A very good report from Matt Sanchez.

It’s the middle of the night at the east corner guard post of Fiddler’s Green, a Marine fire base in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, along the border with Pakistan.

Corporal Ryan Joseph Bernal is on perimeter security duty.

Armed with an M-4, night vision binoculars and an array of high-powered automatic weaponry, the 22-year-old U.S. Marine and several others keep watch for activity just outside the concertina wire, which conveys the powerful message “DO NOT ENTER” in a universal language Marines, civilians and the Taliban all understand …

A tiny red flare warns potential intruders not to approach — but it’s the figures you can’t see who pose the greatest threat to Fiddler’s Green, located at what commanders call a “chokepoint to Taliban activity.”

Throughout the day, redundant checks are designed to account for Marines. “Accountability. Eyes on every Marine, pre-combat checks, pre-combat inspections,” said battalion commander Lt. Chris Lewis. “Physical and visual accountability, nothing less.”

Based upon what I know from Operation Alljah, I have always rejected the dichotomy between force protection and force projection, or between U.S. troop security and population security, no matter what the in vogue “population-centric COIN” doctrine says.  The Marines are in touch with the population during constant patrols – patrols so intense and long that many are suffering dehydration because they can’t carry enough water.  There is no need to make themselves insecure during sleep in order to win the cooperation of the population, no matter what a counterinsurgency field manual says.  It didn’t work that way in the Anbar Province of Iraq.

One other report to drive home the point from the Washington Post.

Two Marines on a road-clearing crew were killed Monday in Helmand’s Garmsir District, after they traced the wire of a suspected bomb into a house that was rigged to explode, according to an officer with their unit. Since the U.S. launched its Helmand operation, Western troops in Afghanistan have been dying at a rate of three a day, far higher than the normal rate.

The bomb attacks have slowed or obstructed the Marines’ use of the network of narrow, unpaved dirt roads that link farming villages in the river valley. The bombs have already disabled several vehicles which are further hampered by their bulk in navigating the primitive roads. The Marines’ mine-resistant armored protection vehicles “are just too big for those roads,” said Col. Eric Mellinger, operations officer for the Marine
brigade.

Commanders have made some roads off limits, instead requiring slow-going travel through adjacent deserts, or foot marches through fields and canals. Many of the supplies for the troops are being flown in by helicopter.

If, at the present time, the force presence isn’t enough to fully secure the physical terrain and thus IEDs remain a serious threat on the roads, then adapt.  It’s what Marines do.  Stick to the deserts, trenches and untraveled areas.  Slower, sure.  But do you think the Marines will be exposed to the population and meet some Afghanis during these treks?  And do you think the Taliban have the manpower or ordnance to mine the entire countryside with IEDs because of this adaptation, or will they get frustrated?

Postscript: Is “Fiddler’s Green” a cool name for a fire base, or what?  I want to go there.

Report

Raising expectations for scaling back military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes U.S. involvement can “transition to a different phase” after this summer’s Afghan elections.

The president said he is looking for an exit strategy where the Afghan security forces, courts and government take more responsibility for the country’s security. That would enable U.S. and other international military forces to play a smaller role.

Obama made his remarks after an Oval Office meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. Talks between the two leaders included discussion of the Netherlands’ help with the U.S.-led effort to defeat Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dutch combat troops have been a mainstay among the allied forces fighting in the volatile southern reaches of Afghanistan.

After taking office in January, Obama reviewed U.S. progress in Afghanistan and announced in March a new approach that included sending an additional 17,000 combat troops, including Marines who have just kicked off an offensive in Taliban strongholds in the south of the country …

In remarks in Moscow last week, Obama said it was too early to judge the success of his new approach in Afghanistan because “we have just begun” to implement it. Obama also installed a new U.S. ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, in May and a new U.S. military commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, in June.

On Tuesday, however, the president emphasized an exit strategy.

“All of us want to see an effective exit strategy where increasingly the Afghan army, Afghan police, Afghan courts, Afghan government are taking more responsibility for their own security,” he said.

If the Afghan presidential election scheduled for Aug. 20 comes off successfully, and if the U.S. and its coalition partners continue training Afghan security forces and take a more effective approach to economic development, “then my hope is that we will be able to begin transitioning into a different phase in Afghanistan,” Obama said.

Analysis & Commentary

This is a remarkable report for one particular point we learn about this administration’s view of Operation Enduring Freedom.  But before we get to that point, let’s pause to reflect on the context.

