Afghan: Classic Drawdown

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

I'm sure there were some who were genuinely interested in improving some Somalians' existence.

I'm equally sure there were others seeking to build their foreign policy credentials.

But again, the point that I'm making is that the resistance the US military encountered in Mogadishu once again begs the question of why the US felt the need to get involved where it was clearly unwanted by at least a significant portion of the population.

Foreign powers playing favorites for economic gain is as old as history, the question is whether the humanitarian angle is the new White Man's Burden (Democracy's Burden?)

While the US provided 2/3 of the manpower, the remainder was supplied by over 2 dozen willing nations.

It can be argued the US went into Somalia for economic gain, but if there was no gain, if there even an argument?

Somalia was neither very long, nor very distant from the media darling Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.

While we can afford to look at Somalia with 20/20 hindsight.......I'd be fully supportive of small, light foot print forces such as SF and attached civil affairs units operating in such climates if they can do so with a reasonable degree of safety.

The problem being that a failed state with multiple and opposing centres of gravity isn't conducive to the easy distribution of emergency aid.....as the aid itself, depending on who controls it represents a weapon to some, a threat to others, and represents power to all at the local level.

There will always be those who accuse nations such as the US for doing nothing or doing something.

I lean clearly towards doing something...with "something" represented by teaching a willing nation or significant portions of it(ie failing/failed state) to fish.




This is all fine and good until you remember that no doubt Osama and any number of other (now) Islamist enemies of the United States also enjoyed the 'distinction' of close working relationships with US Special Forces - both early on and in the end.

Osama in the '80s in Afghanistan: Thank you for the Stingers!
America to Osama in the '80s: Freedom fighter!

Osama in the '00s in Afghanistan: US evil empire!
America to Osama in the '00s: Terrorist!

Both US diplomats and US military deal with all kinds of people every day.

There's plenty of open source information via Wikileaks and vetted forums displaying for all the world to see the successes/failures and insights of people who represent US interests(some carrying rifles, others not) at the coalface.

Your post implies a requirement for a "batting average" that is unachievable and one that is based on HD1080 hindsight and uses a facetious and dishonest meme example.

Mistakes are made.....the example I gave of OSS Deer Team MAY be an example of a mistake made at a higher policy level.....or maybe one simply lost in diplomatic traffic noise.

The point I'm making is that diplomacy is messy...whether it be via State Department FSOs or whether it be US Army SF NCOs...but they are both critically important to effecting positive change and effective communication and understanding for the US in it's relationships with nations around the world by directly engaging in it.

[c1ue]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

It can be argued the US went into Somalia for economic gain, but if there was no gain, if there even an argument?

You may believe differently, but my view is the US intervention in Somalia was entirely for domestic political purposes - which I noted obliquely to previously.

Both US diplomats and US military deal with all kinds of people every day.

Again you've misunderstood the basic point.

The basic point: Giap, Ho Chih Minh, Osama, and countless others - which the US has been on both sides of - are people of action in their own areas.

Whatever else, they would still do whatever they seek to do.

The involvement of the US, however, in supporting and/or/then attacking these people and the movements they lead, serves no beneficial purpose.

As for 'teaching to fish' - this would be a lot more credible if the actual acts were of positive economic impact.

Armed conflict isn't a positive economic impact except perhaps to arms suppliers.

Giving arms to one side or another - both of them bastards, but bastards militating for their own peeps - doesn't help anyone.

Somalia was a rat's nest of competing tribes - and still is. Afghanistan, ditto. Iraq, ditto again.

[flintlock]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

One of the common themes I personally interpret between conflict in Vietnam and conflict in Afghanistan is that both seem to have lost their way in the transition beyond just a light(relatively) footprint of using SF forces to provide HN(host nation) FID(foreign internal defense) which builds local capacity, with the exception being the highly successful effort of US SF to topple Afghanistan via UW(unconventional warfare) then getting sucked into nation building and insurgency fighting.

