Applied Network-Centric Warfare and COIN

A recent conference on counterinsurgency held at the University of South Florida exposed the attendees to a number of concepts about COIN. One of these was the introduction of "Network-Centric Warfare" as an alternative to counterinsurgency. Read more in this press release from InRef, LLC dated February 24, 2014 on PRWeb.

Soviet COIN in Afghanistan: The Manwaring Pardigm

An interesting article has been posted on Small Wars Journal about the Soviet Union counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. The author details the many failures of the Soviet counterinsurgency campaign through the framework of the Manwaring Paradigm. Max Manwaring, a research professor of military strategy with the Strategic Studies Institute, developed a method to analyze internal conflicts that consists of six dimensions that can explain success or failure in internal wars and conflicts. The six key factors included legitimacy of the government, organization for the unity of effort, type and consistency of support for the targeted government, ability to reduce outside aid to insurgents, intelligence support for COIN, and discipline and capabilities of the government's armed forces. While this article pertains to the Soviet COIN effort the six factors are equally applied to the U.S. (ISAF) COIN effort. Read "An Uncomfortable War in the Graveyard of Empires", by Michael McBride, February 22, 2014.

War in the Future: Rethinking How We Fight

The University of South Florida's Citizenship Initiative recently held a two-day conference attended by a number of well-known military personnel and civilian SMEs on counterinsurgency and military affairs. This included David Kilcullen (a noted COIN expert), MG John Nicholson (commander of the 82nd Airborne Division and former ISAF DCoS Ops), David Asher (Fellow at the Center for a New American Security), Russ Howard (a retired general and director of the Monterrey Institute of International Studies), and Paula Broadwell (biographer for General Petraeus). Learn more about the conference in "Counterinsurgency expert: We need to rethink how we fight", The Tampa Tribune, February 18, 2014.

Remembering COIN Lessons Learned

A retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and book author, "Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife", recently addressed a group of West Point cadets and expressed his fears that the Pentagon will forget the lessons learned about counterinsurgency gained from the Afghan experience. John Nagl is a West Point graduate and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he earned a doctorate in international relations. He also served in Iraq and has contributed to the public discussion on the importance of learning counterinsurgency. He believes that future wars will find the U.S. fighting an enemy that resembles an insurgency than what we faced in World War II or Desert Storm.  Read his comments in "Military needs to remember lessons about fighting insurgencies", Mainline Media News, February 21, 2014.

ISAF COIN Lessons Applicable to MONUSCO (DRC)

An instructor at the Peace Support Operations Training Centre (PSOTC) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina provides us with an essay that stresses the lessons of counterinsurgency learned in Afghanistan not be forgotten and suggests that these lessons are applicable in future conflicts such as the one currently raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He believes that the Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en Republique democratique du Congo (MONUSCO) could apply some of the best practices employed by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. These best practices include applying the principles of "clear, hold, build" and providing enablers such as Female Engagement Teams (FETs), Human Terrain Teams (HTTs), CoISTs (that provided intelligence support to COIN), and more. Read his essay entitled "Why Counterinsurgency Matters for MONUSCO", Small Wars Journal, February 20, 2014.

Expert Says Taliban Living in Fantasy World

Brigadier Ben Barry, a senior fellow on land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), states that the Taliban failed to achieve their objectives during the 2013 fighting season and that the Afghan security forces are thoroughly in control of counter-insurgency. Hmmmmm. He gets it half right. The Taliban didn't achieve their "stated objectives" during the 2013 fighting season but they didn't lose much territory and they bloodied the Afghan security forces at higher numbers than any previous year. An insurgency doesn't have to gain territory to continue to exist - it just has to continue to exist. The Taliban have their "stated objectives" for political consumption and internal motivation and they have their realistic objectives that are the focus of their long-term strategy. The ANSF is thoroughly in control of counter-insurgency? Not so much. While the Taliban didn't gain significant territory from government forces neither did the Afghan security forces take much territory from the Taliban; and the Afghan security forces have certainly not defeated the Taliban. And, oh, by the way, the Afghans can't even spell "counterinsurgency". Read more in "Taliban living in fantasy world: IISS defence expert:", Business Standard, February 6, 2014.