Operation Iraqi Freedom proved to be much more difficult that we originally thought it would be for a whole host of reasons.  There have been many lessons (re)learned about counterinsurgency and nation-building, including the need for national and institutional patience.  It takes a long time and is costly in both wealth and blood.  There is a never-ending need for highly functional lines of logistics, and the chances of an acceptable outcome is (at least in the early and even middle stages) proportional to the force projection, one factor of which is the troop levels.  We have relearned that it is very difficult to rely on Arabic armies in large part because of corruption, incompetence and the lack of a Non-Commissioned Officer corps that is equivalent to the NCO corps in the U.S. armed forces.  It has been documented that this has directly affected the degree of success of the efforts to build an Iraqi Army.

For reasons of difficulty and cost, many believe that the U.S. should not engage in counterinsurgency and nation-building.  As the argument goes, when an existential threat is judged to exist, forcible entry is conducted, the regime is toppled, and U.S. forces leave to let the population sort out the balance of its history.  If this threat returns or another is perceived, then do it all over again.  While the cost of this approach is likely to be greater in the long run (in our estimation), there are a great many who hold this view, even among field grade and staff level officers (based our own on communications).

But when a counterinsurgency campaign is begun, not only does the doctrine say that it will be protracted, but this doctrine is exemplified by our experience in Iraq.  While continually adjusting strategy and tactics to press forward to a conclusion is appropriate, it doesn’t work to assume that it will be easy or shortlived.

But there are differences in campaigns for which the doctrine must be maleable.  As we have discussed before, General Petraeus has said that of the campaigns in the long war, Afghanistan would be the longest.

I did a week-long assessment in 2005 at (then Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld’s request. Following our return, I told him that Afghanistan was going to be the longest campaign of what we then termed “the long war.” Having just been to Afghanistan a month or so ago, I think that that remains a valid assessment. Moreover, the trends have clearly been in the wrong direction.

This is true for numerous reasons, including the difficulty in logistics, lack of a strong central government, corruption, an increasingly problematic security situation, etc.  If Hamid Karzai wins the election, the very head of the government in which the U.S. administration is placing its hope is the man who recently pardoned five heroin smugglers, at least one of them a relative of a man who heads Karzai’s campaign for re-election.

The administration’s plan falls heavily into the lap of the Afghan National Army.  This is the same Army that is believed to have colluded with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops at the Battle of Bari Alai, and which, according to U.S. Marine embedded trainers, would lose as much as 85% of its troops if drug testing was implemented.  Fully independent ANA Battalions are targeted, but this is many years down the road, in the year 2014 at the earliest.  Even this may be wishful thinking.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if Obama had advocated complete withdrawal, although we would have disagreed with this decision.  It wouldn’t have been surprising if he had advocated long term commitment, since this is the nature of counterinsurgency.  When we pressed for the resignation of National Security Advisor Jim Jones, we noted that he had stated that the new strategy had the “potential to turn this thing around in reasonably short order.”

Nothing happens in counterinsurgency in short order, we observed, and thus his counsel to the President is poor.  The Generals are indignant, and have retained the right in their mind to request the troops they believe to be necessary for the campaign.  But this view has not been heard in Washington, and not only does Obama’s counselors and advisers believe that the campaign can be turned in short order, but we now learn that Obama believes this – contrary to doctrine, contrary to the views of General Petraeus, contrary to the Generals, and contrary to the lessons of Iraq.  Everyone wants an exit from war.  No one likes to see the human cost of battle.  The question is not one of exit – it is of when and how?

While issues of life and death play themselves out in Afghanistan and sons of America continue to lose limbs and lives, the administration blythely continues to believe in myths and fairly tales concerning war and peace, and fashion plans for Afghanistan that have no chance to succeed.  The plans must change, but until they do, the question is what the cost will be in national treasure and blood?

Prior Featured:

Calling on National Security Advisor James L. Jones to Resign

Marines Take the Fight to the Enemy in Now Zad

Taliban Tactics: Massing of Troops

The Coming War in the Caucasus

Two videos, the first from the Nuristan Province of Afghanistan.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Next, this video was posted a few weeks ago, and is a followup to our article Video of U.S. Marine Operations in Helmand and Now Zad (see second video).  This video is low resolution and looks as if it was taken with a helment camera.  Bear with it.

World Politics Review gives us a glimpse into operations in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan.

The most surprising thing, initially, is how difficult and time-consuming even the most basic tasks are — like getting around between coalition camps, for instance.

I had left Forward Operating Base Airborne — where I am based with U.S. Army units from the 10th Mountain Division and a French army training team — for a short trip to a nearby combat outpost, only a few miles away. The objective had been to take water, food, and building materials to the new outpost. The trip, which had promised to be relatively easy and painless, ended up consuming the entire morning, and was both inordinately tiring and far more dangerous than I had expected for such a minor mission.

