From Reuters:

Afghanistan is sending 8,000 to 10,000 troops to its most volatile southern provinces, where U.S. and NATO commanders complain of having too few Afghans to back them up, the Afghan Defense Minister said Saturday …

U.S. and British commanders complain the Afghan army and police have fielded far too few troops in the main battlefields, especially southern Helmand province, where 10,000 U.S. Marines and 9,000 British troops vastly outnumber their Afghan allies.

Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told Reuters about 8,000 to 10,000 additional Afghan troops will deploy in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar, by far the deadliest areas for foreign forces since the war started in 2001.

Neither the British nor especially the U.S. Marines need Afghan National Army “backup.”  They are implementing the policy dictated from above, namely a quick startup of the ANA.  But one recent report from the Helmand Province isn’t so promising concerning their new Afghani colleagues.

The U.S. Marines were tense looking for bombs buried near a mud compound in this remote farming town in southern Afghanistan. Their new Afghan police colleagues were little help, joking around and sucking on lollipops meant for local kids.

The government had sent the new group of 13 police to live and train with the Marines just a few days earlier. Most were illiterate young farmers with no formal training who had been plucked off the streets only weeks before.

ANP, sure.  But the ANA aren’t any better.  We’d better plan on pacification of Helmand without the ANA or ANP.

Analysts and pundits were quick to dismiss Mr. Obama’s intention for beginning troop level drawdown in Afghanistan in 2011 as mere pressure on Hamid Karzai and the balance of the corrupt Afghan administration.  But Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson has no illusions about the task ahead.

“I can’t tell you where we’re going to be in July of 2011, but I can tell you that we understand what the commander-in-chief has said, and that’s when he wants to draw down, and we are sprinting,” Nicholson says. “The message to our Marines every day is that the clock is running and the world is watching.”

In the coming assault on the town of Marja in the Helmand Province – current stronghold of the Taliban – the U.S. Marines want the ANA (Afghan National Army) to take the lead.

Nicholson said Afghan security forces would hopefully head the Marja operation, with extensive training planned for the next few months.

“We’re going to come in together. We’re going to take Marja back,” Nicholson said, adding that a district governor had already been selected for the town.

“We’re building a team around him of Afghans and US and UK representatives to go in and … try to take care of people quickly.”

A centrepiece of Obama’s Afghanistan strategy is the training of Afghan security forces to a point where Nato forces can withdraw. Obama has said that a US troop withdrawal would begin in 18 months, raising alarm bells among some in the Afghan political and military leadership, who fear being abandoned.

But can the ANA perform this function as quickly as we might like?  Recall that I have observed that:

We have watched the ANA engage in drug abuse, smoke hashish before patrols, collude with Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops, themselves claim that they cannot hold Helmand without Marines and fear being killed if they even go out into the streets, be relatively ineffective against Taliban fighters, sleep on their watch, and claim to be on vacation in the Helmand Province.

Now, via Bruce Rolston, here is a report on the current state of the ANA that is of immeasurable value.

Creating an Army isn’t about teaching them to shoot straight.  It’s about having the cultural, religious, familial and historical underpinnings that will support the personal sacrifice for something greater than oneself.  This cannot possibly be created in two years.

Counterinsurgency at a sprint sounds nice, but sooner or later we must face reality.  If we are going to rely on the ANA to do the heavy lifting for us, it’s going to be a very long time before they will be ready.

Postscript: For proponents of population-centric counterinsurgency, it should be pointed out that there is an alternative.

In Micromanaging the Campaign in Afghanistan I said:

A strong NCO corps was and is something that the Iraqi Security Forces haven’t been able to implement despite the best efforts of U.S. trainers.  But the trend in U.S. warfare is going in the wrong direction.  While officers might like to claim that they have the utmost respect for and confidence in their Gunnys, First Sergeants, Sergeant Majors, and in the Army, Command Sergeant Majors, the practice of micromanaging conflicts shows this claim is to some extent wishful thinking.

The U.S. officer corps has unwittingly bought into the Western business and industrial model of high level managers micromanaging their employees, metrics, and even day to day actions.  Officers have become more managers than military leaders, and paradoxically this has driven the U.S. military away from the Western strength of the NCO corps and towards a more Middle Eastern model.

From North County Times, take a quick look at the new Major General who will be leading the Marines in Afghanistan.

