In the flat plains of southern Afghanistan, the “armed social work” efforts of the Marine Corps begins to bear fruit:
Three years ago, Garmsir market was shot up and abandoned; the scene of pitched battles between British forces and the Taliban. But today UK and US troops have driven them away from the town and Garmsir is held up as a success story.
In the past three months, US marines have built on British efforts to establish meaningful local government. They have engaged in development work and brought an air of modest prosperity to the town…
Lt Col Cabannis says success depends on winning the consent of the local people, not on killing insurgents.
“The way we root them out is not just through security but delivery of governance; the government of Afghanistan has something positive to offer the people and the Taliban don’t.”
He believes that many insurgents can be persuaded to put down their weapons and re-join society and there are discussions under way as to how to achieve this.
The marines’ success is in part due to sheer size; having the force strength to push into new areas, to stay there and to engage in what they call “consent-winning activities” on a much larger scale than Britain has been able to.
In the poorly resourced, mountainous east of the country, in Nuristan province – not far from where the debacle took place at Wanat – a different tale unfolds at a remote combat outpost:
Eight American soldiers and two Afghan troops have been killed in the deadliest attack on coalition troops for more than a year, officials say.
The battle happened in Nuristan province in the remote east of the country when military outposts were attacked, a Nato statement said.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack, and had captured local police.
Violence has escalated in eastern Afghanistan as insurgents have relocated from the south.
These are the costs of half measures: Sufficient force to squeeze the Taliban out of the south. Insufficient forces to keep them from massing elsewhere. Washington has the luxury of time to dicker over strategy. While doing so, time has run out for eight young men who lived and died without any luxuries at all.
The time for half measures and dithering is over. It’s time to go heavy, or go home.
There is no middle path.
Update: A Pakistani army officer, courtesy of Greyhawk -
No sane citizen of our world, let alone a Pakistani infantry officer who may soon end up being another name on an ever-growing list of the fallen soldiers in the war against terror, enjoys thinking about the painful possibility of our world’s greatest military power and history’s most inspiring nation retreating in the face of an onslaught by Kalashnikov-wielding bearded barbarians riding on the back of motorcycles, hungry horses and perspiring mules.
You may have seen, CAPT Lex, that an unnamed administration official commented on the range of options being considered. Of the 40,000-troop increase, he said, “That would be the ‘we’re in it to win it’ option.” It apparently did not occur to him what his words suggested about the other options.
Another view point from someone close to the area.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2009/10/an-alternative-approach-for-af/
Eric – that article is the most thoughtful view I’ve read in a long time. I wish I’d read it before I posted other items here. I really wish (hope?) it’s being read in the White House.
Thanks – Brian
Simply muddling through is immoral. Vietnam became immoral for that very reason. MacArthur said it best, “there is no substitute for victory.” Either get in to win, or come home. Just realize that coming home will have very serious consequences.
With respects to everyone here, can someone give me a definition of win? What is the goal – turn Af into a democracy? What is the plan for that – go heavy long enough to hold the entire country? For how long? As the talibs have been saying – the US has the watches, but we have the time.
I understand the practices that the talibs bring – I’ve read enough to know that I do not condone their view of the social order and what they call justice. But how are we going to change that short of the US becoming the Af gov’t? Is that our responsibility? I have not seen evidence yet that their collection of tribes even wants a central gov’t, so now we’re trying to force a gov’t on a group of people who don’t seem to want it and are willing to die trying to defeat it. Amybe I’m wrong and the talibs are a small minority, but it doesn’t appear that way from what I can see and read.
I think the world understands that when we are directly attacked we will respond; and we have proven that we will commit blood and treasure to an area for a considerable amount of time even if it is unpopular at home – Iraq, for instance. But at the same time, I am starting to think I’d rather leave the Afs to their own devices and just keep an eye on them. For one thing, if AQ starts to think they have a safe haven, what’s to stop us from carrying out a multi-faceted operation to take out what we find growing there. I’m not saying it would be easy, but it might make more sense than an open-ended operation that is unpopular with what apears to be a broad range of the local populace.
