Concern In Afghanistan Over Lawlessness And Taliban Resurgence

The UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, was in Afghanistan to meet with President Hamid Karzai to discuss ways to improve the security situation there. The Taliban has been making a comeback, and anti-western sentiment continues to grow as more innocent civilians are killed and wounded in raids on suspected Taliban.

The country is worried that Karzai is doing nothing to bring law and order that he promised, and who can blame them? Nothing seems to be changing.

Part of the blame lies at the feet of the Afghani people, who as a whole are too wishy-washy and weak-willed to simply decide they want no more to do with the Taliban and that they would rather have peace. At some point, it takes courage and resolution to enjoy freedoms.

However, part of the blame can also be laid at the feet of Karzai’s government, which is not stepping up to the challenge. But, what I am concerned about is the apparent lack of common sense on the part of NATO and American commanders and the continued use of what is plainly bad strategy.

The Western military mindset still suggests that you hunker down in bases and venture out on patrols. Which leads to the inevitable attacking of Taliban militants in some village and the inevitable civilian casualties. Why NATO and American commanders have not adapted to the situation and implemented a strategy that would work around these problems remains a mystery.

It’s time to get out of bases, and blanket the mountain passes with small patrols that actually live on the contested terrain instead of venturing out of fortified bases like gophers occasionally sticking their heads up out of the ground to see what’s going on. Let the Afghan army play that role and police the villages.

That will keep any casualties in built up areas from creating anger at American and NATO forces and allow better control of mountain passes and make for easier interdiction of the Taliban supply and infiltration trail network. I mean come on—we learned as far back as Viet Nam that you can’t stop an insurgency hunkered down in bases. Why on Earth we continue to do so in Afghanistan and Iraq is a mystery.

Sun Tzu wrote a few lines that explains what those generals’ problem is:

“Some commanders are not good at making adjustments to find an advantage. They can know the shape of the terrain. Still they cannot find an advantageous position. Some military commanders do not know how to adjust their methods. They can find an advantageous position. Still they cannot use their men effectively.”

Sun Tzu also pointed out that there are times when you simply stay off the roads and avoid villages and towns altogether in warfare. I think with IEDs and the popularity of ambushing vehicular convoys as a tactic among Iraqi insurgents and Taliban fighters, the generals would have gotten the message long ago:

“There are roads that you must not take. There are armies that you must not fight. There are strongholds that you must not attack. There are positions that you must not defend. There are government orders that you must not obey.
…
You must shift your campgrounds. You must take detours from the ordinary routes.”

Get off the roads already. Stop driving Hummers around hoping to quell an insurgency—it is not going to work. Get out of your firebases and act as if you were fighting in your own homeland instead of in a foreign country. If America was invaded by armed insurgents, would we hunker down in bases and drive around towns in Hummers hoping to repel them?

I like to think that, no, we wouldn’t.