The Small Wars Journal editors discuss the views of Mike Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations / low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, concerning the campaign in Afghanistan.

The senior civilian adviser to the defense secretary on special operations says the key to success in Iraq and Afghanistan is through “the indirect approach” — working “by, with and through” host-nation forces — rather than “surges” of U.S. troops.

“Insurgencies have to be won by local capacity,” Mike Vickers, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations/low intensity conflict and interdependent capabilities, told a group of defense reporters in Washington on Feb. 6.

Because “it typically takes a decade or more” to achieve victory in a counterinsurgency, Vickers said, “a key measure of success” for the “supporting country” — in this case, the U.S. — is whether domestic political support for the mission can be sustained for such an extended period.

This view runs parallel to the special forces command views and talking points for Pakistan’s problems (see The Special Forces Plan for Pakistan: Mistaking the Anbar Narrative), and is exactly what I would expect a champion of special forces operations to advocate.  But it is difficult to fathom that there are any advocates of the small footprint model remaining, especially after witnessing the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past half decade.  The worn out talking point about COIN taking ten years also ignores the rapidity of change in U.S. politics, something we have discussed before.  It might be the case that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq through another ten years and that Iraq will remain a protectorate of the U.S. for some time into the future.  But this presence will not include constant constabulary operations – or else the force presence will lose popular support.  The notion that any COIN campaign which includes losses from active kinetic operations can maintain popular support over two and a half Presidential administrations simply ignores the realities of American politics.

Further, the small footprint model of COIN (a) is the reason the Afghanistan campaign is languishing to begin with, and (b) almost lost Operation Iraqi Freedom prior to the surge.  Rather than see the surge as a subset of ideas that can work only under certain circumstances, it should be seen as a subset of the larger doctrine of force projection that won the Anbar campaign almost prior to the surge.

Counterinsurgency will never be the same as it was even twenty years ago.  The advent of religious motivation, standoff weapons (such as IEDs), transnational cultural movements, and instantaneous communications and intelligence-gathering through technology, has forever changed the face of low intensity warfare and terrorism.  Even Vickers mentions the situation in Pakistan in troubled language, saying:

“The situation in Pakistan is very worrisome,” he said. “It’s getting worse in Pakistan.”

The Pashtun tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border has become a safe haven for al-Qaida’s senior leadership, according to Vickers.

“Al-Qaida’s goals remain to catalyze a global Islamic insurgency against the West and to carry out spectacular attacks against the West and the United States in particular,” he said. “And there really has been no diminishment in those goals … But in the past year-and-a-half or so, there has been an improvement in their capacity to do so as they’ve enjoyed greater sanctuary in western Pakistan.”

Vickers has neatly separated the two problems of Afghanistan and Pakistan, a mistake of huge proportions (I have elsewhere argued that the fates of these two countries are inextricably tied together).  Vickers should be as concerned about Afghanistan as he is about Pakistan.  They are the same campaign.

The focus on personalities and high value targets, special forces operations, and overly heavy reliance on indigenous forces is the Rumsfeld model of COIN.  It is a proven loser.  Standing up the Iraqi and Afghan armies will take time, as will reconstruction and building of infrastructure.  Security is the pretext for the success of either, and this security can only be provided with force projection.  Hope married to bad doctrine is not a plan.