Instead both morphed into Host Nations becoming dependant on the US to do the heavy lifting....quickly followed by rampant corruption...while the opposition can achieve miracles on simply the smell of an oily rag.

Maybe the error was made in looking at both Vietnam and Afghanistan as ESSENTIAL chess pieces or "key terrain" in a game of geopolitical chess, when maybe they should have been looked at as individual drug addicts in a way. In order for help to be effective, you have to want to help yourself first.....it's far easier to send in some SF "Diplomats/Peace Corps with guns" to try and help and ascertain if more would be of value to the Host Nation and US interests than large numbers of conventional soldiers.

It's far easier to diplomatically hide small numbers of skilled people and less politically expensive if you have to pull them out of a situation where the HN government equates to an addict unwilling to change than if it's a large number of conventional forces.

Look at Somalia......there was a genuine effort to improve the lot of the Somali people, but the huge number of boots on the ground became a quite sticky and prominent political embarrassment.

At the moment US SF have been "outed" working in and around Uganda in the search for Kony.......I'm sure they would prefer NO media in their effort to build capacity and stability amongst Host Nation security forces.

Apparently their efforts in Mali in recent years have all gone pear shaped and come undone.....as the unintended consequence of European(and US supported) operations in Libya led to a flood of weapons from returning Malian mercenaries which led to a coup and riots.

Lots of lessons to be learned....and I've founds that amongst the US SF community(they have a number of public forums) as well as the Small Wars Journal there are some very experienced people who I believe offer "EJ-like" analysis on this stuff.......it's a bit like reading well thought out 1st hand commentary from State Department Foreign Service Officers and not having to troll through Wikileaks

The very old example of SF predecessor OSS Deer Team with Ho Chi Minh(medically saving his life) and Giap(who clearly remembered an OSS team member nearly 50 years on at a reunion) is a really interesting example of maybe what might have been....hey maybe Uncle Ho just flim-flammed the team with his sob story(Ho was believed to be exceptionally intelligent and diplomatically gifted)...but you never know.

My personal opinion is that I am actually a fairly big fan of US specialist forces such as SF being used aggressively in light footprint operations, particularly in their "less kinetic" roles(meaning not kicking down doors like in the movies) where they teach and upskill locals, and sometimes lead them...to build their own HN inherent capabilities as well as nation to nation relationships.

They're often referred to as "Quite Professionals", but I wonder sometimes if they are TOO quiet.....I think many who possess a negative opinion of the US military would be quite pleasantly surprised by some of their personal opinion/analysis....they seem to be the exact opposite of the US Navy SEALs who seem to have taken to the media spotlight with being the right team at the right place on the right day for the Bin Laden hit as well as some other high profile hits.....as well as a successful movie confusing film with reality by using qualified Navy SEALs in a Hollywood blockbuster.

I wonder if the "armed diplomats" will emerge into the media spotlight a little bit more when these topics are analysed and discussed in the public domain to share they valuable insight.

Regardless.....recent years has been like drinking from a firehose of conflict analysis.

Thanks for the great analysis, as usual!

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

Again you've misunderstood the basic point.

And you're failing to understand my point.

I'll make it quite clear:

The US largely achieved the job it needed to do in Afghanistan by very early 2002 via a relatively small number of US Army SF and related OGA and enablers.

They did so with a quite light footprint. A light footprint that leveraged local partners via force multiplication to do the vast majority of the heavy lifting and THAT part of it will go down in history as an exceptional success.

Possibly the greatest special operations campaign success in history.

Then it began to turn to poop as the footprint went from the zen master walking across rice paper to that of godzilla leaving a massive footprint.........the mission turned from an SF mission(unconventional warfare/foreign internal defense/and security and stability operations) to a conventional big army counter insurgency mission.....the minutia of which can and will be debated for eternity.

And the most important, but least known, detail of the successful SF campaign in late 2001-early 2002 is the fact that it was "won" in circa 1999.

