Well, the Afghanistan Surge Is Officially Over. Now What?
The Army Times is reporting that the surge in Afghanistan is over.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced on Friday the troops had come out, declaring the surge had accomplished its mission.
Over? Yes. But I’d take issue with that “accomplished its mission” part, Mr. SECDEF.
From day one, the surge in Afghanistan – unlike the surge in Iraq – was smaller than those on the ground felt necessary. And the results were predictable for anyone who knows a damn thing about military history.
There’s an old military proverb. If you’re facing a dug-in enemy company, you can take your objective with a battalion – but you’ll suffer heavy casualties. Attack with a brigade, and you’ll suffer light casualties while annihilating the enemy. Attack with a division, and you’ll likely prevail without firing a shot.
In short: using too small a force ends up being as costly as hell. Mass has a quality all its own.
We forgot all of that when it came time for the Afghanistan surge.
I agree with the SECDEF that there will be difficult days ahead in Afghanistan. That’s obvious, since we botched the surge by bringing too little.
So, pray tell, Mr. SECDEF: now what?
Category: Foreign Policy, Military issues, Terror War
Our efforts in AFG have been doomed from 2002 when we began violating nearly every tenet of COIN. After we shifted our focus to Iraq……ultimate failure was a foregone conclusion……no matter that Bush denied McKeirnan’s request for more forces or Obama lowballed McChrystals request. But in the spirit of American politics, everything bows to the instant gratification of blame.
Actually, CI, it appears that the Bush administration did approve additional forces for Afghanistan – when McKiernan requested them the first time. His Dec 2008 request was a modification of one he’d previously made, and which had previously been approved by the Bush administration.
http://www.usnews.com/news/iraq/articles/2008/08/19/pentagon-plans-to-send-more-than-12000-additional-troops-to-afghanistan
It’s also not exactly fair to hold Bush accountable for not approving McKiernan’s amended request for even more forces in December 2008. Outgoing Presidents have the moral responsibility to not hamstring their successors by making last-minute major decisions that can be deferred for a few weeks. McKiernan’s later request for even more forces clearly fell in that latter category.
We found that out in Somalia, when a lame-duck Bush (41) ended up getting the US involved there a few weeks before Clinton took over. Of course, in Somalia Clinton rather dramatically changed the game much later – with disastrous results. But it’s hard to argue that Bush’s decision to go into Somalia didn’t play a role in that later fiasco, if for no other reason than making it easier for Clinton and crew to fornicate fido.
Pull our people out, nuke the place and look at the rest of the Muslim world and ask, “Next?”
Hondo – The McKeirnan request is certainly debatable, but my point wasn’t a condemnation of Bush…..but rather an observation that it wouldn’t have altered the outcome when the strategy violates doctrine and the mission focuses shift from CT to COIN.
Thank you #3CB. My thoughts exactly.
Have you seen the write-up on the soldier who died in Afghanistan? He wrote to his congressman because they were being sent out on pointless patrols in fields known to be littered with IED’s with no end goal– and there was at least one amputee coming back per run…I would have told that CO no fucking way…
And that soldier? He’s dead.
Ooops, here’s the link.
http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2012/sep/19/letter-from-doomed-soldier-helped-change-congressm-ar-506649/
This is from a friend of mine who lives in Taipei, Taiwan: “This extremist activity scares me, and it has started in Taiwan now also with the first message from the US embassy in Taiwan warning us about the protests that are being staged this weekend. Generally speaking the Muslims here are quite laid back, I have never seen them protest anything. I saw some kid in Australia on the news preaching jihad his week, I frankly feel these people should not be allowed to protest, they immigrated to a new country, but yet they hold onto so many of the values from their homeland. They are religious, and that’s fine, but if they are taking things to extremes they need to be booted. I think our government is weak and ineffective as of recently. Did you hear of all the garbage going on here? There is an island chain near Japan that now has natural resources, so guess what, Japan, China, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines have all laid claims, with recent events there has been a lot of protests in China and Japan, war is looming between them over these islands. And the US government has said absolutely nothing on the issue. People are wondering if the US supports Japan or not, I frankly feel it is best if the US government stays out of it, but it’s odd to me that nothing has been said. That is very much unlike our government, and it would fit with what you are saying. No response, = weak. It seems you do know about this, saw it in your second to last paragraph, sorry I answer one paragraph at a time to touch on everything, but you seem to know a little bit about what is happening. There are two protest here this weekend, one is this island issue, and the other is the video issue. The Chinese cannot make a decision recently, their leader in waiting disappeared for two weeks, the people in China even don’t know what is going on, they perceive their government as weak also and… Read more »
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