Paper - Hurdles to U.S. Stabilization Operations

A former defense analyst, Renanah Miles, writes a paper explaining why civilian agencies were unable to develop effective programs to assist the military in stabilization and counterinsurgency efforts in the Iraq and Afghan wars. The paper is entitled "The (Many) Hurdles to U.S. Stabilization Operations". You can read the paper posted on the Lawfare Blog here.

Watching COIN Fail in Afghanistan

A U.S. Marine Corps officer, who served as an advisor in Afghanistan, writes a contemplative piece on how we should help the Afghans conduct counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. He states that the United States has pushed a U.S. version of counterinsurgency on the Afghans that does not work for the Afghans and thus we have prevented the Afghans from making the necessary progress to defeat the insurgents. Our (the U.S. model) method of a strong centralized government exerting its control through the MoD and MoI into the rural Pashtun areas just doesn't work. The author proposes some novel changes to the current construct that are worth consideration. Read more in "Front Row Seat: Watching COIN Fail in Afghanistan", War on the Rocks, January 28, 2014.

Insurgency Likened to Disease in Body

In a unique perspective on counterinsurgency, Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of ISAF, likened an insurgency to a disease affecting the body. In the article he is quoted as saying that an insurgency, in the beginning, is not really noticed - just as a disease is not viewed as serious in its beginning stages. He then adds that sometimes COIN practices are not implemented soon enough to seriously combat the insurgency. This, of course, is a direct parallel to the history of the U.S. involvement in conducting counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Read the article in "General Says Counterinsurgency Like Immune System", Epoch Times, December 23, 2013.

The Advisor Role in Afghanistan in 2014

Each ISAF Commander comes into his one year (sometimes a little longer) tour in Afghanistan hoping to carry the football down the road a little further . . . and to shape the war effort as he sees fit. General McCrystal brought in Counterinsurgency, General Petraeus brought with him Population-centric Counterinsurgency and Partnering, General Allen introduced Security Force Assistance, and now General Dunford has now focused ISAF on Functionally-based Security Force Assistance. So what will the small number of troops in Afghanistan be doing in 2014? Well, they will not be doing much fighting (hopefully) and they will be helping the Afghans to be able to sustain their force into the future years as the Coalition presence diminishes even further. A recent blog post spells this out quite clearly for us. See "Future of Advising in Afghanistan", Flashpoint Blog, American Security Project, December 23, 2013.

A-29 Super Tocano Chosen as Afghan's COIN Aircraft

Photo from Embraer Image Gallery

The Embraer A-29 Super Tucano has been chosen as Afghanistan's counterinsurgency aircraft. The U.S. Air Force announced the award to Embraer in a recent announcement (see Brazilian Firm to Provide Aircraft to Afghan Air Force, American Forces Press Service, February 27, 2013). The $437 million contract will provide twenty of the light air support aircraft, maintenance services, spare parts, and training. Deliveries will start in the summer of 2014. The aircraft will conduct advanced flight training, surveillance, close air support, and air interdiction missions. Read more details of the contract award in Super Tucano Wins Afghanistan Light Air Support Bid, DefenseNews, February 27, 2013. View an Embraer video of the A-29 on YouTube.com here www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgKt8GRDG4s

Book - War, Will, and Warlords by Robert Cassidy

A new book about counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been published. It is entitled "War, Will, and Warlords: Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2011". The author is Robert M. Cassidy.  Read a recent book review on it here.  It is available at Amazon.com here War, Will, and Warlords.

Do Afghans Have PTSD? Does that Make Counterinsurgency Problematic?

A researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies is advancing the argument that populations of weak states are so psychologically traumatized by war and violence that they can not be helped by counterinsurgency campaigns and stability operations. Read more in "One Theory for Why Counterinsurgency Campaigns Might Be Hopeless", National Defense NDIA, March 16, 2012.

Two Experts Weigh In on Counterinsurgency Effort in Afghanistan

Jacki Lyden of National Public Radio recently interviewed two "experts" on counterinsurgency. Read their comments here in "Where Is Counterinsurgency In Afghanistan Now?", NPR, March 17, 2012. John Nagl is teaching at the U.S. Naval Academy and is the author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam.  Sarah Sewall is an expert on civilian-military relations, is a visiting fellow at the Naval War College, and a contributor to the The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual

173rd ABCT Completes Counterinsurgency Training in Preparation for Afghanistan

The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team has recently completed three-weeks of counterinsurgency training in Hohenfels, Germany. The BCT is preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan. Read more in "173rd ABCT wrap counter insurgency training ahead of deployment", Stars and Stripes, March 24, 2012.

Afghan COIN Instructors Provide Training in Counterinsurgency to Other Afghan Units

An instructor with the 8th Commando
Kandak provides range commands
during training. (U.S. Navy Photo
by MCS 2nd Class Jacob Dillon)

In the process of transition to Afghans taking the lead in planning operations and doing the bulk of the fighting it is important to yield training duties to the Afghans as well. At the Counterinsurgency Training Center this path is now traveled.  A recent news release by the NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A) we see an example of this "training transition".  See "205th Afghan National Army Corps Receives COIN training from Afghan Instructors", NTM-A, February 12, 2012.

Report on Counterinsurgency Efforts in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

Jeffrey Dressler, a research analyst with the Institute for the Study of War, has penned a report entitled "Counterinsurgency in Helmand - Progress and Remaining Challenges" dated January 2011.  Topics in the report include counterinsurgency in Helmand, Afghan National Security Forces in Helmand, counternarcotics, governance, reconstruction and development, and a conclusion.  Various maps and illustrations help provide clarity to the report.  The report is almost 40 pages long and well-documented with endnotes.  The document is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file and can be found at the link below:

http://www.understandingwar.org/files/Afghanistan_Report_8_web.pdf

COIN Training Center Increases NATO SOF Capacity in Afghanistan

"The Counterinsurgency Training Center – Afghanistan taught a five day Train the Trainer Course for NATO Special Operations Force instructors at Chievers Air Base, Belgium, 7-11 February 2011.  The purpose of the Train the Trainer Course was to show the NATO SOF instructors how to teach the Advanced COIN Leader Course to NATO SOF deploying to Afghanistan.  The Advanced COIN Leader Course is the same curriculum that is taught to senior Afghan Army and Police leadership, and coalition battalion and brigade commanders and staff at Camp Julien, Kabul.  This will enable NATO SOF to deploy into theater with the requisite COIN training to ensure success." 

Source: "COIN Training Center Increases NATO SOF Capacity", NTM-A, February 15, 2011.

COIN Strategy Not Working in Afghanistan

According to many critics (newspaper columnists, retired officers, and think tank writers) our current counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan is simply not working.  This is a result of many reasons - depending on who is talking about it (or writing about it) at the time.  One correspondent has provided us with a lengthy online article (via AOL Original News) in "Counterinsurgency Strategy Not Working in Afghanistan, Critics Say", Politics Daily, January 12, 2011.

COIN Theory: COIN Training Center in Afghanistan Teaches How to Succeed With Counterinsurgency

The Counterinsurgency Training Center in Afghanistan teaches Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and coalition partners about the basics of COIN.  COL Chadwick W. Clark of the COIN Training Center has a small blog explaining their very basic COIN theory.  He provides us with a basic guide called the three P's of Perception, Partnering, and Praxis.  Read more in "COIN: Theory is Easy, Execution is Hard", NTM-A, January 5, 2011.