It was already "won" due to the unknown SF deployments in 1999 to train Host Nation forces and build relationships in places like: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgystan.

Within a week or so after September 11th, and because of those relationships built by "diplomats with guns", they were on the ground in the 'Stans preparing to move into Afghanistan if ordered.

The point is a 12 man ODA on the ground today performing non-kinetic or less kinetic operations at the invitation of Host Nations can achieve a lot......the rough equivalent of preventative health care.

And at a cost far less than that of a "surgical procedure" keeping an F18 Super Hornet on station at $24,000 an hour + other intangible costs....or even worse, an extended decade long "chemotherapy" treatment of a preventable insurgency.

[c1ue]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

The US largely achieved the job it needed to do in Afghanistan by very early 2002 via a relatively small number of US Army SF and related OGA and enablers.

They did so with a quite light footprint. A light footprint that leveraged local partners via force multiplication to do the vast majority of the heavy lifting and THAT part of it will go down in history as an exceptional success.

Possibly the greatest special operations campaign success in history.

Complete agreement. The initial objective of removing Afghanistan as a haven for terrorists was very successfully accomplished. Removing the Taliban as the sponsor, or at a minimum a compliant host, was also successfully accomplished.

And the most important, but least known, detail of the successful SF campaign in late 2001-early 2002 is the fact that it was "won" in circa 1999.

It was already "won" due to the unknown SF deployments in 1999 to train Host Nation forces and build relationships in places like: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgystan.

This is far less clear to me. I'm sure the deployments were made and so forth, but the fact that they were made and then followed up with a gigantic military invasion - yet with the Taliban still running around both viable and in control of significant parts of Afghanistan - this doesn't speak of 'success' to me in the sense of controlling Afghanistan, though the accomplishment of the goals noted above absolutely was a success.

Be that as it may, the reality is that neither the Iraq 'liberation' nor the ongoing Afghanistan 'liberation' is in any way successful. And while the initial actions accomplishing the initial goals were, the question is whether the sequence was itself to blame: were American leaders in fact encouraged by early successes into thinking that the limited engagements with clear, simple, short term objectives could morph into long term engagements involving nation building?

[don]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

speaking of SF . . .

The Ponce, one of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, transits the Persian Gulf en route to Bahrain on July 4.

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — One of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran.

The keel for the ship, the Ponce, was cast in 1966, and the vessel, nearing the end of its service, was to have been scrapped. But the Ponce was reborn as a floating forward base for staging important military operations across the region — the latest example of the new American way of war.

The first mission of the reborn Ponce was designed to be low profile and defensive, as an operations hub for mine clearing in the Strait of Hormuz, a counter to threats from Tehran to close the vital commercial waterway. In that role, the Ponce will be a launching pad for helicopters, a home to underwater diver teams and a seaborne service station providing fuel and maintenance for minesweeping ships.

But with the relatively simple addition of a modular barracks on the deck, the Ponce can also be a mobile base for several hundred Special Operations forces to carry out missions like hostage rescue, counterterrorism, reconnaissance, sabotage and direct strikes. Even with the addition of the barracks, there is ample room for helicopters and the small, fast boats favored by commandos.

Allies and friends are important, but they can veto American missions initiated from bases on their territory. The Ponce operates from international waters. Surprise and speed are critical to military success; the Ponce can sail close to areas of conflict. And having the ability to carry out different missions for different branches of the armed services is more valuable than having a weapons platform that does just one thing for one branch of the military.

Iranian leaders see the Ponce differently, of course, and they have lashed out at the American deployments, accusing Washington of mounting a provocative military buildup. (The American reinforcements also include a doubling of minesweepers to eight and the addition of Air Force fighter and attack jets.) An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander even threatened that his nation would counter the moves by ordering a buildup of missiles that could endanger American warships and allied bases in the region.

