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After retirement, I decided I needed to do something with my experience and teach. Enter graduate school. Unexpectedly, as a veteran here in Boston, I have been asked to guest lecture at several Universities here about Afghanistan (think History of the Cold, Current Events, etc.). Those have gone well enough that at least one University has asked me to prepare a full semester long course on Afghanistan. However, as I develop the course, there is one question that students of all ages, from all around the world, keep asking and that I find I have no answer to, "What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan?"
Reflecting on my own experience in Afghanistan, I think it's been clear for a very long time that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing there. In a tactical sense, we fought to take villages, slowly and methodically squeezing our way toward strong point villages. Only we stopped and Special Operations Forces would come in and fight running gun battles to ... well, temporarily clear the village? (For some reason, infantryman could not handle this standard tactical task?) In the cases I fought in, we asked, and never received an answer as to whether we were supposed to occupy these villages. It became moot anyway, as the casualties we endured taking the ground leading to the village would pop up on a slide as excessive. We were then withdrawn to the start point returning all the ground to the Taliban. Start absurd process all over again, and, clearly IMHO, to absolutely no effect whatsoever.
The only thing this dysfunction looked like was an attempt to attrite the Taliban. This is the same battle plan used by Westmoreland in Vietnam to disastrous effect. It was clear a decade ago that this policy was absolutely foolish. The Pakistani border area hosted recruitment and training areas that were largely off limits to US forces and protected by Pakistani forces (its not even an open secret, its just a fact). We could kill every single hostile Taliban that crossed the border, and the next year a new crop of fresh 18 year olds would show up ... ad infinity. None of the killing we were doing in Afghanistan was having any effect on this cycle. All the Special Operations forces raiding around the country were, and are, never going to kill enough Taliban to hit some kind of magical tipping point where it become too painful for the Taliban to endure. Something I think all military planners should be mindful of as the latest peace talks collapse and we once again start trotting out 'strategy' to kill more Taliban to make them do ... what exactly?
As a historian, the lack of any kind of strategy or coherence is all the more striking. The Caliphate plunged into Afghanistan in the 8th Century, and it was not until the 1800's that the last bit of Afghanistan was forcibly converted to Islam by the Iron Emir. (How long before Western ideals take root one has to wonder?) Each Empire that has fought its way into Afghanistan has found it largely ungovernable once arriving there. What is equally clear is that every empire faced little to no consequences for withdrawing. The Caliphate stood for centuries after withdrawing its forces. The British, fearing Russian intervention and occupation stayed for decades to one extent or another and achieved little more than great frustration. True enough, Russia (or the Soviet Union) flowed into Afghanistan after the British left. How did that go for them? Was it the great strategic victory Moscow hoped for? When they left, did hoards of Afghans invade Russia? It is true that it fell, as Afghanistan often does after an invasion - or even a transition in leadership - into civil war. Yet as we stay, can we even say that we are keeping the lid on what is clearly a civil war in Afghanistan? What exactly are we gaining by staying there? When was the last time Al Qaeda was considered a viable threat in Afghanistan? Do we need to keep forces in Afghanistan to prevent every splinter group from cancerously turning into Al Qaeda? Or is most of what is happening there internal, like ISIS-K vs. the Taliban?
In the absence of answers, Afghanistan has morphed into a bureaucratic requirement. Other than having requirements for manning and personnel that have been largely stagnant. Is there really anything more happening in Afghanistan that ensuring that manning slots, from generals to privates, are adequately provisioned and apportioned? Do we need to keep taking conventional units like Airborne Brigades build for conventional wars with similar MTOEs and bastardizing them into Advise and Assist Brigades? If we do so, is this likely to have any effect on Afghanistan? Or does this just leave use with fewer forces available to confront legitimate threats like China's growing conventional military might?
And there seems to be no policy coherence whatsoever. It is one thing to throw branding about 'duty, honor, country,' to our troops headed off to war. It is quite another to toss these into a classroom full of highly educated people and watch them stare incredulously at the lack of substance and strategy (suffice to say, none of the young students are signing up to head over to help and the older adults will avoid sending their children to Afghanistan at pretty much any cost - meaning we are not exactly sending our best and brightest to do what is necessary and right).
What are the alternatives? More the same, after two decades is not going to produce a different result. Vested interests in Washington seem more interested in parochial self interest and apportioning blame rather than assigning purpose to the deadly force we are asking our military to use ... for decades more? Alternatives, in that they are actually different, are few and rarely seem to even garner serious consideration. Eric Prince might at least be able to manage the low intensity conflict by privatizing the war, thereby reducing the human and capital costs of our estranged efforts there. Turning it over to the CIA would eliminate the rotation, or at least greatly reduce it, and allow for some semi-permanent expertise expertise to exist there with the military's rotational forces in support and as needed. Beyond that ... there does not seem to be much going on in the strategizing about Afghanistan.
Not sure if there are some better answers out there, but I also can't think of any better place to ask than here.
Reflecting on my own experience in Afghanistan, I think it's been clear for a very long time that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing there. In a tactical sense, we fought to take villages, slowly and methodically squeezing our way toward strong point villages. Only we stopped and Special Operations Forces would come in and fight running gun battles to ... well, temporarily clear the village? (For some reason, infantryman could not handle this standard tactical task?) In the cases I fought in, we asked, and never received an answer as to whether we were supposed to occupy these villages. It became moot anyway, as the casualties we endured taking the ground leading to the village would pop up on a slide as excessive. We were then withdrawn to the start point returning all the ground to the Taliban. Start absurd process all over again, and, clearly IMHO, to absolutely no effect whatsoever.
