A Thought Experiment Posted by Michael Cohen

Andrew Exum thinks that I have overstated the seriousness of the recent release of a new report from our military intelligence head in Afghanistan about the failure of military intelligence in Afghanistan. To be clear, I don't think this episode is indicative of a crisis in civil-military relations. I mean there certainly IS a crisis in civil-military relations in this country; and our military has become dangerously politicized, but that was happening long before this report was issued.

But ask yourself a question. Can you imagine what would happen if someone on the civilian side issued a report like this - through an independent think tank - and outside the normal chain of command, criticizing Afghan reconstruction or drug interdiction efforts? Do you think they would keep their job?

But putting aside that issue for a second. I find myself tripped up, in reading the report, on something that is written on the first page:

The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, out intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade.

Then Flynn quotes General McChrystal as saying this:

Our senior leaders - the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, Congress and the President of the United States - are not getting the right information to make decisions with. 

FWIW, I absolutely agree with this and in fact I noted back in September that this seemed to be a huge problem in the McChrystal review:

The report says that "communities make deliberate choices to resist, support or allow insurgent influence" which is almost certainly true. But then the report makes no effort to describe which people, which communities, which ethnic groups choose to support or resist insurgent influence. . . Clearly the motivations of the "people" in  Kandahar is different from those in Kabul or Kunduz - and also quite clearly, they can't be solved by good governance alone. The report seems to presuppose that governance is the key to bringing the people to the side of the government as if ethnicity or tribal affiliation plays little role.

So here's my question, if McChrystal and Flynn acknowledge that we don't understand the center of gravity in Afghanistan, i.e the people then why are they arguing that the only way for dealing with the Taliban insurgency is through a counter-insurgency strategy focused on said people? Doesn't that put the proverbial cart before the horse? If we don't know for example how different communities in Afghanistan respond to US occupation; if we unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which US troops operate, why would we pre-suppose that a tactical focus on "the people" will be successful? How do we even know that the "people" will respond positively to US occupation and assistance? Or how will we know if people in Kandahar respond to the US the same way people do in Khost or Herat. One would think that understanding ethnic and regional differences would be crucial to the success of a population centric approach; and yet Flynn suggests that we don't have that sort of information right now.

And what's more if we've failed for the past 8 years in understanding the people - which as we are told is crucial to the success of counter-insurgency - why do we think that things will turn around in the near future; or turn around fast enough to deeply influence our near-term status in Afghanistan? Doesn't the very fact that Flynn issued his report outside the chain of command suggest that his suggested population centric approach to intelligence gathering is getting pushback - and is unlikely to be implemented any time soon? 

It almost feels like we decided to do population centric counter-insurgency in Afghanistan before we actually figured out whether that would be an effective tactical approach. (Tongue planted firmly in cheek).

Comments

[valentines day]

The military traditionally could use the powers of both Congress and the President to pinball interests between them. Gen Flynn simply applies new means of communication to get his word, ideas and concept out for discussion just like any scholar does, when in doubt. granted, a two star, or any other military officer would not be able to publish such documents in any other democracy...