http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=7298

http://www.slate.com/id/2218160/

Follow the discussion thread at the SWC along with Fred’s commentary. Note the rich irony. For a discussion about how we are replacing old Army with new COIN experience, the old Army being focused on kinetics, the scene is ironic in its attention to McChrystal and his knowledge in HVT hits, so-called “collaborative warfare,” and the like. Nothing much about clearing, holding and building, securing the population. and so on. Lot’s about killing a few bad guys and ending it.

Ass backwards discussion, and very telling about the so-called “counterinsurgency” community. Only so when it suits them.

Basically, I think McKiernan was railroaded, and isn’t the “big Army dude doesn’t get COIN” commander he is charged with being. That’s all a lie, smoke screen and ruse. He was a fine commander who was given an impossible task with too few troops.

Also, see Josh Foust for an assessment of other issues with McChrystal:

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2009/05/11/a-double-edged-sword/

I will update as I get new info.

Here is the difference I see between the U.S. situation and the Soviets: legitimacy. Whereas the T-ban can talk all they want about the infidel U.S. invaders, the truth is that the U.S. came as a direct result of attacks on the homeland by Taliban-supported terrorists. The Soviets were, in fact, an occupying, neo-colonialist force that had no intention of giving the Afghans any real choice of government. As a result, there was literally no place that the Soviets could go in Afghanistan that would not be hostile territory; i.e., “pacification” was impossible because the population would never support Soviet presence and, similarly, the Soviets could not train an indigenous force of Afghans to secure urban areas which would allow the Soviets to push into the hinterlands. (Don’t think the Soviets had much stomach for it, either, but that highlights another, important difference between the U.S. fighting spirit and the Soviet conscripts better left for another day).

At any rate, it is not clear whether an urban or rural focus would be better; likely it is a choice of the lesser of two evils. The U.S. does, however, have at least a shot at training up the Afghan Army to hold urban areas with relatively easy logistics which will, in turn, allow the U.S. to push out from the urban areas and into the strongholds of the T-ban. If the U.S. is very, very lucky, the rural areas under the heavy sharia thumb of the T-ban may get extremely tired of life and welcome U.S./Gov’t forces when they eventually arrive.

Unfortunately, if one is forced to read the chrystal ball at this point (and given the McKiernan news) it is likely that the Administration has secretly shifted gears on A-stan and decided that it will commit minimal resources with no, real COIN, and start looking for a way to declare “victory” and get out. Welcome back to the 1970’s.