bootsontheground 06/22/09
As Alexander the Great sought to conquer the area that is today Afghanistan, he wrote of his frustration at the intractibility of the local tribes he sought to conquer. His armies had made short work of all of Persia (Iran) in nine months, but described Afghanistan as a place, "where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldier." He would spend three entire years attempting to bring the region into submission, at a terrible cost of lives, troop morale and materiel, only barely succeeding in the end.
Two milennia later, the Russians had a similar experience. I don't bring this up to be fatalistic, however, about our own chances of bringing the Taliban to heel in Afghanistan. There are major differences with the current conflict and any that have gone before. First is that we aren't trying to conquer the country - only police up a band of sadistic cowards that is loose there. And we're not doing it alone - for all the famous corruption of the Afghan people, most of them support our efforts to rid their country of evil men.
My point is that this campaign will be won with a unique set of tactics that have evolved from our now-vast experience at counterinsurgency warfare. This is one reason Stanley McChrystal is the right man for the job - his extensive experience in the Special Operations community makes him uniquely qualified to deploy special men for special tasks that include direct action, human terrain mapping, civil affairs and counterinsurgency.
To make this work, though, we need more fighters on the ground. When I was in Afghanistan a year ago, only about a third of the total forces deployed there were combat troops. This meant we were trying to secure a vast, geograpically extreme country with about 12,000 warfighters.
We need huge numbers of special forces troops to see this thing through, a fact that is being recognized by top commanders at the pentagon. But there are two problems. First, it takes a long time to properly train a special operator and start to see some return on that investment. Secondly, for every special operations unit deployed, there must be a commensurate number of aviation, logistics and intelligence assets to back them up.
The commander of USSOCOM testified before congress to this end last week. Navy Adm. Eric T. Olson told a Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee, "Investments in weapons platforms and technologies are sub-optimized if we fail to develop the people upon whom their effective employment depends."
Translation: It is people who will make the difference in this war - and we need more of them.
Let's hope the Commander in Chief is listening.
A Special Operators' War
As Alexander the Great sought to conquer the area that is today Afghanistan, he wrote of his frustration at the intractibility of the local tribes he sought to conquer. His armies had made short work of all of Persia (Iran) in nine months, but described Afghanistan as a place, "where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldier." He would spend three entire years attempting to bring the region into submission, at a terrible cost of lives, troop morale and materiel, only barely succeeding in the end.Two milennia later, the Russians had a similar experience. I don't bring this up to be fatalistic, however, about our own chances of bringing the Taliban to heel in Afghanistan. There are major differences with the current conflict and any that have gone before. First is that we aren't trying to conquer the country - only police up a band of sadistic cowards that is loose there. And we're not doing it alone - for all the famous corruption of the Afghan people, most of them support our efforts to rid their country of evil men.
My point is that this campaign will be won with a unique set of tactics that have evolved from our now-vast experience at counterinsurgency warfare. This is one reason Stanley McChrystal is the right man for the job - his extensive experience in the Special Operations community makes him uniquely qualified to deploy special men for special tasks that include direct action, human terrain mapping, civil affairs and counterinsurgency.
To make this work, though, we need more fighters on the ground. When I was in Afghanistan a year ago, only about a third of the total forces deployed there were combat troops. This meant we were trying to secure a vast, geograpically extreme country with about 12,000 warfighters.
We need huge numbers of special forces troops to see this thing through, a fact that is being recognized by top commanders at the pentagon. But there are two problems. First, it takes a long time to properly train a special operator and start to see some return on that investment. Secondly, for every special operations unit deployed, there must be a commensurate number of aviation, logistics and intelligence assets to back them up.
The commander of USSOCOM testified before congress to this end last week. Navy Adm. Eric T. Olson told a Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee, "Investments in weapons platforms and technologies are sub-optimized if we fail to develop the people upon whom their effective employment depends."
Translation: It is people who will make the difference in this war - and we need more of them.
Let's hope the Commander in Chief is listening.