Mills, the son of a World War II Navy officer, rejects the implication of a frequently heard phrase about Afghanistan that says U.S. and NATO troops have the watches but the Taliban has the time —- meaning the enemy force can wait out the West and take over when foreign troops leave.

“I don’t think they really do have the time,” he said. “If you look at what the II Marine Expeditionary Brigade has been doing in securing the countryside, it shows we can be successful for the long term. We can win over the people.”

The Marines he will command will conduct joint operations with Afghan National Army and security forces, and the troops will stay in the areas they are assigned and not live on fixed bases. That strategy is key in counter-insurgency operations, he said.

“You can’t fight just from forward operating bases,” he said.

The rules of engagement in Afghanistan are continuing to “mature,” Mills said, stressing that avoiding civilian casualties and proving to the population that U.S. forces can chase away and keep the Taliban from reasserting themselves is central to the mission.

As his Blackberry buzzed with incoming e-mails every 30 seconds or so, Mills said he stays in shape by running and working out every couple of days.

Folks, when you’re carrying a Blackberry which receives an e-mail every 30 seconds, you know that you’re micromanaging your reports.  It’s a model taken from American Corporate conglomerates, and it isn’t appropriate for the U.S. military.  It’s why General McChrystal feels that it’s appropriate to issue tactical directives that govern rules of engagement in very localized and unique situations, settings and situations about which he knows absolutely nothing.

It’s the same mentality that dictates that a Battalion of Marines in Fallujah in 2007 must jettison their lighter, more dust and desert friendly Bates Tactical Boots (purchased at TAGs before deployment in lieu of the heavier clodhopper Marine Boots) because they don’t all look quite the same as the issue boots to a camera mounted in Fallujah streaming to the Pentagon.  Or because of a MARADMIN on equipment.  That’s right.  Eight Hundred Marines throw away their boots with logistics having to ship that many more pairs to Fallujah because – they need to look the same as each other.

Regardless of the alleged trust that field grade and flag officers have in what they call our fine young men in combat, the reality of the situation is that they don’t trust the enlisted men or the NCOs to do the right thing.  If they did they wouldn’t need to deny artillery support for Marines in Kunar (killing four), take e-mails every 30 seconds, or in fact worry about tactics at all.  Generals worry over strategy, not tactics.  We have lost our way and become upside down in our focus, and unless we regain it, we – the premier Armed Forces in the world – we will lose our advantage to a bunch of ignorant, sandaled fanatics because we are being run by a group of control freaks who worry over the wrong things.

From Tom Ricks’ blog concerning one Marine NCO’s view of patrolling:

We have to get back our patrolling capabilities.  Ninety percent of everything we do is patrolling but we aren’t good at it.  The Iraq experience has done some good things for our Corps but it has diminished our patrolling capabilities.  Our NCOs’ experience in Iraq has fostered a sure knowledge that the double column is the preferred formation and moving along roads is acceptable, which are exactly the wrong things to do.  Right now we operate at an acceptable level but with some focused training we can limit our casualties, while killing more of the enemy.  Everyone can spout 5-3-5 rules but few know what it is and even fewer practice it.

A)   Each patrol needs a viable mission that accomplishes a needed task.  Going here because we went over there yesterday is beyond stupid and you are failing as a leader with that reasoning.

B) Go through the orders process in its entirety when able.  At a minimum do route planning and brief an order covering Situation (past 24 or 48 hours and other patrols) Mission (what, where and purpose), Execution (intent, where you expect to make contact or find IEDs and actions when that happens, IA drills for contact, IED strike, Medevac, and cover formation types – where you will satellite/guardian angel, wedge echelon etc).

C) Do a confirmation brief with the platoon commander.

D) Conduct Initial and Final Inspections.

E) Use an Initial Rally Point inside the wire to conduct your final inspection, do last minute rehearsals or rehearsal of concept drills, final com checks, get in your initial combat formation and be counted out of the wire by the APL – use your APL, most of the Marines now days don’t even know what that is.

F) Point men need to be trained along with flanks.  Use a dual point system – one guy looking close for IED threat and one far scanning tree lines.  Walk at a pace that facilitates your mission, not which gets you back to the patrol base quicker.

G) Take security halts and observe your surroundings frequently.  Have one of your patrol elements set up in observation covertly while the other element moves into the village.  Watch the actions the locals do.  Want atmospherics, see if there are runners or people move towards the patrol to greet them.  If something happens, this observation team is already set as a base of fire.

