The planned escalation in Afghanistan is being billed as necessary for a successful counterinsurgency strategy, but that's like saying a few bags of sand are necessary to stop New Orleans from flooding. Like Hurricane Katrina, this metastasized piece of the Bush legacy could drown us. If we don't get Afghanistan right, Obama's potential is going under.
How Will We Use More Troops?
First, let's get something straight: you should not take any escalation proponent seriously when they call this a "surge." It's not designed to be a short term strategy. Military personnel have been very clear that the new troop levels are designed to be a long-term escalation.
General David McKiernan:
"I don’t like to use the word ‘surge’ here because if we put these additional forces in here, it’s going to be for the next few years," he said. "It’s not a temporary increase of combat strength."
Second, and more importantly, we should be clear on what it means to fight a counterinsurgency in accordance with U.S. Army/Marine Corps doctrine as described in The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.
Counterinsurgency: "military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency...counterinsurgents...use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging." (p. 2)
How Many Troops Do You Need for Counterinsurgency?
U.S. Army/Marine Corps doctrine is crystal clear on the number of troops needed for a successful counterinsurgency strategy:
"Twenty counterinsurgents per 1,000 residents is often considered the minimum troop density required for effective COIN operations; however as with any fixed ratio, such calculations remain very different dependent upon the situation." (p. 23)
It's hard to imagine any credible argument for a lower minimum troop density for success in Afghanistan. During 30 days ending on September 24, 2008, the hostile fire death rate for U.S. forces in Afghanistan was fifteen times higher than Iraq. If you think military force is the answer there, I cannot take you seriously if you think Afghanistan is a place where you should be fudging your minimums.
So, Let's Do Some Math
According to the CIA World Factbook, there are 32,738,376 people living in Afghanistan.
Afghan population [32,738,376] multiplied by the minimum troop density ratio [20:1000, or 0.02] = 654,767.52
Did you catch that? To run a country-wide counterinsurgency strategy with the absolute minimum force levels required by U.S. Army/Marine Corps doctrine, we'd need almost 655,000 troops, or an escalation roughly 600,000 troops higher than the target force levels in the current proposed strategy.
Well, okay...one might be willing to do a counterinsurgency "on the cheap," focusing on only the most volatile part of Afghanistan: the Pashtun areas. The thinking here would be to focus scarce resources on the major centers of the insurgency, with the hope that the increased stability you'd gain would give the Afghan forces enough breathing room to finally come together. So let's do some more math:
According to surge proponents, there are roughly 14 million Pashtuns living in Afghanistan. So:
Afghan Pashtun population [14,000,000] multiplied by the minimum troop density ratio [0.02] = 230,000
So now, post escalation, we'd be only 170,000 troops short of the minimum troop levels needed for the kind of campaign the escalation pushers want to run, assuming total U.S. forces reached 60,000 troops.
Let's be even more generous. Let's forget the internal squabbling in the NATO forces over which forces will do what kinds of missions. Let's just throw the rest of the available international forces into consideration. And, let's make a really, really bad assumption: that Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Policy (ANP) count as "counterinsurgents."
Combined U.S./NATO forces [47,600] plus a proposed escalation [30,000] + ANA and ANP [127,000] = 204,600
So, assuming mission unity among a fractious coalition and the skill, loyalty, and reliability of the Afghan forces, we're still about 5-6 brigades short of the number needed just to fight a bare-bones counterinsurgency in only the most volatile region of Afghanistan.
But, not to worry. When the numbers don't fit the strategy, surge proponents know what to do: fudge.
The U.S. will not be able to achieve a 20:1,000 security force density ratio for an Afghan population well over 32 million, even with the help of NATO and Afghan National Security Forces. However, a surge could establish at least a 10:1,000 ratio in key parts of the critical Pashtun-dominated south and east regions until more ANA and ANP units could be fielded in sufficient numbers.
Did you catch that? The most generous interpretation of what Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Downey, Lieutenant Colonel Lee K. Grubbs, Commander Brian J. Malloy and Lieutenant Colonel Craig R. Wonson said in the above boils down to this:
"We cannot reach the minimum troop levels required by our own counterinsurgency doctrine. So, what we'll do instead is field only half of the troops required for "success"* in the absolute worst areas of the most dangerous areas of the country and hope that the ANA and ANP get their act together to save your sons' and daughters' behinds."
The less generous interpretation is, well, less generous:
"Politically, it's foolish to call for a massive escalation from a war-weary populace that just voted for Change. So we'll start slow. We'll throw half the needed troops into an un-winnable situation, and we'll let them call for help."
Even if we only judge calls for 30,000 additional troops solely by the U.S. Army/Marine Corps counterinsurgency troop density requirements, we'd conclude it was doomed to fail. If we accept that a military solution is possible (which I do not), this escalation is, at best, a pitiful half-measure. At worst, it's a down payment on a huge escalation paid in blood. And that's not even considering the fact that the doctrine calls for sustained commitment and "increased tactical risk" for long-term strategic gains (read: more casualties in the short run to shore up the Afghan government in the long run).
Long-term involvement in a higher-casualty war than Iraq. Trillions spent on war in the depths of a terrifying economic crisis. And that's if everything goes according to plan. Are you comfortable with that?
To make matters worse, all of the above would be true even if the heart and soul of a successful counterinsurgency strategy* were in place: a legitimate host nation government. As I'll discuss in Part Two, it's not.
In my next post, I'll discuss the poisonous regime in Kabul and the "lessons learned in Iraq" that will further wreck a so-called counterinsurgency strategy.
*Their numbers and doctrine, not mine.
This post is one of my contributions to Get Afghanistan Right Week, a week of coordinated blogging to push back against escalation in Afghanistan and to promote non-military solutions. If you want to get involved, it's easy: just write up a post and send the link to getafghanistanright AT gmail.com.