Special Forces Psychological Warfare folks lets the hidden insurgents and support people know what will happen if they are caught----> and it is not pretty. Discourage any more uprising, support, intelligence. The enemy withers.

It takes intelligence and support to win a conflict or war. You have to know whom you are fighting, where they are, and identify their support. You have to know the size and scope of the enemy force, where they are and where they "Lick their wounds" at. You do not show up inside the battle space and start shooting...you are wasting your time if you do.

Type of enemy - size of enemy - enemy support - enemy communications - scope of enemy personnel - the morale of the enemy. ( God I miss Military S-2 Work ) .

Don't make the conflict and intelligence gathering complicated. Complicated = your forces getting confused and unsure. So.....keep it all simple. Especially in briefing the battlefield Commander - make your presentation as brief but as thorough as you can. Don't clog the brain of the people you are briefing. Speak with confidence and be sure of yourself. Anticipate questions and have answers for those questions. For Gods sake even if it is your first brief.....act like you know what you are doing ; and that you know what you are talking about. No Commander wants an Idiot to brief him.

Shadow 355

 

[anotherlife]

Your are making it to complicated.

It does not make any difference if you separate this, or separate that.

If you take 10 tracts of land and separate them into tracts of two, for a group 5 tracts.....your tracts are separated...but you still have ten tracts. You are not fighting soil, or real-estate ; you are fighting and enemy force that is very mobile - blends in with the civilian populace.....and gets intelligence from a civilian populace and corrupt politicians and corrupt military leaders.

It would take U.S Special Operations to go in and train the inside population in fighting, guerilla warfare, urban combat, low intensity conflict, "Buddy Aid ( First Aid ) , and some other classes. Just like the Vietnam conflict - especially in this conflict.....you need a force multiplier. The Morale inside those countries needs lifted greatly from so many years of being beaten down and oppressed. The Taliban ruled........and ruled with a fist greater than the Nazi's. Spurts of conflict does not win a conflict. You start at one edge of the area , country, city, or what ever.....and you go the end.....eradicating the enemy, as well as enemy support. Special Forces Psychological Warfare folks lets the hidden insurgents and support people know what will happen if they are caught----> and it is not pretty. Discourage any more uprising, support, intelligence. The enemy withers.

It takes intelligence and support to win a conflict or war. You have to know whom you are fighting, where they are, and identify their support. You have to know the size and scope of the enemy force, where they are and where they "Lick their wounds" at. You do not show up inside the battle space and start shooting...you are wasting your time if you do.

Type of enemy - size of enemy - enemy support - enemy communications - scope of enemy personnel - the morale of the enemy. ( God I miss Military S-2 Work ) .

Don't make the conflict and intelligence gathering complicated. Complicated = your forces getting confused and unsure. So.....keep it all simple. Especially in briefing the battlefield Commander - make your presentation as brief but as thorough as you can. Don't clog the brain of the people you are briefing. Speak with confidence and be sure of yourself. Anticipate questions and have answers for those questions. For Gods sake even if it is your first brief.....act like you know what you are doing ; and that you know what you are talking about. No Commander wants an Idiot to brief him.

Shadow 355

Very interesting. This opens the question, what the parameters of divide-and-conquer are in general. In Europe, the divide-and-conques strategy is currently used, for example in the division of Yugoslavia and the Ukraine. Looks like a similar approach is forecasted to fail in Afghanistan. Why is that? I speculate, that the various tribes of Afghanistan will keep the war going in a color favorable to the US, if the US divides that land in a way that some of the tribes can cash in on it. Are you saying that the size of the enemy is not the dominant factor in managing Afghanistan?

 

[waltky]

Gonna pass it off to the next President...

Is Obama Kicking the Can Down the Road on Afghanistan?
October 17, 2015 | WASHINGTON— Analysts have mixed assessments of President Barack Obama's announcement Thursday that American troops will remain in Afghanistan at the current level of 9,800 throughout 2016 and then be reduced to around 5,500 troops in 2017. Some analysts suggest that the U.S. decision to maintain current troop levels in Afghanistan is basically kicking the can down the road.

Michael Kugelman, an expert on South Asia at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, believes that Afghanistan will be handed over to the next U.S. president whoever that may be. “It is the case of kicking the can down the road because whoever the next U.S president is will have to make big decisions about the U.S. troop commitment. He or she will need to decide whether to scale it down and bring troops home or to ramp it up and send even more,” said Kugelman. But Jason Campbell of the Rand Corporation disagrees with that assessment and calls Obama’s decision sound and in line with the conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. “I do not think it’s kicking the can down the road at all,” said Campbell. “I think leaving the troops level through 2016 is certainly an appropriate decision, because they are providing a lot of very valuable training, mentoring and providing guidance to the ANSF, and I think the alternative is to cut the troops in half by the end of this year, which would be too drastic given what’s happening in Afghanistan right now.”