The Navy is convinced that the capability provided by the Ponce is essential to future military operations, and it has proposed that Congress continue a four-year, $1.2 billion program to build two new vessels dedicated solely to be what the service terms “afloat forward staging bases.” Allison F. Stiller, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for ship programs, said the two ships, now under construction, were the first vessels built specifically for the job, as opposed to warships temporarily assigned the mission.

The first of the new ships should be available by 2015, and the second a year later, if Congress approves the budget requests.

“The afloat forward staging base gives us the ability to deliver this mine countermeasure capability directly to the scene of operations,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth M. Perry, vice commander of the Navy’s mine and antisubmarine warfare command.

Admiral Perry is based in San Diego, but he described the Ponce’s role in a telephone interview from the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, where he has moved to oversee mine-clearing exercises and, potentially, mine-clearing missions.

For decades, the military has used various warships and service vessels as platforms for staging operations, whether the Pacific island-hopping campaign of World War II or the river campaigns of the Vietnam War. In a more recent and creative example, the Navy emptied the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk of attack jets before the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and turned it over to Special Operations forces for raids against Taliban targets.

The idea of creating a dedicated fleet of floating bases gained traction in the 1990s, as the military retrenched after the collapse of communism and looked for ways to operate independently near contested areas. One idea was to tow giant offshore oil platforms to a conflict zone and lash them together to form an airport large enough for helicopters and even transport planes. It was ultimately dismissed because the platforms would have been too vulnerable to attack and insufficiently mobile.

The design of the floating bases expands on what is called the mobile landing platform, which is used to get Marines and their war-fighting equipment from ship to shore. Those landing platforms are built by General Dynamics Nassco, which is also constructing the new basing ships. To the untrained eye, the vessels look very much like an oil tanker.

To accommodate the many missions of different military branches aboard the floating base, the vessels will be outfitted with a helicopter hangar on the deck and with access portals for small, fast boats. A hospital suite and a water purification facility also are on board.

“It will be a ship that is ‘purpose built’ to have that capability, whereas we have taken Ponce and converted her to provide that capability, or we have taken another ship offline to do the mission,” said Ms. Stiller, the Navy official.

Pentagon and Navy officials note that the decades-old quest for an afloat forward staging base was accelerated, and finally became a reality, owing to pressure from the global combatant commanders — especially from senior officers at Central Command and Special Operations Command.

“Mine countermeasures operations are critical to protecting sea lines of communication by mapping out and neutralizing sea mines,” said Lt. Col. T. G. Taylor, a Central Command spokesman. “Sea mines are indiscriminate to their victims and require a robust countermeasures program to ensure the safety of all maritime vessels.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/wo...ef=global-home

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

Complete agreement. The initial objective of removing Afghanistan as a haven for terrorists was very successfully accomplished. Removing the Taliban as the sponsor, or at a minimum a compliant host, was also successfully accomplished.



This is far less clear to me. I'm sure the deployments were made and so forth, but the fact that they were made and then followed up with a gigantic military invasion - yet with the Taliban still running around both viable and in control of significant parts of Afghanistan - this doesn't speak of 'success' to me in the sense of controlling Afghanistan, though the accomplishment of the goals noted above absolutely was a success.

Be that as it may, the reality is that neither the Iraq 'liberation' nor the ongoing Afghanistan 'liberation' is in any way successful. And while the initial actions accomplishing the initial goals were, the question is whether the sequence was itself to blame: were American leaders in fact encouraged by early successes into thinking that the limited engagements with clear, simple, short term objectives could morph into long term engagements involving nation building?

Maybe it's a question of issues such as insufficient patience and conflicting objectives.

Insufficient patience related to the fact that while knocking the country over and achieving the initial and main objective of preventing Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist haven again was accomplished in a matter of weeks, it would take much longer for the same small number of specialist folks to shift from their role of knocking over the country UW(Unconventional Warfare) to HN(Host Nation) FID(Foreign Internal Defense). Throwing tens of thousands of people at a problem, which few of the conventional troops and command have any relevant experience in managing, can be counterproductive. Different people with different skillsets doing different jobs. You don't bring in 10,000 plumbers to assist a heart transplant team.