I am trying to envision what the “very serious consequences” are for changing the direction here. Is it a loss of national prestige? Why – we took out the taliban “gov’t” when they allowed AQ to launch an attack on us. There is nothing to say we would not do that again if we thought a threat was forming – but do we have to hold the country and prop up it’s corrupt gov’t? I’m not sure about that. Is the fear that someone going to attack us because we decided that the cost of blood and treasure there were not worth it? That’s a pretty serious miscalculation, I’d think. Just because we make that determination in Af at this point (after 8 years) doesn’t mean it will be made elsewhere. Each situation is unique, I think.
All that said, I also don’t understand why this decision is taking BHO weeks. He’s the CinC – hold 3 hour meetings every day until you can make the decision if that’s what it takes. There are lives at stake here. What the hell was he doing flying off to plug Chicago for the Olympics when this issue is unresolved?
Thanks – Brian
QM, just what would those consequences be? In terms of American best interests, and in the Reagan-era understanding of neo-conservatism, with the recognition that America’s best interests are the world’s best interests, that is. Forget making Afghans democrats or anysuch, just what would the consequences for the USA be?
And Lex, your quotation from yet another Paki on our teat: did you read the whole PDF? Interesting that this representative from a government that had and still has no small role in creating modern Afghanistan sees no Paki role in somehow ending, in his words, the Pashtun insurgency in Afghanistan. He shreds the existing excuse for a strategy, but his solution is more of the same, ponderous outpourings of US dollars in pro-Islamic efforts, only in tiny locales that will become shining cities on hills, and will draw the Pashtun peacefully forth. Let Pakistan spend its own money, not our billions in annual dhimmi payments, to build those mosques and radio centers broadcasting the Koran 24/7 in Pashtun. Funny how anything a Pakistani military officer says ends up having a US price tag attached. Screw him and his mock-concern for the international standing of the USA. If you want his expert opinion on something, ask him how that peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone in went. Was he there when the Aussies drew weapons on the Pakis to end their little rampage of child rape (’cause they’re only infidels, after all).
Really, Lex…
Zane, I think I understand what you do not like about our current policy of engagement with the Islamic world. I do not know that I fully grasp your alternative.
Lex/
RE: “armed social work” by the USMC.
I think I said here once in another context that it was the experience of Vietnam, that, Green Berets/SF aside, the Armys main interest was in killing people and breaking things, period. But the Marines by contrast really had a very effective WHAM program that did both the “armed” part of the equation as well as the “social” bit. Their work and embed with the RF/PF (ruff-puffs) and CIDG people at the local level in I-Corps really paid dividends–at least from my limited perspective which was mainly talking to people at the bar like the CIA and State Dept administrative-type spooks as well as USAID types, etc. And my impressions, admittedly scant and lacking in research quality rigor–occluded by fast-moving whiskey fronts as they were, seem to have been born out by subsequent post-war academic studies.
The alternative? Stop wasting our treasure on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nothing we do there–nothing–makes much of a difference in stopping terrorism (except for killing actual terrorists, wannabes and their facilitators in large numbers, which doesn’t seem to be currently on the table), and it bleeds us dry while distracting us from the real fight we’re already in to preserve our natural rights from the encroachment of Sharia. Let Afghanistan go to Hell, let Iran and Pakistan bleed trying to keep it from tearing them apart. It is not our job to domesticate wild dogs, and the current myth that all the world’s problems come from the “ungoverned spaces” is hogwash. Leave them alone unless they want to come to their senses, shoot them like wild dogs when they leave the wild spaces (as opposed to making them priority diversity emigration candidates).
I should add that the kind of retreat Obama envisions has nothing of this strategic thought behind it, regrettably. Retreating from the badlands to defend the West is not on his agenda, since he wants to retreat from the West as fast as he can as well. Damned if we stay, damned if we leave, but at least we aren’t bleeding our increasingly scarce military men and materiel as fast if we leave.
To return without victory would embolden the terrs quite a lot. Since the left of both parties have no desire to lock down our borders, the next step for them would be to bring the war to us. 9/11 was an attempt to do just that, but we scotched it by going over there.
There are many in Pakistan that want the US to maintain its international standing. The mere idea that we would not is scary to that sane bunch in an insane region. Yes it has a US price tag, but we started it, and we have either finish it or cut and run. The latter would destroy any international standing we have, and we would return to the Post-Vietnam regime where the US meant almost nothing.