The impact of ISIS

The United States along with a coalition of allies is carrying out regular airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria. Some analysts in Washington believe that the vacuum created by the U.S withdrawal from Iraq partly contributed to the rise of ISIS in the region. ISIS, also known as ISIL, is believed to have made inroads in Afghanistan as well which led to concerns that if left alone, Afghanistan might face the same fate as Iraq. Michael O’Hanlon of the Washington-based Brookings Institution believes that the U.S. decision to remain in Afghanistan was influenced by a number of factors including the infiltration by ISIS. “I think it’s a combination of the rise of the ISIL, the strength of the Taliban, the ongoing role of Pakistan which is sort of a mixed role complicating the situation, and the fact that much of Iraq and Syria fell to ISIL,” said O’Hanlon. O’Hanlon added that Afghanistan presented strategic and political risks, and that Obama did not want the same thing to happen in two different places, drawing a comparison to the situation in Iraq and Syria.

Are Afghans up to the task?

Afghan national security forces have been fighting the Taliban on their own almost since late 2014 and they have shown impressive progress in the fight so far taking a lot of causalities. Jason Campbell of the Rand Corporation believes that Afghan national security forces still need assistance. “It certainly demonstrates that the ANSF are not as far along as was previously hoped for this period,” said Campbell. Michael O’Hanlon agrees and adds that Afghans still need more help and more time. Afghans on the other hand demand military equipment to fight the insurgents, including a functioning air force that could perform close air support missions. But Kugelman says that while military equipment is important, the Afghan military needs to know how to use them as well. “I know there are Afghan military officials that think the focus should be on equipment and arms, not simple training and advice. That’s certainly something to be said for that,” said Kugelman. “But the problem is that Afghan forces need to be trained to use this equipment.”

The regional impact

See also:

Afghan Military Officer Deserts in US, Arrested in Montana
Oct 16, 2015 — An Afghan military officer who deserted last month while participating in a training program in the U.S. was arrested on a Washington-state bound Amtrak train, U.S. Border Patrol agents said Thursday.

Mustafa Tanin was arrested Tuesday when the train stopped to refuel in Havre, Montana. Border Patrol agents had boarded the train in search of somebody else when they came across Tanin and questioned him, Agent Craig Duff said. "He initially claimed to be from Mongolia," Duff said. "During questioning, he admitted to being from Afghanistan." Border Patrol agents found an identification document on Tanin and discovered that his U.S. visa had been canceled because he had deserted, Border Patrol Agent Melissa Hart said. Tanin, a lieutenant in the Afghan Army, arrived in the U.S. in May for a Basic American Language Instructor Course at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The program is for military personnel and civilians to improve their English and prepare them to teach the language in their countries, said Air Force Maj. Toni Whaley.

Tanin failed to report for activities during a weeklong field study in Washington, D.C. He was declared an international military student absent without leave by the head of the Defense Language Institute English Language Center on Sept. 25, Whaley said. Tanin did not give a reason for leaving the training, did not ask for political asylum and did not resist arrest, Duff said. Duff said a second another Afghan military official deserted with Tanin, though Whaley said Tanin was the only person who failed to report. "While there have been others who have absconded while in training, there is a well-coordinated process among federal agencies to locate the individuals as quickly as possible and return them to their respective homeland," Whaley said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were holding Tanin in Great Falls. He will be transported to Salt Lake City, where he will face deportation proceedings, Border Patrol Agent Melissa Hart said. Last September, three Afghan military officers who were participating in a joint military training exercise in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, were detained after they crossed the Canadian border at Niagara Falls to seek refugee status. They said they feared retribution by the Taliban because of their work with U.S. soldiers. Canada denied the men entry and returned them to the U.S., which began deportation proceedings against them. One of the three was later allowed to make a refugee claim in Canada.

Afghan Military Officer Deserts in US, Arrested in Montana | Military.com

 

[whitehall]

There is a big difference between political strategy and military strategy. The last time we had a winning military strategy was in Iraq and everybody on the left criticized Bush for it and made sure our political strategy would end in failure. Democrats tried to undermine the military strategy for eight years and under Barry Hussein we have no military strategy and our political strategy is in chaos.

 

[Sunni Man]

The only winning strategy would be for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan. .......

 

[Mudda]

The only winning strategy would be to nuke the whole place over and over and over again. Then use napalm, sarin and mustard gas to clean up the roaches.