Summary: We see our broken OODA loop at work in the daily newspapers, but never so clearly as in the prominent role of people with a track record of consistently wrong analysis and advice. Screw-up and move up during the Vietnam War. The analytical failure of the “team B” analysis during the cold war, which led to career success for its members. And now we see the hawks who led us into two wars continue to dominate US geopolitics, while those who gave sound advice (eg, Andrew Bacevich) remain on the fringes.
“The ‘Andar Uprising’ and Progress in Afghanistan“, Frederick W. Kagan and Kimberly Kagan, op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2012 — Gated copy; a free copy is posted at AEI’s Critical Threats. Mr Kagan is considered one of the advocates of the “surges” in Iran and Afghanistan, which ran up the costs and body counts of both wars — while not changing the outcomes.
“The war is far from won, but a path to victory remains evident and viable if we have the will to pursue it.”
Opening:
Success in Afghanistan remains possible. As tragic and regrettable as they are, recent “green-on-blue” attacks against U.S. forces do not signify the failure of U.S.-Afghan partnership efforts or the enmity of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and Afghan people. Incidents spectacular enough to grab headlines in an overheated election year have badly distorted our understanding of what actually has happened on the ground in Afghanistan this fighting season.
The most important developments this year have been the failure of a determined Taliban effort to regain key terrain that they had lost, and the displacement of continuing violence away from populated areas and toward remote locations. Add to that the resiliency of the Afghan Local Police in key villages under determined Taliban attack, and the emergence of new anti-Taliban movements in former Taliban strongholds. The war is far from won, but a path to victory remains evident and viable if we have the will to pursue it.
It’s difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this foolishness. It’s extraordinary, even for someone as consistently wrong as Frederick Kagan.
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- The green-on-blue attacks that they so blithely dismiss are in effect an organic rejection of us (infidel foreign occupiers) by Afghanistan society, something with few precedents in modern history.
- The local forces we’ve built exist only through our funding, and will vanish like last winter’s snow when we inevitably cut these mad expenditures.
- As usual for advocates of the war, they don’t even bother to justify the war in terms of US national interest (sensible, as that would be difficult or impossible).
- Lastly, displaying the Kagan’s invincible ignorance, successful insurgents don’t seek to hold land (except when near victory) or contest strongly-held territory.
Mao Tse-tung and his fellow revolutionaries brought 4GW to maturity. His works describe its key elements, as in this well-known quote from Basic Tactics (1937), Chapter VI – Operations, #2. The Use of Tactics (red emphasis added):
(1) The redoubtable force of a guerrilla unit definitely does not depend exclusively on its own numerical strength, but on its use of sudden attacks and ambushes, so as to “cause an uproar in the east and strike in the west,” appearing now here and now there, using false banners and making empty demonstrations, propagating rumors about one’s own strength, etc., in order to shatter the enemy’s morale and create in him a boundless terror.
In addition, we must pay attention to such principles as: “The enemy advances, we retreat, the enemy retreats, we advance, the enemy halts, we harass him” …
About the Kagans
From the American Enterprise Institute:
Frederick W. Kagan, author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq”, is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the director of the AEI’s Critical Threats Project and a former professor of military history at West Point. His books range from Lessons for a Long War (2010), coauthored with Thomas Donnelly, to the End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801-1805 (2006). See his AEI reports listed here. {Also see Wikipedia}
Kimberly Ellen Kagan is an American military historian. She heads the Institute for the Study of War and has taught at West Point, Yale, Georgetown University, and American University. She supported the surge in Iraq and has since advocated for an expanded and restructured American military campaign in Afghanistan.In 2009 she served on Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s strategic assessment team. See her AEI reports listed here.
For more information
Other posts about the Kagans:
- Who are the experts advising our generals? We know what they’ll say., 3 August 2009
- What is a warmonger? Who are the warmongers?, 10 March 2011
Posts about COIN:
- More paths to failure in Iraq, 16 December 2006 — Myths about COIN in Iraq
- 28 Articles: a guide to a successful insurgency against America, 7 May 2007
- Is COIN the graduate level of military hubris?, 30 July 2008
- COIN as future generations will see it (and as we should see it today), 1 July 2010
- COIN – Now we see that it failed. But that was obvious before we started (when will we learn?), 6 December 2011
- COIN, another example of our difficulty learning from history or experience, 7 December 2011
- “COIN of the Realm” – reviewing one of the books driving our strategy in the Long War, 18 March 2012 — Review of Nagl’s How to Eat Soup with a Knife
- A look back at the madness that led us into our wars. How does this advice read 6 years later?, 26 June 2012
The history of foreign armies fighting local insurgents:
- How often do insurgents win? How much time does successful COIN require?, 29 May 2008
- Max Boot: history suggests we will win in Afghanistan, with better than 50-50 odds. Here’s the real story., 21 June 2010 — Boot discusses 7 alleged victories by foreign armies fighting insurgencies.
- A major discovery! It could change the course of US geopolitical strategy, if we’d only see it, 28 June 2010 — Andrew Exum (aka Abu Muqawama) points us to the doctoral dissertation of Erin Marie Simpson in Political Science from Harvard. She examines the present and past analysis of counter-insurgency. This could change the course of American foreign policy, if we pay attention.
- A look at the history of victories over insurgents, 30 June 2010
- COINistas point to Kenya as a COIN success. In fact it was an expensive bloody failure., 7 August 2012
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