QM, not to claim any special insight, but my trade is counter-terrorism, and though our leaving would probably generate a spew of long-winded videos from the cave dwellers, I don’t think that our staying or going makes much difference, so long as our prime purpose in staying isn’t killing them often and in large numbers. Creating an Afghanistan means nothing to the terrorists, nor to the Pashtuns. I don’t know what you mean by “we started it,” but we didn’t start anything over there, it was broke when we got there, and no amount of the republic’s horses or men can ever put it together, never mind together again.
As far as that mysterious “international standing,” flatly and honestly saying that we can do nothing for a tribal society infected with Sharia would probably cause more than a few scales to shed. Certainly NATO would enjoy leaving, and if we could do it while re-energizing their own desire to survive the tides of Shariah overwashing their borders, so much the better. But I hold little hope of either Obama or Europe actually developing that far.
NATO amounts to very little. It barely meant anything when Ivan was sitting at the entrance of the Fulda Gap considering if they wanted to sample FRG Brats and Beer.
I agree with you on nation building, and we shouldn’t have started in the first place. But if you start something (and we did start hurling the heavy ordnance about the room and drove the Taliban from the place and into Pakistan) then you had better win. The place is a mess, but we didn’t contribute to that, it’s what we found. If we leave a mess, then our name will be mud. If you think not, then I suggest you study the time frame of 1972-1980 when we cut and ran from Vietnam. We were still picking up the pieces in Reagan’s first term.
This is one thing you and I are simply going to disagree on. The really bad part is that history makes a mishmash of your position. Human Nature is a nasty thing, particularly when it is backed by the nonsense on stilts of the Islamists.
I don’t think I made any claims for NATO. But if it was foolish to start nation building in the first place, why is it less foolish to continue? Doing the same thing you’ve been doing and expecting different results, the very definition of insanity.
As for hurling the heavy artillery, gimme a break. Compared to the Soviets, the warlords and the Pakis, who I will remind you yet again created the Taliban in the first place, we’re the boy scouts. Afghanistan is a HUGE place, it just looks small on the map, and is ungovernable, period. History backs me up on that one pretty solidly.
Pissing off on Afghanistan is in no way comparable to Vietnam, which was small, accessible (like Uzbekistan and Pakistan are our partners now, new and old stupidities rolled together) and reasonably civilized. We are not in a power struggle with the USSR, and if the Chinese want Afghanistan, let ‘em have it. No, our battle is not to convert (God forbid) some tribal Islamists on stilts, it’s to defend what remains against the tidal wave of Shariah that is hurtling our way. Afghanistan never was ours, wave goodbye to it, or wave goodbye to Europe and to your freedoms, hard won over the centuries and frittled away in these quixotic efforts.
While I fully agree with the sentiment we should go “all in” or pack up and leave I do not for one minute believe we will. And while the responsibility for that decision will lay with the current administration I don’t believe the final approach and outcome would have been all that different under a McCain or otherwise led administration.
When has the US gone “all in to win”? The Civil War and WWII come to mind but not since. Korea? nope, Viet Nam, as many readers share from painful personal experience? No way. Somalia, Bosnia, Gulf I – close perhaps but retreated when Baghdad was on the near horizon.
The point is we as a nation will not go all out – will not expand the armed forces by any means necessary to go and take over the damn place if necessary. Won’t bomb to the stone age, etc.
No we will be constrained by all the usual reasons – most of them very valid. I have no answers as I’m not a trained military man. But I see barbarians – actual real life barbarians – who show no reservation to rape, murder, pillage, and destroy. We want to believe that at some point they will “get it” or that we can somehow engage enough with the local population to force them even deeper underground. I have no doubt we could as we have the most powerful forces ever massed on earth. But we won’t, indeed in large part we can’t. And even if we could, our own people would not support it.
And so we dither – and “adjust strategy” – and readjust with each new face ascending to the seat of power. Its been nine years – we won WWII twice against two different enemies in less time. Because we all wanted to and didn’t flinch at the sacrifices required be EVERYONE. When was the last time you ever heard or read about an “average” civilian in the country being asked to sacrifice anything for anything? Instead we get promised a litany of things that any simpleton can comprehend just can’t be true but long to believe anyway. Its no wonder that government is the entity selling lottery tickets – it no less foolish than anything else its peddling and the fools keep buying.
All in? You’re dreaming. All out? The overnight polling data won’t support it. And so we dither – and eight more young men die as a consequence. What happened to our country?
OldT6/
As one GI in Iraq or Af (can’t remember which) said a while back: “The US Army is at war; America is at the mall.”
