"On the McChrystal plan, Alford added, "We've got to do some real math and tell some real truth ... if we are going to do population-centric COIN.""

Population-centric COIN works towards a strategic objective of establishing a legitimate (read: democratic, market economy) and stable government. If that is our strateic objective, through which we pursue other national interests, then the preferred COIN approach is appropriate and the stated resource requirements are logical.
The real question is whether this is, or should be, our strategic objective. If we choose something else, or less than a stable legitimate government, then the strategy/approach could be different.
For the military, are we placing the cart (the doctrine) before the horse (the strategic objective)? The complaint going into these conflicts was that the military only supported pursing strategic objectives that fit its preferred "defeat/destroy the enemy armed forces" approach. Have we merely exchanged preferred doctrines? Does this provide the nation the necessary strategic flexibility?

MoonofA is exactly right. But it's a combination of punches. First Odierno in Iraq then McChrystal in Afhanistan. Nowhere is there a realistic assessment of the situation. Someone might want to educate us on the 610millionreal combat ready troop strength of U.S. forces to man the two wars, and what if anything, really exists in the Afghani security forces.

From what I've been reading: the military has no government to partner with in Afghanistan. Karzi and his crew are corrupt and (worst) ineffective.

This country isn't like Iraq; there aren't the governmental institutions and memories of these bodies to cobble back together and provide real services to the citizenry.

The elections and the fraud resulting seem to me to be a serious wake up call. And it's not something I'm seeing addressed. You asked in an earlier post what has Biden gotten right, okay, well how is he wrong in this?

Well I direct you to a paper produced in 1963 by James Farmer. The title is " Counter-Insurgency: Viet-Nam 1962-1963, as an aside this corresponds to my time in the military as a draftee so I had friends sent to the "big muddy". If you read this an then perform a global change to replace the key words about Viet-Nam with new key words about Afghanistan it is a strange experience. The report starts with the key motivating forces. 1. People desire to "win" independence 2. "war weariness", 3. Desire for higher standard of living, 4. Ngo-Dinah-Diem desire to found a dynasty 5. The clash of culture. So what was needed was a Strategic Hamlet Program. Well, no sense going on we all know how well that turned out. So why is this any different? Oh yes when you read this Farmer report walk along the Viet-Nam Memorial Wall, just to put into perspective. One final thought to do what McChrystal calls for we will need to begin the drafting of personnel.

So why is this any different?

This time Russian and Chinese won't stand behind Taliban, as they did last time in Viet-Nam.

You are kidding yourself!

From CS Monitor:

"Today's Taliban continues to receive funding, he adds, some of it from rich Arab donors, but much of it from the intelligence agencies of Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. "There are some countries that are against the polices of the US and the United Nations, and they support the guerrillas. The most important role belongs to Russia, Iran, and Pakistan."

They don't get weapons out of whole cloth.

CS Monitor lost most of its status after it became a complete free online newspaper. Even if what it said is true, well, you only have yourself to blame.

At first, everyone is supporting you, Iran lets you pass its sky, Russia allows you build bases in central asia, and PK gives you full support. Only if you claimed "mission accomplished" and left at the time...but longer you stayed, more suspicious others felt about your motives. So they might just equip the militia again to keep their own influence intact. Now probably they want you to stay longer to inflict more blood and treasure.

Commanders are always asking for more troops; it allows them to do things and go places they otherwise couldn't - good or bad.

If al-Qaeda (and Hezbollah who operates in our own southern hemisphere incidentally) are forward thinking, then in the past, the Taliban were the block-heads who could be counted on to think backwards.

That's not the case anymore, as they seem to be out maneuvering the the Karzai government, and by doing so, us also. (I noted someone over at SWJ picked-up on this.)

It won't matter what we do with pop-centric COIN unless the population we're trying to stablize, and see to it they can make a living, have no faith in their government.

In his thesis Heroes of the Age, David B. Edwards states Afghanistan’s problems come from the moral incoherence of the country itself, in that Afghans share a myth of the nation, but not an idea of the state. The crux being that the principles of Islam, honor and state governance are all respected, but too often incompatible.

Time to think of the minimalist approach before making a hasty decision on sending more infantry (an infantry trained to close with and destroy the enemy). In the meantime however, send the support troops home and replace them with trigger-pullers. The manning-levels remain the same.

Firstly, it is pointless to criticize the armed forces seeming bewilderment about how to proceed in Afghanistan. Our nation and NATO as a whole are frustrated and confused about progress in that unhappy land. As is common these days the military has been thrown into a mission whose strategic objectives are completely unresolved. Public support will continue to deteriorate in light of the fact that it is almost impossible to convincingly demonstrate any conclusive and positive results in exchange for the blood and financial sacrifice.

The prior administration was astoundingly incompetent in its six-year management of the war and the current administration in order to establish its national security credentials for electoral purposes too quickly and lightly adopted this quagmire as the poster child for a ‘good war’ in comparison to the duplicitous ‘bad war’ in Iraq.

Until the political class can make a clear and convincing argument that we need to spend probably a decade or more in Afghanistan, accept thousands of casualties and spend hundreds of billons of dollars then all the military symposiums about effective operational methods and tactics are moot.

US Generals want more troops in Afghanistan?
Alexander the Great is the only one to come close to victory in Afghanistan. He paid dearly for fighting there.

Afghanistan's area is 250,000 square miles; 1.5 times the size of California. And like CA, many armed people dwell in Afghanistan. How many million soldiers would it take to control CA? How many million to secure Afghanistan?

We have 70,000 troops in Afghanistan. At any time half are asleep. Then if one deducts military overhead (medics, commo, mechanics etc); how many 'shooters' remain to secure Afghanistan's quarter million square miles?
Not to mention---most officers Captain and above know that religious mass movements cannot be put down solely by military means. See Christians and Romans, Islam, etc.

These two factors and others lead one to ponder just how much tragic “We Can Do It” lying has been mouthed by general officers the last eight years. And, this swill came from generals who are the most formally educated, but maybe the most ineffective, most politicized military leaders in our history. (Would any of them, one star and above been promoted if they weren't politically vetted and consecrated by the Bush Administration?)

If Obama does not discover that the politically-bent, look-cute-be-glib-on-TV generals he inherited are full of kolbasi faster than Pres Lincoln did; our young soldiers are in for greater tragedy. So is our nation.
A purge of our politically-bent, religiously-bent, vocal military leadership is long overdue. That military leadership handed the Middle-East Victory Cup to Iran years ago---a victory cup filled with innocent American and Iraqi blood.
Floyd McGurk, (elder combat veteran in a family of four combat-vetted members who’ve done seven tours in Iraq since early 2006.)

TR,
What is that book that Petraeus is reading?

General officers who press ahead with 'strategies' to meet 'goals' without the backing of a mission mandate are nothing but careerist weenies. One of them - all of them - should cry Stop!

The military does not have the authority to determine what 'victory' means, absent national guidance. Not there but needed is a clear, definitive, authoritative, and achievable statement of ' this is how we want this to turn out.' ALL the discussion above is pointless and sad...

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