H) Investigate what is happening.  Marines often see locals doing routine tasks, like pumping water or kids playing, when if they investigated vice just continuing to patrol on by, they would see the hole perfectly shaped for an IED amongst the playing children dug by the guy with a pick axe being shielded by the pretty kids playing in the road.  The Taliban are masters at using the obvious to deploy IEDs right under your nose.

I) Use deception.  Send out two patrols at a time in different directions, and then have one circle back.  All too often we rotate patrols in and out.  The Taliban quickly figure out that if the patrol just went west, he has complete freedom of movement to the East.

J) Use Satellites, traveling and bounding over watch and a variety of formations to match the threat.

K) Do not set patterns.

L) Stay the fuck off of roads and trails.  I believe that every casualty our battalion has taken from IEDs, with the exception of two incidents, has been on a road or trail and it has been at times when the Marines were not required to be on the road or trail as part of a sweep/clearance mission.

M) Use rally points.

N) Use the appropriate formation to be in the most advantageous position to immediately gain the initiative and kill the enemy.  We are very lacking in this area and a lot of our squad leaders just don’t get it.  Use TDGs and a variety of training scenarios to get them up to speed and understand a variety of terrain and tactical based scenarios.

O) Crossing Linear Danger areas is a lost art, especially when a patrol will walk three hundred meters along a canal to find a foot bridge to cross it – terrible at setting patterns, just walk through the water but set up near and far side security first and use a variety of techniques so you don’t set patterns.

I’ll leave it to the reader to finish the diatribe at Tom’s blog.  Every boot learns from the experienced Marines before him, and so on the process goes.  Many of the Marines with Iraq experience have since left the Corps, and thus many Marines deploying to Afghanistan have no combat experience.  But neither did the Marines who deployed to the Anbar Province the first time.

Patrolling in Anbar took on the characteristics that it needed in order to succeed.  Patrolling in the Helmand Province will do likewise, retaining some characteristics that have been learned from Iraq and jettisoning others, while modifying the skill set to adapt to the environs.

Satellite patrolling has been around for a while and will continue as a useful tactic.  This NCO doesn’t need to tell Marines what a satellite patrol is – they already know, and they know how to do it.  But if standard two by two cover formation along roads isn’t appropriate for Helmand because of IEDs and canals are safer and more productive, the Marines will pick it up and adapt quickly.

This NCO is exaggerating about the Marines’ need to learn patrolling.  Not everyone who screams that we don’t know how to do counterinsurgency has the most objective view of things or deserves to have his views cast as representing the entire service.  Something that should be taught to young Marines by his superiors isn’t necessarily the same thing as tactical incompetence on the part of the entire force.

Our friend Michael Yon has penned a must read at the Small Wars Journal entitled Arghandab and the Battle for Kandahar.  Myra MacDonald of Reuters picks up on Michael’s assessment and makes a salient point.

… let’s assume for the purposes of argument that Pakistan does not drop its resistance to tackling Afghan militants in its border regions. (Pakistan argues it cannot tackle everyone at once and has its hands full fighting the Pakistani Taliban; its critics say it is hedging its bets ahead of any eventual U.S. withdrawal, when it might want to use groups like the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan.)

At that point, a major U.S. military success in Afghanistan could be the only way to break the stalemate. An in that light, Yon’s focus on the Arghandab River Valley becomes essential reading.

We’ll return to Myra’s point momentarily.  Michael performs far-reaching analysis, from use of the Russian experience in Afghanistan (The Bear Went Over the Mountain) to the revised tactical directive issued by General McChrystal (ROE).  Michael doesn’t weigh in himself on the ROE.  He does honestly point out that the ROE will cause additional casualties.  Petraeus also confesses that Afghanistan will get bloodier than it is now.  It will so for more reasons than simply adding more troops (or better said, it could be less bloody than it is going to be).

The question is not whether there is ROE.  Michael points out that the Russian ROE turned the population completely against them because they essentially had no ROE.  We do, we did, and we will in the future.  The question is more nuanced than that.  I am aware from a number of sources the nature of combat and other operations in Fallujah in 2007 (and at other points in the campaign for Anbar), and the ROE were more robust than currently in place in Afghanistan; or in other words, McChrystal’s tactical directive is more restrictive than the ROE in effect while the Anbar Province was being won by the U.S. Marine Corps.  In order to believe that the revised tactical directive is beneficial to the campaign one must believe that the ensuing casualties for which it is at least a contributing cause will be less in the long run than if a more robust ROE were in place with its accompanying increased force protection.  We’ll see.  Troop morale and public opinion mean everything to the campaign.