(But look on the bright side, OldT6, thanks to Obamanomics, no one will soon have any money to go to the mall, so the GIs sarcasm will soon be rendered moot. No reason for unsolicited sarcasm then, right?)
VX
The only thing that might change BHO’s view on Afghan is if they could produce 8 military absentee ballots from these recent KIA and lo and behold, all 8 had voted obama. We are losing the same way we lost VN – by body count. I’ll bet the Taliban are trumpeting the fact that 8 Americans were killed irregardless of them losing 2, 20, or 200.
And Zane re: consequences? 9/11 part two?
I believe Hillary Clinton made the comment about McChrystal’s plan that “other experts” disagreed with more troops. When pressed on those “other experts” and were they military and had they been to Afghan the answer was …….. Lex said it best yesterday, “we don’t have a plan, we just don’t like yours”.
G-man – I don’t believe that “9/11 part 2″ can be a put up as a “consequence” – the world is not the same place it was 10 years ago. We are actively pursuing AQ in a number of places around the world – much more aggressively than back in 2000, and with our eyes wide open as to how they play the game.
You seem to make the assumption that if we leave Af we are going to completely ignore AQ developments. In my mind that assumption is not credible.
Respectfully – Brian
“We are actively pursuing AQ in a number of places around the world – much more aggressively than back in 2000, and with our eyes wide open as to how they play the game.”
Really? Who in the Obamanoid maladminstration is doing the watching, and show me where the political apparatus in this country has learned a blessed thing.
The left of both parties are unwilling to watch the border to this day (McCain, alas, is part of this left, right along with a lot of Chamber of Commerce types that don’t want the borders locked down). It would not surprise me a bit if AQ has nukes in this country even as you read this. As with Rome, the hoi polloi would rather just go along about their lives while the left tears things down, and utterly weakens the resolve of the country. In wars such we are in now, resolve and nerve are the most important factors. Lose either one, and you have lost. If that happens, you will be among those who curse the day the US lost its nerve and resolve. There is no longer a new world to run to and so escape the stupidity of the past.
Did we not conduct an operation in the last ~2 weeks that took down a major AQ player in the Sudan? We took his body out with us just to make sure. I believe Lex referenced the event in his blog.
That’s not nothing and I think it shows in some measure that we are not just sticking our heads in the sand.
From what I have read from Yon and others, and I particularly like the writeup Eric references above in this thread, there is more than one way to do this thing. And changing strategies does not automatically indicate a total capitulation. Besides, the talib seems to have taken a page out of Ho Chi Min’s playbook – imbedding with the locals so that we are virtually have to destroy them all to save them. That is not a strategy for winning over the Af people. And if you’re not going to win them over then you must either rule them or leave them to themselves.
It’s a tough nut no matter how you crack it.
That said, the BHO needs to make a decision – NOW. Not over the next 6 weeks. That’s something that really bothers me – good people are dying while he ponders.
V/R – Brian
I keep up with this crap because I have two grandsons in this fight. I have read and read most everything about Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that most people that write about it don’t know a damn thing about what they are saying or writing. Just copy catting and guessing and bullsh1tting. I’ve also talked to in person and had email correspondence with well over a dozen enlisted and officers, both Army and Marine that have tours in Afghanistan. I’ve also had (long ago and far away) on the job training in a “small war”. None of this makes me more of an expert than most, yet it does allow me to put my opinion out there.
The one guy I do believe is Michael Yon. Three years ago he said that NATO was losing it’s ass fast in Afghanistan and that major efforts would be needed just to meet the level of violence, let alone make the population safe and to turn them away from the bad guys. The Afghans are not stupid they go with the strongest and most dangerous. That is the way they have stayed alive.
He also was calling for more helicopters, not just for the U.S. But for especially the Brits. To date the Brits still have a dangerous shortage and the U.S. And others do not have near enough.
There are many factors involved in why the Afghan war and Iraq war (I call them battles in the same war) are different. But one of the major reasons is that Pakistan is much more involved in Afghanistan than Iran ever will be in Iraq. To “win” in Afghanistan we must also win at the same time in Pakistan. They go together like a condom and you know what. But actually there is no condom between them, just a line that the UN drew which is not and never was recognized by the various tribes anymore than we would recognize one wave in the ocean separating one ocean from another.
