The Never Ending COIN Boosterism Posted by Michael Cohen

So to mark the 10th anniversary of September 11th, RUSI has an interesting compendium of pieces looking back on the significance of 9/11 from a national security perspective. John Nagl not surprisingly argues that as a result of 9/11 has now become the most capable counter-insurgency force in history - and used as his evidence the US military escalation in Afghanistan: 

Barack Obama, who had campaigned on refocusing attention on the war in Afghanistan, found the situation there so dire that he nearly tripled US forces during the first year of his presidency. For the first time, American commanders had sufficient troops to begin to implement classic 'clear, hold, build' counter-insurgency doctrine in southern Afghanistan. They made real progress on the ground, albeit marred by corruption in Afghan governance, and began handing over more secure parts of the country to Afghan security forces this past summer. Many made silent prayers that the Afghans were ready.

This is a bit like saying other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Missing from Nagl's analysis is that any progress US commanders have made on the ground is not sustainable because of a) the failures in Afghan governance b) the inability of the ANSF to take over security responsibilities c) and the lack of American staying power. Nagl's arguments acts like these are blips in the path to success as opposed to fundamental and unmovable obstructions that were of course evident when the President decided to escalate in December 2009. 

Also prayer is not a strategy.

The very fact that President Obama is basically pulling the plug on the COIN effort in Afghanistan by withdrawing troops is the most obvious example of COIN's larger strategic failure. By failing to take into account the lack of political will in the United States for an extended COIN fight - and the lack of an effective Afghan partner - counter-insurgency advocates have ensured that the tactical gains made on the ground won't be sustained. This has likely left Afghanistan in worse shape than if they had recognized this reality from the get go. The United States would have been far better off putting in place a strategy for Afghanistan that could be sustained for the long-term, both politically and militarily. Instead COIN advocates overreached, believing that they could convince the President to give them more time to implement a well-resourced COIN strategy. It didn't work out that way and the result is that now we are looking at the likelihood of a more precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan with the US having done little to lay the groundwork for our eventual withdrawal (and with even less political will to get things right before we leave). 

So while I suppose one can argue that the Army better understands how to fight COIN (a debatable concept and from a population centric standpoint probably untrue) -- the political myopia of COIN advocates has helped to ensure that it won't succeed in Afghanistan.

Then there is this: "The killing of Osama Bin Laden underlined the success the US had had in dismantling Al-Qa'ida around the globe, largely due to counter-terrorism efforts relying on drones and special operations forces, but aided by broader counter insurgency efforts."

I know that COIN is graduate school war so maybe it's over my head but I'm having a hard time seeing the connection between, say, the Marine offensive in Marjah and the death of Obama bin Laden. Here's a counter-factual: If President Obama had in 2009 decided "I'm going to listen to Joe Biden and put in place a CT strategy" would that have meant that the US would not have been able to get OBL in April 2011? I suppose it's possible, but I don't see it. if anything we might have gotten more security cooperation from Pakistan, which today is basically fighting a proxy war against the United States in Afghanistan. 

But hey far be it from me to get in the middle of a really good story.

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Explaining why COIN is wrong is very simple. The U.S. military is really good at combat - FIGHTING, SHOOTING, BLOWING SHIT UP. This is what they are trained for and paid very well for.

From what I've read, COIN involves very little combat. It's MUCH more akin to police work - lots of patrolling, interviewing, keeping tabs on people, trying to convince people to work with you, showing up somewhere AFTER an attack has taken place or an IED has gone off. This is NOT what we train and pay our military to do, and that is the basic reason they are failing so spectacularly at it.

Also, wasn't the bin Laden raid COMPLETELY a CT thing? It went from intel generated by interrogations to intel analysts to special forces. Where in that sequence are the good-hearted Pakistanis who were so convinced of American righteousness that they voluntarily turned in their cult rebel hero? There are none, because COIN is, once again, wrong, wrong, wrong for this war.

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I think COIN advocates can share more on that argument? The results in Afghanistan and what the US can do to improve in the region are greatly more than just counter insurgency tactics. It will greatly improve probably as the article points out, local participation from Afghanistan and Pakistan but this is still questionable.

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