The problems started as soon as the convoy of armoured vehicles and trucks left the camp’s gate. A suspicious object was spotted nearby on the road, and a group of Afghan soldiers — mentored by the French — was sent to investigate. Because the Taliban and other insurgent groups cannot take the Coalition on in a straight battle, they have multiplied roadside bomb attacks. These now cause the most Western casulties, leading Coalition convoys to proceed with extraordinary care.

When the road was eventually declared clear, the convoy turned onto it, rumbling along at little more than 10 mph. Army vehicles and trucks beat up the dust and shook painfully, the French-made VABs (véhicule de l’avant blindés, or armored vanguard vehicles) struggling against the unpaved Afghan road.

A French machine-gunner leaned out of the gunner’s window next to me at the back of the vehicle, his hands resting impassively on his gun. The only thing that gave away his excitement was the trembling of his voice as he occasionally translated the chatter coming over his crackling radio into English for me.

The convoy stopped repeatedly as the French, who are supposed to be here only in an advisory capacity, kept sending the Afghans ahead to check out an area before the convoy could roll on. Locals, whether passing by or standing outside their shops and fields, looked on, occasionally giving a nod, a wave or even a smile. Some just stared — impassively, sullenly, perhaps even with some hostility: Wardak province has been very violent since things started to fall apart in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007.

My gunner still waved at almost everybody, evidently very aware that this campaign is now about winnings hearts and minds. He seemed less aware of the scorching heat, or else he had grown oblivious to it, to say nothing of the clouds of dust the VAB churned up in his face, and the violent shaking of the vehicle that kept bumping my helmet-covered head against the roof.

Upon reaching the combat outpost — perhaps the size of a soccer field surrounded by three-foot-wide walls — the soldiers quickly unloaded the supplies off the VABs. They then stopped for a cigarette break, during which their focused professionalism quickly dissolved into playfulness, chatter, and a happy performance of Happy Birthday for one of the sergeants.

Then the atmosphere quickly reverts back into soldiering, as the French commander explains to the American team returning with us how we are to proceed and how the convoy should respond should it be attacked.

Which is precisely what happens almost the moment the vehicles are out of the gate. The whoosh of an incoming rocket, then two more, is followed by a burst of crackle over the radio. The machine-gunner shouts to me — “Get down, get down!” — his head turning back towards the front of the vehicle, his hands ready on his gun. I automatically lower myself inside the VAB, wondering numbly whether I should perhaps take at least a few photos.

We aren’t hit and neither is the base, but the convoy is now stuck. There is no more firing, but mortars are soon launched from inside the base, and the two A-10 bombers covering the convoy are called in. We sit there for minutes as nothing seems to happen. And then we rumble on. We do not stop anywhere on the way back, and in fact take a different route than the one we used to come. It is unclear where the rockets were fired from, or even who fired them.

Stepping out of their vehicles, some of the soldiers begin to enthusiastically discuss the events. “Did you hear how they came?” they ask one another. “Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh: one, two, three!”

A French officer walks over. “You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I nod, exhausted, black from the dust, my skin badly sunburnt on my neck.

He grins. “Monsieur, c’est normal ici, tu sais?” (“Mister, that’s normal here, you know?”) Apparently they come under attack every day.

Did this report impress you the same way it did me?  Good men all around, but bad strategy.  What’s missing in this account is something like the following:

Following the desire to protect the population as well as provide for force protection, the 10th Mountain had sent several squads out on what they termed “distributed operations” to find and kill the enemy.  The dispatching of troops occurred during dark so as to preclude direct observation by insurgents.  The Soldiers were deployed with night vision gear, and had found concealment prior to combat operations beginning.

Upon initial mortar fire, the squads from the 10th Mountain Division went into action, having observed the terrain for the last eight hours.  They apparently knew where the fire was coming from, and had not only prepared to initiate offensive combat operations upon detection of insurgent movement, but had also called in close air support in anticipation of the kinetic engagement.

Six insurgents were killed in the ensuing operations, and two were captured.  Subsequent interrogation revealed information that led to the discovery of an extensive weapons cache.  PAO “so-and-so” remarked that subsequent aggressive patrolling by the 10th Mountain Division in the AO was intended to assure the population that their security was improving and would make further gains upon cooperation to find and kill or capture the Taliban fighters who were causing the instability.

Why is it that we’re reading accounts of the 10th Mountain squirreling away in FOBs and logistics routes which are regularly subject to mortar attacks?  Why does the Taliban have the initiative rather than the 10th Mountain Division?