To get a little background go to Michael Yon’s website and start reading from as far back as you care to go to get an idea of the deep shit that we have stepped into and sunk up to our ears in. He mentions other sources of info in his “dispatches” as well, including other journalists that have been there and done that.
While your there, hit his tip jar. It is the ONLY source of revenue he has other than his book sales. You should also buy his book too. Great read and will leave you in amazement at our Warriors and their exploits.
Someone said that the Afghans were still back in the stone age. they are almost right except these Islamic caveman tribes know how to use almost every modern weapon there is and how to make a lot of them. They are born Warriors and have been at it for thousands of years and so far have never been defeated. Many that have fought there say that they are more like Americans than most want to understand. It is their land and they won’t ever tolerate or stop fighting invaders.
Yon and others have said in all seriousness that it will take most likely thirty to fifty years to bring Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan into the 20th century. Not even the 21st Century.
But all those that have spent any time there all say that the people are worth saving and that once they are your friend they are your friend for life. That they, like Americans despise a government which pushes them down with false promises and is corrupt which BTW, they now have courtesy of the U.S. Every returning troop I have spoke to or had email exchanges with say that they deserve help climbing out of the past into a future where life and liberty will be more important than corruption, tribal identity, perpetual war and poverty.
But that is how our Warriors feel and think, not all of the world nor the democrats or even some conservatives.
Obama and his henchmen don’t have the stomach for what it will take to even slow down the killing let alone construct what needs to be built in Afghanistan. Notice I didn’t say re-construction, because there is nothing there to re-construct. The latest request for troops (which is not half of what will be required) has become something to be debated over instead of acted upon, and THEN debated. When our Warriors are actively engaged with the enemy is not the time to ask for bi-weekly updates on the debate to be forwarded to this so called “commander in chief”.
Those that know say it will take even more troops than Iraq and it will take much more from our NATO “friends” than they will want to give or will give. Right now only about 4 or five countries are actually doing any fighting, the rest are there for mainly political reasons. Some don’t know why they are there at all and do nothing to contribute, just cost money.
Fundamental Islamics are the same the world over, except that those in Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan are more nationalistic and more tribal. They don’t want ANYBODY in their country, even as they hate what the Taliban and outside Islamics are doing to their nation. But even as they say that, they admit that the Taliban are still their “brothers”. Both the Taliban in Afghanistan and those in Pakistan. It’s family, tribe and then nationalistic in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It is indeed a mess and a quandary and Obama and the democrats stand no chance in solving it, because they don’t understand that you have to have security before you can do anything else and to get security you have to kill or capture the bad guys, drive them before you and keep them from terrorizing the population. They are more worried about offending the Afghans than getting them security. There has to be a balance. You can’t allow the bad guys to use your ROE against you.
Which they are doing now.
Here a few links for you to read over.
http://tinyurl.com/5sc6ua
http://tinyurl.com/yc9j87o
http://tinyurl.com/lfezrx
http://tinyurl.com/ybvl5jo
http://tinyurl.com/kqv2kr
http://tinyurl.com/c7jtsj
Papa Ray
Used to be West (now) Central Texas
Papa Ray/
Nice post and links. Much appreciated. You’re not bitter or anything are you? I certainly never would have guessed
(Ps: Guess now that you’ve left West Tx, there’s less tumbleweed to cope with as you rumble down the road, right?
[...] Neptunus Lex on “the cost of muddling through.” Put another way, you can go through a lot of quarters playing wack-a-mole. [...]
Papa Ray, could not agree more about Mr. Yon. If I had to pick one person to know what is happening in AF, it would be he. Not McCrystal, Petraeus, Mullen, or ANY of the politicos such as Gates, McCain, Clinton or BHO.
The point that Lex made about “go heavy, or go home” is also one that I agree with. Given the tribal nature of AF, the fact that virtually every reputable source (I would put Yon and John Burns at the top) say it would take decades to possibly, possibly, win the war, I am for pulling out.
No way will we stay in AF for decades -ain’t gonna happen. I do think that the politicians might do so (as long as they didn’t have skin in the game), but America will not support that long-term effort, especially for a “possible” win.
I hate to say pull out after all the lives that our troops have given, but without a viable end game, stop it. One Vietnam is enough.
re “It’s time to go heavy, or go home”
I agree 100%. Let’s start by putting heavy bombloads on close air support, now, and get those reinforcements on the ground to kill the enemy before they hit the mountain passes this winter.
