General McChrystal’s COIN

This is the first in a three-part series on Afghanistan.
Author: Drew Masada

As President Obama contemplates his options for the war in Afghanistan, he faces a number of tough choices. Near the top of those choices is whether to grant General McChrystal’s request to begin a counter-insurgency (COIN) operation in Afghanistan, as outlined in his Initial Assessment, released on August 30, 2009. Putting aside the political and civil-military considerations, the President’s decision will depend on four issues: 1.) whether he believes the current U.S. COIN doctrine is correct and effective; 2.) whether or not he wishes to use it; 3.) whether he believes that General McChrystal’s request represents a proper application of COIN doctrine; and 4.) whether or not he will grant the request in full.

While it may be difficult to assess President Obama’s beliefs on these issues, it is possible to make an objective assessment as to whether General McChrystal’s assessment is in line with the requirements of COIN doctrine.

The most current U.S. Armed Forces doctrine on counter-insurgency has been shaped by their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and by a number of select Army scholars. Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl (Retired) is arguably one of the most influential scholars on this issue. Currently President of the Center for New American Security, he received his M.Phil. and D.Phil. from Oxford University and taught at the United States Military Academy. In addition to serving in Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom, he helped to author the Army’s counter-insurgency field manual. In the previous administration, he served as a military assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and was an advisor to General Petraeus. Despite his close involvement to members of the previous administration, he remains an influential expert in COIN doctrine. His doctoral thesis was a comparison of the organizational cultures of the British and American armies and how their respective learning cultures impacted their successes and failures in combating insurgencies. Within these case studies, he outlines the elements of successful COIN doctrine and how to create the optimal learning environment (Nagl, 2005).

After comparing these elements to General McChrystal’s requests, it is clear that General McChrystal’s assessment follows COIN doctrine in four main areas: increasing troop levels for population-centric COIN, creating a unity of command, the use of minimum necessary force appropriate to the threat, and allowing for the development of local doctrine (Nagl, 2005).

To conduct population-centric COIN, one needs a sufficient number of troops. One must have a physical presence in every population center to protect citizens from insurgent attacks and prevent insurgents from establishing a base of support. General McChrystal calls for a range of additional troops to conduct COIN operations, and to compensate for years of being under-resourced (McChrystal, 7). McChrystal also calls for a “Unity of Command” where different units are placed under one command and channeled as one to fulfill political objectives. McChrystal specifically outlines his plan for an Integrated Civil Military Campaign Plan (ICMCP) (McChrystal, 39). This would enable commanders at all levels to use the minimum force appropriate to address a threat, with the goal of protecting the civilian population over capturing and killing insurgents. Finally, McChrystal echoes Lt. Col. Nagl’s findings on the need for local responses to local conditions. Nagl found that the armies that had the most successful learning environments were those in which commanders, at the local level, had the leeway to adapt practices and doctrine to better fit the conditions in which they found themselves. In fact, General McChrystal’s assessment gives discretion to commanders on how best to use development funds, calling for them to “err on the side of initiative.” (McChrystal, 21). Overall, McChrystal’s assessment that calls for a new direction in the war in Afghanistan follows many of the major precepts of current COIN doctrine.

While these steps will allow the U.S. and NATO forces to make progress toward shifting the momentum away from the Taliban insurgency, there are still a number of impediments to a fully successful strategy in Afghanistan.

To begin with, effective COIN operations require that the occupying force must have an effective and robust partner in the local government forces. They must be able to conduct joint operations to secure and protect the local population. Successful operations will build trust in the indigenous military forces. Local government forces must also be strong enough so that once the insurgency is defeated or sufficiently weakened, the occupying military may depart, handing off control to the local government forces. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the U.S. and our NATO allies, the Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) are undermanned, underdeveloped, underpaid, and, in some cases, unreliable. General McChrystal has set a target to increase the Afghan National Army (ANA) from 93,980 to 134,000 men in the next year (McChrystal, 23). The most recent report from the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction reported that approximately half of all Afghan men are illiterate, creating difficulties in training, a paucity of professional and well-trained commanding officers, and problems with retention. Between May and September of 2009, the number of units in the Afghan Army capable of operating independently decreased from forty-seven to forty-four (SIGAR, 71). While McChrystal acknowledged the need to build up, give better resources to, and better integrate the ANSF, this is an area that will require considerable improvement for the COIN doctrine to succeed in Afghanistan.

Another unfortunate reality of the situation in Afghanistan is the endemic and widespread corruption within the Islamic Government of Afghanistan (IGoA). Some economic historians have postulated that governance began when the so-called “roving bandit” became aware that he or she could extract more from the population by providing them protection in exchange for taking a percentage of their labors than simple extraction alone. Thus, the greater the protection a ruler could provide, the more likely the people were to invest in crops and industries that were higher risk for a higher reward. In Afghanistan, our military assistance and foreign aid have had the unintended effect of short-circuiting that exchange when we attempt to provide security and give funds without demanding accountability to central government leaders. And while in many wars, violence and corruption are a means to gain political power and influence, in other wars, they become an end in itself. Political scientist Jean Reno has found many examples in which rival warlords perpetuate a conflict solely for material gain. The situation could be similar for some Afghani politicians and leaders. McChrystal makes it a point to acknowledge and then call for corruption reform. He understands that one of the major means of winning over the populace is to ensure they enjoy a government that is accountable. It remains to be seen how McChrystal will overcome the challenge of convincing the Afghani people after the disputed national elections. COIN doctrine suggests that building responsible and accountable leadership from the bottom up is most effective. The New York Times recently ran a story of a village in Afghanistan, Jurm, which is doing exactly that (Tavernise, 2009).

Finally, General McChrystal’s plan must fully address how they plan to deny the Taliban the territory on which to have a home base and the capacity to reap the profits from poppy cultivation. When the Colombian government allowed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist insurgent group, to operate in its own sovereign territory, the FARC built a pseudo-state where they controlled much of the operations, which enabled them to profit from the cultivation of Coca in the cocaine drug trade. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that in 2008, insurgent elements in Afghanistan collected up to half a billion dollars from taxing the cultivation, production, and trafficking of heroin (UNODC, 6). Although the market has dropped in comparison to the previous year, UNODC analysts suspect that insurgents are holding a supply of opium in reserve in order to affect future prices and to ensure the continued source of financing for their operations (UNODC, 7). If the Taliban cannot be separated from their base of operations in the South and from their second biggest source of financing, they will continue to threaten the stability of the IGoA.

In short, if resourced fully and implemented properly, General McChrystal’s call for a new direction in the Afghan war through COIN is likely to produce results. That said, the success of the COIN operations will hinge upon whether or not the U.S., NATO, and IGoA can address the problems of the ANSF, corruption, and trafficking.




For more information:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/20/AR2009092002920.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/world/asia/13jurm.html
http://www.sigar.mil/reports/quarterlyreports/Oct09/pdf/SIGAROct2009Web.pdf
http://www.unodc.org/…/afghanistan//Afghanistan_Opium_Survey_2008.pdf