The only thing this dysfunction looked like was an attempt to attrite the Taliban. This is the same battle plan used by Westmoreland in Vietnam to disastrous effect. It was clear a decade ago that this policy was absolutely foolish. The Pakistani border area hosted recruitment and training areas that were largely off limits to US forces and protected by Pakistani forces (its not even an open secret, its just a fact). We could kill every single hostile Taliban that crossed the border, and the next year a new crop of fresh 18 year olds would show up ... ad infinity. None of the killing we were doing in Afghanistan was having any effect on this cycle. All the Special Operations forces raiding around the country were, and are, never going to kill enough Taliban to hit some kind of magical tipping point where it become too painful for the Taliban to endure. Something I think all military planners should be mindful of as the latest peace talks collapse and we once again start trotting out 'strategy' to kill more Taliban to make them do ... what exactly?
As a historian, the lack of any kind of strategy or coherence is all the more striking. The Caliphate plunged into Afghanistan in the 8th Century, and it was not until the 1800's that the last bit of Afghanistan was forcibly converted to Islam by the Iron Emir. (How long before Western ideals take root one has to wonder?) Each Empire that has fought its way into Afghanistan has found it largely ungovernable once arriving there. What is equally clear is that every empire faced little to no consequences for withdrawing. The Caliphate stood for centuries after withdrawing its forces. The British, fearing Russian intervention and occupation stayed for decades to one extent or another and achieved little more than great frustration. True enough, Russia (or the Soviet Union) flowed into Afghanistan after the British left. How did that go for them? Was it the great strategic victory Moscow hoped for? When they left, did hoards of Afghans invade Russia? It is true that it fell, as Afghanistan often does after an invasion - or even a transition in leadership - into civil war. Yet as we stay, can we even say that we are keeping the lid on what is clearly a civil war in Afghanistan? What exactly are we gaining by staying there? When was the last time Al Qaeda was considered a viable threat in Afghanistan? Do we need to keep forces in Afghanistan to prevent every splinter group from cancerously turning into Al Qaeda? Or is most of what is happening there internal, like ISIS-K vs. the Taliban?
In the absence of answers, Afghanistan has morphed into a bureaucratic requirement. Other than having requirements for manning and personnel that have been largely stagnant. Is there really anything more happening in Afghanistan that ensuring that manning slots, from generals to privates, are adequately provisioned and apportioned? Do we need to keep taking conventional units like Airborne Brigades build for conventional wars with similar MTOEs and bastardizing them into Advise and Assist Brigades? If we do so, is this likely to have any effect on Afghanistan? Or does this just leave use with fewer forces available to confront legitimate threats like China's growing conventional military might?
And there seems to be no policy coherence whatsoever. It is one thing to throw branding about 'duty, honor, country,' to our troops headed off to war. It is quite another to toss these into a classroom full of highly educated people and watch them stare incredulously at the lack of substance and strategy (suffice to say, none of the young students are signing up to head over to help and the older adults will avoid sending their children to Afghanistan at pretty much any cost - meaning we are not exactly sending our best and brightest to do what is necessary and right).
What are the alternatives? More the same, after two decades is not going to produce a different result. Vested interests in Washington seem more interested in parochial self interest and apportioning blame rather than assigning purpose to the deadly force we are asking our military to use ... for decades more? Alternatives, in that they are actually different, are few and rarely seem to even garner serious consideration. Eric Prince might at least be able to manage the low intensity conflict by privatizing the war, thereby reducing the human and capital costs of our estranged efforts there. Turning it over to the CIA would eliminate the rotation, or at least greatly reduce it, and allow for some semi-permanent expertise expertise to exist there with the military's rotational forces in support and as needed. Beyond that ... there does not seem to be much going on in the strategizing about Afghanistan.
Not sure if there are some better answers out there, but I also can't think of any better place to ask than here.
Posted in these groups: 
Afghanistan
Strategy
Afghanistan Strategy
Edited 5 y ago
Posted 5 y ago
Responses: 9
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That's a helluva good question. What are we doing in Afghanistan. I suspect that the "official" answer is nation building. The idea being that we can prevent that benighted nation from becoming the spawning ground for other terrorist organizations if we could only civilize it. (Keep in mind that the term "civilization" means a body politic governed by civilians.) In other words, to wrest control from tribal war lords and turn it over to the "good people". Fat chance that'll happen. Afghanistan, like much of the Middle East, remains mired in the bronze age and will remain there because they like it that way. Furthermore, we have shown scant little that is appealing to lure them into the 21st Century. Thus, it may be that our best strategy is "mowing the lawn". In other words, returning regularly to tame the weeds will be required, but re-sodding the place seems futile inasmuch as the soil is not sufficiently fertile.
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Personally, I'm not a fan of "Nation Building." I am a fan of "You went too far. You are not conducting your business as modern sovereign nation, nor are you meeting your international responsibilities. Therefore we are going to destroy your government, your infrastructure, and national leadership (civilian and military). When you climb out of the ensuing chaos and can form a cohesive national government, give a call. We'll do lunch."
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MAJ Eric Greek you pointed out something that my friends and I have talked about a lot, sir. The strategic policy there mirrors the one in Vietnam, where it seems that too many politicians got involved, and prevented the military from doing military things - namely WIN A FRICKING WAR.
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