Is that gonna happen with the empty suit as CINC? Hell no. We gotta face it.
Zane- I agree with you, too. Mostly.
PapaRay- you too. My opinion:
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2745/
On a large scale.
It really does seem to be gut check time. Even bigger than the fight to get the Iraq surge going on late ‘06. This administration is gutless however and that has me even more mad than the Islamofacist 9th century barbarians can make me. And you know it’s gonna get worse before it gets better because the only fight BHO and company are capable of waging is political- Chicago style backstabbing and graft. They’ll take the “weasle-wort out” over the right thing every friggin time.
b2
b2, long time no see, welcome.
[...] Neptunus Lex [...]
Greetings:
There seems to me that there is more than a bit of “Looking for a Tet ‘68″ going on in the more recent Afghanistan coverage. I would like to insert a bit of perspective based on my own personal infantry experiences.
Just as there are two basic plays in basketball, drive to the basket or jump shoot, there are two basic plays in the infantry. The first is the classic “Find ‘em, fix ‘em and finish ‘em” scenario. The second is its corollary, “Let them find you, fix ‘em and finish ‘em”. Effective infantrymen have to develop skills to deal with and execute both. Some days, you’re the cat looking for a mouse, and some days, you’re the cheese in the mousetrap.
The “Find ‘em” scenario is often referred to as a reconnaissance in force, if the target is yet to be located, or an assault, if their location has been determined. One of the difficulties with this approach in a guerilla war is that the enemy can chose fight or flight.
The “Let them” scenario involves finding and occupying a location that may or has significant import to the enemy. The underlying logic is to draw the enemy into a battle, so inserting too large a force would probably be counterproductive.
It seems to me, based on the very limited information available at this point, that the two recent, costly battles were of this latter type. While our casualties are certainly both tragic and unwanted, this is how infantry work sometimes needs to be done. It would be a disservice to our fallen to turn these engagements into reasons to abandon their mission.
“The “Let them” scenario involves finding and occupying a location that may or has significant import to the enemy. The underlying logic is to draw the enemy into a battle, so inserting too large a force would probably be counterproductive.”
Your correct as far as you took it. But there are other scenarios in between.
One of the big problems NATO has in Afghanistan is the lack of close air support, especially helicopters, both cargo and attack. The Brits have lost hundreds of men because they have hardly any air support and have to rely on us. If you were a grunt then you know that just a very few minutes can make the difference in living and dying. If you are dead or captured when the Air Support arrives…it may just as well not showed up at all.
I can attest to this fact because I’m still alive.
Papa Ray
Central Texas
Actually, the “let them” strategy or, as the Brits say, “occupying the middle of their grid square” is in many ways a superior strategy to “armed recce” if one can manage to find a geographical node they can’t avoid. First, supporting arty fires can be zeroed in and dedicated cas laid on. Second, fighting behind secure positions is preferable to being ambushed in the open, as can happen in the “recce by force” mode. And far more S. A. ammo and accompanying mortars & arty may be laid in than can be humped wandering the boonies looking for bad guys.in the recce mode.
The British made great use of fortified regiment-sized “boxes” (Fire bases on steroids) in the Burma campaign resupplied by air and effectively used to grind up several Japanese Divisions as they smashed themselves against these heavily defended areas replete with barbed wire outer entanglements, anti-tank ditches, organic arty, etc. The Brits wanted to do the same in Af using “mini” versions of the regiment-sized boxes of Berma days, but didn’t have the equip to make it work, and we seem to prefer the active patrol mode–a result partly of the difference in the philosophical ways we and the English wage war, and partly because hard to find choke points in Af that can’t be by-passed as the Taliban, unlike the Japanese, ain’t totin’ any arty, tanks or heavy equipment around like the Japs did in the late stages of the Burma campaign.
Virgil, what you mentions also touches upon the fire-base concept we employed in Vietnam, hardened artillery and air positions capable of providing supporting fire for smaller “bait” outposts. Which, as a concept, goes back to Hadrians Wall and probably the Great Wall of China.
The question is, in a country like Afghanistan, where do you place the fire-base to keep it protected and still allow fire support on your “bait” outpost? I expect the lack of air support, particularly helo, is also crippling the logistics train that would be needed to keep these fire-bases secure, supplied, and operational. Not to mention the enemy can probably calculate distance himself and determine to stay out of their range whenever possible, heavy artillery being somewhat difficult to hide.