Yes, there is many a Marine NCO out there who after reading the title of this post, is asking himself “what’s the difference?”  Well, Starbuck at the Small Wars Journal Blog has written about the recent Marine Corps training in mule handling as a means of transport of heavy supplies, including ammunition, ordnance, and the other things that weigh the Marine down while patrolling and travelling.

With 75 pounds of military gear cinched on her furry back, Annie was stubborn the whole way.

The two Marines assigned to her pushed, pulled and sweet-talked her up the steep, twisting trail on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada.

“C’mon, girl, you can make it,” Lance Cpl. Chad Campbell whispered in her ear.

“Only one more hill,” promised Lance Cpl. Cameron Cross as he shoved Annie’s muscular hindquarters.

The red-hued donkey snorted, nibbled on grass and let loose that distinctive braying, which begins with a loud nasal inhalation and concludes with an even louder blast of deep-throated protest.

She also dropped green, foul-smelling clumps, which the Marines carefully sidestepped.

On the rocky, uneven path, Annie never stumbled. A good donkey, Marines say, knows three steps ahead where it wants to walk.

For Campbell and Cross, the day with Annie could be a preview of days to come. The two may soon deploy to Afghanistan, where donkeys and mules have been the preferred mode of military transport for centuries — and remain so.

With the U.S. shifting its focus from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Central Asia, this course on pack animals at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center has become critical to the new mission.

I just have one bone to pick.  I dealt with this almost four months ago in Marines, Animals and Counterinsurgency.  I also linked and embedded the video of the Big Dog, a mechanized set of processors, servos and other components that will malfunction, have no power when the batteries degrade or die, and require constant maintenance due to dust, mud, and overuse.  Brandon Friedman at the SWJ has it about right.

The BigDog seems pretty ridiculous. We could probably buy a mule for every infantry squad in Afghanistan and feed it for a year for well under the price of one BigDog. How does the BigDog work in the rain? Can it make a water crossing? How many batteries does it require? How heavy are they? How are they charged? Who’s trained to do maintenance on it? Will he or she have to accompany the BigDog on missions? I really love the stealthy buzzing sound it makes, too.

Yes, the thing sounds like a million angry Africanized bees.  I am all in favor of weight reduction for warriors, and have constantly advocated R&D for ESAPI plates to reduce body armor weight.  But the low hanging fruit has been picked, and any further weight reductions will come at high expense and hard work.

I can’t escape the feeling that some of the drive at DARPA to build mechanical beasts to support logistics has to do with the eradication or neutralization of gender differences.  We have dealt with this issue before in:

Marines, Beasts and Water

Scenes from Operation Khanjar II

Where we discussed the fact that Marine infantry and Army Special Forces don’t allow females to occupy billets.  Females have different PT requirements than males, and suffered an inordinately high number of lower extremity injuries compared to males in the Russian Army while they conducted their campaign in Afghanistan.

When the average Marine Infantryman leaves the line at greater than 120 pounds, it’s obvious that gender differences become pronounced, as do differences in conditioning and training.  If one supposes that this load is reduced to 90 – 100 pounds, how does that allow for the eradication of gender differences?  In fact, suppose that the Marine is only carrying his body armor, hydration system, weapon (let’s suppose a SAW), ammunition (let’s suppose several drums of ammunition), and a few other essentials for a daily patrol.  How does a reduction in the weight to 60 – 70 pounds eradicate gender differences when the Marine needs to sprint from compound to compound in order to avoid sniper fire?

As for the mules and donkeys, I have previously described my view of what fathers should be doing with their sons.  My Marine knew how to train Quarter horses and care for dogs before he ever went into the Marines because I taught him.  He eventually became better than me.  Every Marine should know something about how to handle dogs, mules, horses, and other animals, and should also know something about the anatomy of animals (e.g., how do you prepare a snake to eat after you have killed it, how do you care for horses in the absence of a farrier, and so on).

As we pointed out before, the discussions about animals in the Small Wars Manual doesn’t seem so far fetched in this day and age, does it?  The Afghanistan terrain and climate that would kill most machines is ready made for beasts of burden.

In summary, weight reduction ought to be pursued with available funds to reduce the burden on the Infantryman.  But Marine infantry is for young men, and the push to eradicate gender differences, if that’s what this is about, makes the DoD and DARPA look stupid.  Marine Infantrymen must be males for a whole host of very good reasons.  The push to eradicate gender considerations should stop, as the money is needed elsewhere.  All Marines should know something about the proper care of animals, and there is no excuse for leaving this out of pre-deployment training.  The Marines aren’t so busy that they can’t rotate through a week long course with another Marine instructor who has himself been more thoroughly trained on animals.

Seriously.  What could possibly be controversial about what I have said?