Why AP doesn’t fight our wars
The Associated Press, in trying to show how smart they are and how incompetent the US military points out;
There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn’t led to anything close to victory.
What AP hasn’t noticed is that the Taliban knows where they are and they know where the US troops are, generally. That’s kind of an advantage – especially since COIN requires that we protect civilians and create an environment of security for them, and the Taliban isn’t required by doctrine or international opinion to provide a measure of security for anyone – except themselves.
I guess AP envisions some sort of man-to-man defense.
Of course, you have to read almost to the end to read where AP admits it’s 12-1 ratio is a bit misleading;
The 12-1 ratio may be misleading because two-thirds of the Allied force is made up of Afghans, who lack the training and experience. The Taliban usually fight in small, cohesive units made up of friends and fellow clansmen. A more meaningful ratio, then, might be 4-1 or 5-1.
Historically in guerrilla wars, security forces have usually had at least a 3-1 advantage.
At the height of the U.S. ground involvement in South Vietnam in 1968, the 1.2 million American troops and their allies outnumbered the Communist guerrillas by about 4-1. French forces in the 1945-54 Indochina war numbered about 400,000 men, only a slight numerical advantage against the rebels.
In a more recent campaign, Russia’s Chechen war in 1999-2000, Russian troops held a 4-1 advantage over the insurgents.
But 5-1 doesn’t make good headlines like 12-1 does. I guess they’re lobbying the Obama Administration to keep our presence in Afghanistan lower. That won’t encourage the Taliban, will it? If you read even further, you’ll notice they admit that they don’t even know the number of Taliban that they use in their ratio anyway.
Why did they even bother to write the article?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Terror War
Did the AP count the Taliban/AQ types in Pakistan? I’ve heard some pretty big numbers in regards to the Pakistani Taliban.
Thanks Jonn, I kinda needed a laugh.
The Taliban usually fight in small, cohesive units made up of friends and fellow clansmen.
Makes them sound almost cuddly, don’t it. They visit a friendly village and are forced, by their good natures, to take only part of what the villagers might offer in support of the cause.
Sort of like Robin Hood – only with guns?
Exactly Ponsdorf, not to mention, the poor Talibs are often forced to execute their neighbors for the crimes of voting, or talking to people. And they’re also forced to throw acid in the faces of girls committing the unpardonable crime of going to school. The inhumanity of it all.
This is all in preparation for the Ditherer in Chief doing nothing, and being given cover by those in the State Run Media. After all, McChrystal already has 100K troops and 200K Afghans and he still can’t get the job done. By the way, who did the Taliban census, ACORN?
The AP also forgets that a rather large percentage of our forces in country are support folks. That’s not a dig in any way, just pointing out that our tail is longer than our head.
Half the AP writers are Taliban members.
Why did they even bother to write the article?
Because they need O/Soros approval to have another gulp of the KoolAid.
Out of 68K Americans, how many are infantry or special ops? Probably 10%. Figure in NATO and you have like 10-12K actual front line soldiers engaged in combat. The numbers are pretty equal, maybe even biased in the Taliban’s/AGF favor. Compare to Vietnam, where 50K US infantry and special ops were faced with about for times that many of the same from our friends in the North.
Either way, it’s a tough fight and if the old adage that a COIN operation needs 7 troops for every one bad guy… even 40K more seems a bit light.