I had an odd thought. Remember when we had B-52’s in the air at all times, just circling around waiting for SAC to tell them to return or go? I wonder what the cost would be to have, say, six or eight BUFFs orbiting around the country at thirty thousand feet just waiting for a FAC to direct them to a particular area?
Probably more expensive than setting up an artillery base, but with their range and mobility we shouldn’t need many. A proper orbit and proper base placement could have one within 30 minutes of any base, a response time that artillery can beat but air support by helo has a more difficult time meeting.
A B-52 strike can do wonders to the morale of the enemy, and your friends. Bombs or shells, it’s all artillery support.
– Max
MAX/
LOL. Great minds think alike, etc. When only a lowly 1/Lt in Vietnam I proposed/thought out loud that we should go to the boneyard and refurbish a bunch of B-36s for use as flying dump-trucks in orbit over SVN for night-time radar bombing. Both way more payload and loiter-time than B-52s and without any SAM or hi-alt AAA activity in the South pretty much invulnerable. Just wander around all night hitting pre-plans by radar using CSS-Combat Sky-spot, (an AF reverse B-52 practice radar bombing system) or the Marines more portable ASRAT radar bombing sys. Of course today with accuracy of GPS and lazers, you could use them as orbiting on-call CAS as you suggest. Makes sense to me. And I STILL think that in absence of air/SAM activity it still makes sense in terms of both operational cost and tactics to resurrect the 36s after all these years and use them instead. Refurbishing costs would be large, but they should then fly forever and suffer zero combat losses save runway incidents, etc., so useful in a number of conflicts over another 50 yrs or so.
When it comes to CAS nothing can beat a A-10 or a Cobra helo gunship in close. We should be dragging whatever we can of those out of the boneyard, and wish we had the ability to re-open the lines. They’re rugged, cheap, and effective aircraft. The Apache’s good, but gold-plated and dang near point designed to kill soviet tanks in the fulda gap.
Failing that we should be buying Super Tucanos now until we can get the AT-6 up and going, and flooding AF with them. Plus, government buys enough tooling (not the contractor) so that we have the ability to emergency surge produce our aircraft (something on the order of greater than twice the normal planned for peacetime production rate) in the event of a big war. If we aren’t doing that right now with Chinook production (better than blackhawks at AF altitudes, plus faster and more payload, truly an amazing helo) than someone needs to be fired.
One dead talib or 8 dead marines do not a decisive battle make.
Beware of cronkites in the grass.
Study the history of the Apache tribe over the last 200 years. There is much to be learned, I suspect.
I’m on the same page, Zane. Don’t see how this plays out well.
Evidently most of you are forgetting the current ROE in Afghanistan.
There will be no Arty fire, A10 or Gunships invoking hell on earth unless many in the tactical chain want to put their careers on the line to be snuffed out. If one civilian is killed, the Taliban and the local Taliban supporters will swear and hold up tattered women’s and children’s clothing saying that the evil Americans killed dozens of civilians.
Think about that and wonder why many who are there now, don’t see anyway to fight to protect themselves or the population.
Papa Ray
Central Texas
Given that the DOJ is out for scalps on CIA types and White House lawyers for their decisions during the earlier stages of this fight, I’d reckon there are one or two in the chain of decision makers for support (air or arty) who consider the current Administration’s active witch hunt and base their decision making on how it will look when they are flayed by the MSM after Mr Holder speaks their names.
That disgusts me, but it’s a part of the reality where the trigger pullers live.
It’s more disgusting to think the C-in-C either does not concern himself with pure pragmatism in execution on the tip of the spear, or he is all for the shaming of the American military via such ROE.
And don’t forget to factor in an enemy who reads the NYT and LAT, and quits using cell phones, and international electronic wire transfers…and has been known to 1) place women and children in the line of fire as a tactic to suppress our fire, and 2) been known to cross dress to avoid capture/detection.
If all the people you see are armed with AKs, sending rounds downrange (at you) and they are all dressed in burqas, can you call in the A-10s.
Yeah, don’t bet me that this won’t happen….the “illegal combatants” know how to play lawfare against us.
That used to be true in Iraq, but somehow, by 2007, we managed to get ahead of that press deception OODA loop. Still, this is a different audience, even more backwards if possible than the Iraqis.