Michael continues by pointing out that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is fictitious.  Taliban cross with impunity through this imaginary border, and the coming battle will be for Afghanistan’s South.

In Helmand, the fight is serious, and friendly troops are spread far too thinly. Some experts believe that focusing on Helmand before securing Kandahar was a strategic error. Most districts in Kandahar are said to be under Taliban control or heavy influence. Some areas of the south are under complete, uncontested Taliban control …

The Taliban want Kandahar and are in a good position to get it. The year 2010 likely will mark a true Battle for Kandahar, though it probably will not be punctuated by the sort of pitched battles we saw in places like Mosul and Baghdad. This remains unknown.

Armies from at least three countries have ventured into the Arghandab River Valley: British, followed by Soviets, and more recently Canadians; all were unsuccessful.

Michael compares and contrasts the Russian campaign with the coming U.S. and ISAF operations, and then rehearses a bit of recent history for us.

The enemy is not defeated, but our people were now operating among them. U.S. casualties continued during the next three months but there are indications that the enemy is today in disarray. The enemy became afraid to sleep indoors where they might be killed by an airstrike—or by U.S. soldiers, who have a tendency to burst in during periods of maximum REM sleep. The Taliban were terrorized and began sleeping in the orchards at night, rigging homes with explosives, which they arm at night. (I’ve heard similar reports from Pakistan. Pakistanis have said that drone strikes are demoralizing and terrorizing the Taliban, and though drone strikes are controversial, some Pakistanis want to see the strikes increased.)

And so we have a dilemma even in Michael’s account.  These episodes of bursting in by U.S. Soldiers came to an end with McChrystal’s tactical directive, and the drone strikes into Pakistan which have so disheartened the Taliban don’t have an analogy with the ROE in use by Soldiers and Marines in Helmand and elsewhere in Afghanistan.

But Michael points out that fresh troops are indeed on the way, and that’s good.  More force projection is needed.  But I have titled this the battle for Kandahar and Helmand because the fight cannot be disentangled from Helmand any more than it can be from Pakistan.  Population centric COIN doctrine has driven us to Kandahar, but leaving Helmand alone is not an acceptable solution given that the Taliban train there, raise their support there, and take refuge in its scattered towns.

The Marines left the operations in Now Zad improperly resourced and thus the Taliban fighters garrisoned there escaped.  Marja is next, and the Marines’ claim is that “We won’t leave anywhere else uncovered. We won’t go anywhere we can’t clear, we won’t clear anywhere we can’t stay and we won’t stay anywhere we can’t build.”  Helmand and Kandahar may be seen as coupled, with operations in one place affecting operations in the other.

True enough, Pakistani Army operations on the imaginary side of the border mean something.  Back to Ms. MacDonald’s point, I have previously said that:

The conversation on Pakistan versus Afghanistan presupposes that the Durand Line means anything, and that the Taliban and al Qaeda respect an imaginary boundary cut through the middle of the Hindu Kush.  It doesn’t and they don’t.  If our engagement of Pakistan is to mean anything, we must understand that they are taking their cue from us, and that our campaign is pressing the radicals from the Afghanistan side while their campaign is pressing them from the Pakistani side.

Advocating disengagement from Afghanistan is tantamount to suggesting that one front against the enemy would be better than two, and that one nation involved in the struggle would be better than two (assuming that Pakistan would keep up the fight in our total absence, an assumption for which I see no basis).  It’s tantamount to suggesting that it’s better to give the Taliban and al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan as Pakistan presses them from their side, or that it’s better to give them safe haven in Pakistan while we press them from our side.  Both suggestions are preposterous.

That there is an indigenous insurgency (the so-called ten dollar Taliban) that bootstraps to the real religiously motivated fighters is irrelevant.  We had to fight our way through this group in Iraq too, and it is the nature of these insurgencies.  Complaining about it is acceptable – but using it as an excuse to abandon the campaign is not.  That every contact isn’t with Arabic or Chechen or Uzbek jihadists is irrelevant.  That doesn’t mean that Afghanistan is not a central front in the transnational insurgency called Islamic Jihad.  The Taliban are important inasmuch as they gave and would continue to give safe haven to globalists.

For this reason the campaign in Afghanistan must be successful.  Pakistan will take their cue from us and follow our lead.