Another Knock Against COIN Posted by Michael Cohen

A couple of days ago I wrote a long post about the domestic political constraints to counter-insurgency.  Well the recent NATO summit in Strasbourg further strengthens my argument. After much cajoling NATO agreed to send 5,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, but before one reads too much into this development this is basically what the Times calls "temporary security duty" in the run-up to August elections. In the end, this is a pretty tepid response to the President's call for more troops.

As for the reasons behind the reluctance of European countries a good story in Friday's Guardian provides some context. Here is the money quote:

A senior German politician said public opinion in his country no longer shared the view that Germany's security was being protected "in the Hindu Kush".

"For internal political reasons, we're not in a position to produce massive new troops," said a senior European Union official. "And the scale of a civilian surge needed to match the US military surge is not there yet either."

One can come up with all kinds of reasons why European government might be resistant to sending more troops to Afghanistan; whether its financial constraints related to the downturn or general European aversion to military conflicts. But the lack of domestic support seems to be driving much of our NATO's allies recalcitrance.  The simple reality is that if you can't rely on NATO countries to maintain their commitment to what is basically nation-building in Afghanistan what makes anyone think that they would join in a long-term counter-insurgency effort elsewhere?

A successful counter-insurgency effort relies not only on having enough troops on the ground, but it depends on maintaining political will. The fact that we are unable to get European countries to support a rather modest counter-insurgency uptick in Afghanistan - where actual attacks against European targets have been hatched -- because they lack domestic support should tell us something very important: namely that if we want to do counter-insurgency operations on a grand scale there is a pretty good chance we may have to do them alone.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

One can come up with all kinds of reasons why European government might be resistant to sending more troops to Afghanistan; whether its financial constraints related to the downturn or general European aversion to military conflicts. But the lack of domestic support seems to be driving much of our NATO's allies recalcitrance.

Don't we also have to take seriously the idea that these countries, which after all do have professional national security establishments charged with studying these issues, honestly don't think the security threats posed to their countries by instability in Afghanistan is all that severe, and believe that genuine terrorist threats from jihadists in the region can be tracked and interdicted without the need for the kind of massive counterinsurgency efforts the Obama administration wants to undertake?

[Don Bacon]

Besides what Dan mentioned, don't we also have to take seriously the idea that the European governments are more sensitive to their populations than is the US, and that these populations inherently know that terrorism is a crime which is not properly addressed by military means? Hell, let's just say it: They're smarter and more democratic than we are.

And perhaps they read this RAND report:
July, 2008 -- A recent RAND research effort [investigates] how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory. These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa'ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts. . . .Key to this strategy is replacing the war-on-terrorism orientation with the kind of counterterrorism approach that is employed by most governments facing significant terrorist threats today. Calling the efforts a war on terrorism raises public expectations — both in the United States and elsewhere — that there is a battlefield solution. It also tends to legitimize the terrorists' view that they are conducting a jihad (holy war) against the United States and elevates them to the status of holy warriors. Terrorists should be perceived as criminals, not holy warriors.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9351/index1.html

[Don Bacon]

The presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban. -- Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/afghan_war-strategy.pdf

[JDB]

I think the previous posters are 1) assuming capabilities that the Afghan government doesn't have and 2) assume that measures to put the Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan National Army (ANA) to the fore of the CT fight aren't happening.

The main reason NATO/ISAF nations are not contributing more forces or removing the caveats from their mission is public opinion. In 2004, then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made the terrible mistake of selling the Afghan mission as a post-conflict reconstruction effort, a la the Balkans.

So, boy, were they surprised when not only were Taliban and other insurgents still active in Afghanistan, but were shooting at them!

ISAF's CSTC-A's mission is to train and build the capacity of Afghan police and soldiers to patrol and defend their own country. Afghanistan has never had a strong central government; I still believe that Karzai is the glorified mayor of Kabul. In order to see the GIRoA's goal of a unified country with a strong, central government, NATO and, yes, the U.S. are engaged in that capacity-building effort.

Unlike Iraq, Coalition forces have to begin at the beginning (an overwhelming number of Afghans are illiterate; sanitation is non-existent in most parts of the country; most agriculture is drug cash crops). It's longer, harder, and demands more time, resources and people. But the people needed are not necessarily combat forces. The surge-by-another-name in Afghanistan should be led by USAID, the Peace Corps, and Doctors Without Borders, no more BCTs.

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