Posted on May 11, 2018
Going Back to the Future: It is Time for Change in Afghanistan | Small Wars Journal
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This is an on target article! "Clearly, the United States and other nations are contributing to the lack of strategy, fracture in continuity of command and unity of purpose in Afghanistan. We must work to correct this problem before all fail in Afghanistan by reassessing the policy, strategy, and commanders we have in Afghanistan and where needed reappoint critical leadership roles. "
Going Back to the Future: It is Time for Change in Afghanistan | Small Wars Journal
Posted from smallwarsjournal.comPosted in these groups: 
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) - Afghanistan
Strategy
War on Terror
Leadership
Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) - Afghanistan Strategy War on Terror Leadership
Posted >1 y ago
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I have lurked on many discussion theads on this topic on the blogs for Kings War College and others. Rarely have I found agreement. I well remember discussions of insurgency when training for Vietnam, but never found evidence of one when I arrived there. It always appeared to me like an ordinary invasion that we should have fought like an invasion (and invaded North Vietnam). Iraq was an invasion of Kuwait and there we drove them back, paused, and then invaded. We even appeared to be doing a passable job of nation building until we decided that we should rebuild our own as a people's republic (socialist). Afghanistan is something else. Always has been the graveyard of armies. I suspect that we should simply call it asymmetrical warfare. Just mow the grass periodically, whenever their insanity threatens to spill outside its borders
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SFC James Welch
I never understood why we try to Fight a War there. No one has been successful there and nothing can be done for that Country that really matters. We don’t need to remake them or any of these shithole Countries in our image. Democracy doesn’t work everywhere. We need to recognize that. We have done far more bad than good in the Middle East. If the People of a Government don’t want to change it. It’s not our business to do it. All we have managed to do is make several million people homeless and destroy the infrastructure of several Countries. We have solved absolutely nothing, in fact things are worse today than they have even been. Wipeout the Poppie Fields with Agent Orange so they can never be used, Load up our people and equipment, declare Victory and haul ass.
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You are reading our history while ignoring Afghanistan’s. The Tadjik Mercenaries we hired are doing a better job withdrawing than we are. They will be gone and the remaining Afghan Forces have laid down their arms. Only a few elite units seem to have any fight in them. The civilian populace could ell be dragged out and anyone who did business with us beheaded.
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I believe the saying is, "And where they make a desert, they call it peace." (Yes, there is more to the line, but the last part is the most pointed.) In my humble opinion the Huns were insufficiently aggressive. My reasoning for that opinion is that leaving behind 1 in 4 never stopped the unending war that is the Middle East - even with salting farmland, and poisoning wells.
I feel sorry for all of you on the sharp end. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like your ROE was practically, "Don't shoot, period," for a while there. From the stories I've heard it sounds like getting permission to fire went up 3 or 4 levels to people who were hundreds of miles or more outside the theater.
That being said, we should have just supported the Kurds, and took a lesson from the Soviets on fighting in Afghanistan.
I feel sorry for all of you on the sharp end. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like your ROE was practically, "Don't shoot, period," for a while there. From the stories I've heard it sounds like getting permission to fire went up 3 or 4 levels to people who were hundreds of miles or more outside the theater.
That being said, we should have just supported the Kurds, and took a lesson from the Soviets on fighting in Afghanistan.
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