Barno: This is the Taliban strategy

"their strategy is simply to run out the clock."

The idea that the Taliban is just sitting on its hands, or playing defense, is ludicrous. From the NY Times:

Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, senior American military and intelligence officials say. The Taliban’s expansion into parts of Afghanistan that it once had little influence over comes as the Obama administration is struggling to settle on a new military strategy for Afghanistan, and as the White House renews its efforts to get Pakistan’s government to be more aggressive about killing or capturing Taliban leaders inside Pakistan.

General McChrystal, in his recent assessment, wrote:

We face not only a resilient and growing insurgency; . . .

McChrystal also had some observations on time:

The impact of time on out effort in Afghanistan has been underappreciated and we require a new way of thinking about it.

First, the fight is not an annual cyclical campaign of kinetics driven by an insurgent "fighting season." Rather it is a year-round struggle, often conducted with little apparent violence, to win the support of the people. Protecting the population from insurgent coercion and intimidation demands a persistent presence and focus that cannot be interrupted without risking serious setback.

Second, and more importantly, we face both a short and long-term fight. The long-term fight will require patience and commitment, but I believe the short-term fight will be decisive. Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months [two Friedman units]) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.

In 1897, Winston Churchill was a 23-year-old journalist in the Swat Valley, where the British Army was fighting Pashtuns.

The conditions of existence, that have been thus indicated, have naturally led to the dwelling-places of these tribes being fortified. If they are in the valley, they are protected by towers and walls loopholed for musketry. If in the hollows of the hills, they are strong by their natural position. In either case they are guarded by a hardy and martial people, well armed, brave, and trained by constant war.

This state of continual tumult has produced a habit of mind which recks little of injuries, holds life cheap and embarks on war with careless levity, and the tribesmen of the Afghan border afford the spectacle of a people, who fight without passion, and kill one another without loss of temper. Such a disposition, combined with an absolute lack of reverence for all forms of law and authority, and a complete assurance of equality, is the cause of their frequent quarrels with the British power. . .

Their system of ethics, which regards treachery and violence as virtues rather than vices, has produced a code of honour so strange and inconsistent, that it is incomprehensible to a logical mind. I have been told that if a white man could grasp it fully, and were to understand their mental impulses -- if he knew, when it was their honour to stand by him, and when it was their honour to betray him; when they were bound to protect and when to kill him--he might, by judging his times and opportunities, pass safely from one end of the mountains to the other. But a civilised European is as little able to accomplish this, as to appreciate the feelings of those strange creatures, which, when a drop of water is examined under a microscope, are revealed amiably gobbling each other up, and being themselves complacently devoured.

I suppose if the "civilised" British had just had more patience they'd still be there in that faraway foreign land?

There is a Special Forces doctrine that if a guerrilla insurgency survives and grows, then it is by definition winning. That is the case with the Taliban. This mess didn't start in March of 2009 this has been going on for years now. Lt. Gen. David Barno should know since he watched it happen. The tipping point has been pasted. Now come up with a plan the remove our forces as soon as possible.

Perhaps the Taliban know something we don’t? Perhaps they realize that while America’s soldiers, Marines and NATO allies doggedly preserver for a victory the American body politic is not going to allow this adventure to go on endlessly.

Perhaps the Taliban also understand better than we do that they don’t have to ‘win battles’ they merely need to persist. And persisting is what they historically seem to do best while it is not exactly America’s strong suit.

Gates makes his own ‘Mission Accomplished’ inanity this weekend in saying victory in Afghanistan may look like our victory in Iraq? Lets see what victory looks like in Iraq five years down the road before we wish such victories upon the Afghans.

Referring to the people that the US is fighting as the 'Taliban' is not helpful. The original Talibs were mainly orphans from refugee camps in Afghanistan (see 'The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan' by Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi).

The people that the US are now fighting are much more diverse. Local tribal lashkars, foreign volunteers, veterans from both sides of the war against the Russians etc etc. The country is a scurrying anthill of competing factions and the more that the US pokes and prods at it the more it will get bitten.

Unfortunately most of the time the US and its' allies have no idea who is attacking them or why. It may be because a local tribe is upset about something that happened six months ago, it may be fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or one of the other warlords, it may be bandits, mercenaries, religious fanatics or just locals who want to be left alone.

Yes the Taliban launches attacks under the orders of the Quetta Shura but they are probably a minority. I strongly suspect that the people the British are fighting in Helmand for instance are all locals. They may be being paid to fight by drug lords, talibs or any number of other people but they are not themselves Taliban.

It would take decades to understand the demographic and political composition of the country, decades that the US doesn't have. The only time the British were able to defeat Pashtun or Hindustani fanatic forces were either by lightning raids ('in and out smart' as one British commander said in the 1870's) or by completely destroying crops, herds and villages (the response to the uprising in 1893). See Charles Allen's excellent 'God's Terrorists' for more details.

It's too late to get 'in and out smart' and without a deliberate scorched earth policy (as opposed to the haphazard one being employed at the moment) victory in a conventional sense is impossible. Get out now in good order before you have to. The position of US and allied troops in the provinces is basically untenable without US air cover, if that had to be withdrawn because of a genuine crisis, as opposed to the manufactured ones the US has got itself involved in, then you would be in the unenviable position of trying to extract thousands of troops from hundreds of bases in a short timescale.

What kind of crisis could that be? Who knows but how about China intervening in a post Kim North Korea that was falling apart. If a massive Chinese army was heading towards the 38th parallel you might suddenly want a functioning army, marine corps or National Guard instead of one tied down all over the Middle East. You've still got the nuclear deterrent but it's not a great idea to have that as the only option. Anyway that's enough rambling for one evening.