Missteps in Afghanistan: Let Us Count the Ways | Small Wars Journal

"extremist religious ideology"? COIN?
Sir,
As you are already aware, I do not agree with the term extremist. Those not following Muhammad's orders could be considered extremist. But, that so called extremist religious ideology is taught in every Sunni and Shia Mosque across the globe. They make the KKK and Black Panthers look like child's play. IMO.
COIN does not work. It was an Honorable effort. What works is power. Give them contracts to mine minerals, or grow crops. Those that make the millions and billions of dollars will start taking over areas. Controling the population.
My 2cents Sir from years of studying the enemy. But you know, as long as we are bringing the enemy into the west, there is going to be a growing chaos with the so called extremists.
Have a great day LTC and I really enjoy your posts. I hope the War college is being taught with hard facts and classified pics from women and children that were murdered by the enemy. Because, they are not part of the Ummah. Which makes them not innocent.
Over

Afghanistan is more of a job for the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps.

a Tribal culture with a middle-ages ideology. they need to be EASED into at least the 19th century. let them get used to it, the take a stab at the 20th century & see where it goes.

While all 1 - 9 look reasonable, number 4, our diplomatic approach, jumps out as most of the others lead back to a failure in diplomacy - including how the Taliban came to be.

1 - Afghanistan all starts at the local level - and so should our diplomacy - 7, 8 and 9.
2- $2 billion in annual subsidies to the Pakistani military - just guessing some of that moeny found its ways to the Taliban.
3 - Not saying the military can't win the Afghan people over however our strength in our military is not that as a peace keeper - our State Department should be more engaged than our military - starting with the local tribal leaders - we can't come in and back a guy, hold an election and expect the locals to except this "puppet figure" to be accepted.
4 - What ever happened to talks and diplomacy - sure we don't negotiate with terrorist unless they are helping us defeat Russia. Part of the problem is the way our State department is set-up. It doesn't align to other geopolitical constructs - as such not hard to understand how and why the diplomatic approach has had little sucess
5 - Goes back to 4
6 - Iraq and Afghanistan are unique but similar - however our ability to entrust our diplomacy has been severely hampered via Libya - this is what happens when you have people with very unrealistic worldview (or favored agenda) craft policy regarding the region -
as for 7,8, and 9 I feel I addressed those areas

We need, as well as the Afghan people, a foreign policy that the tribal leaders will accept and work forward from there - trying to circumvent them will only reinforce their ways and ideology. Kind of hard to get people to the table when they're dug in.