Conflicting objectives comes into play with the benign desires of many who believed(with god justification) that the US had a moral/ethical responsibility to help Afghanistan due to it's involvement in the Soviet Afghan War of 79-89. And the more malignant/strategic/geopolitical objectives/desires of others who viewed Afghanistan an important piece of a bigger puzzle.

Which brings me back to the point that you cannot help a person, a community, or a country that is unwilling to help themselves. Much like an addict.

Personally, I wonder if what happened is akin to a high speed internet accelerated version of what started in the 1950's. The success of the CIA in toppling governments in Central America and Iran probably contributed to the hubris and overreach in failed examples like Cuba and future blowback on earlier success.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

speaking of SF . . .

The Ponce, one of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, transits the Persian Gulf en route to Bahrain on July 4.

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — One of the Navy’s oldest transport ships, now converted into one of its newest platforms for warfare, arrived in waters off Bahrain late last week, a major addition to the enlarged presence of American forces in the Persian Gulf designed as a counter to Iran.

The keel for the ship, the Ponce, was cast in 1966, and the vessel, nearing the end of its service, was to have been scrapped. But the Ponce was reborn as a floating forward base for staging important military operations across the region — the latest example of the new American way of war.

The first mission of the reborn Ponce was designed to be low profile and defensive, as an operations hub for mine clearing in the Strait of Hormuz, a counter to threats from Tehran to close the vital commercial waterway. In that role, the Ponce will be a launching pad for helicopters, a home to underwater diver teams and a seaborne service station providing fuel and maintenance for minesweeping ships.

But with the relatively simple addition of a modular barracks on the deck, the Ponce can also be a mobile base for several hundred Special Operations forces to carry out missions like hostage rescue, counterterrorism, reconnaissance, sabotage and direct strikes. Even with the addition of the barracks, there is ample room for helicopters and the small, fast boats favored by commandos.

Allies and friends are important, but they can veto American missions initiated from bases on their territory. The Ponce operates from international waters. Surprise and speed are critical to military success; the Ponce can sail close to areas of conflict. And having the ability to carry out different missions for different branches of the armed services is more valuable than having a weapons platform that does just one thing for one branch of the military.

Iranian leaders see the Ponce differently, of course, and they have lashed out at the American deployments, accusing Washington of mounting a provocative military buildup. (The American reinforcements also include a doubling of minesweepers to eight and the addition of Air Force fighter and attack jets.) An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander even threatened that his nation would counter the moves by ordering a buildup of missiles that could endanger American warships and allied bases in the region.

The Navy is convinced that the capability provided by the Ponce is essential to future military operations, and it has proposed that Congress continue a four-year, $1.2 billion program to build two new vessels dedicated solely to be what the service terms “afloat forward staging bases.” Allison F. Stiller, the Navy’s deputy assistant secretary for ship programs, said the two ships, now under construction, were the first vessels built specifically for the job, as opposed to warships temporarily assigned the mission.

The first of the new ships should be available by 2015, and the second a year later, if Congress approves the budget requests.

“The afloat forward staging base gives us the ability to deliver this mine countermeasure capability directly to the scene of operations,” said Rear Adm. Kenneth M. Perry, vice commander of the Navy’s mine and antisubmarine warfare command.

Admiral Perry is based in San Diego, but he described the Ponce’s role in a telephone interview from the Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, where he has moved to oversee mine-clearing exercises and, potentially, mine-clearing missions.

For decades, the military has used various warships and service vessels as platforms for staging operations, whether the Pacific island-hopping campaign of World War II or the river campaigns of the Vietnam War. In a more recent and creative example, the Navy emptied the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk of attack jets before the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and turned it over to Special Operations forces for raids against Taliban targets.

The idea of creating a dedicated fleet of floating bases gained traction in the 1990s, as the military retrenched after the collapse of communism and looked for ways to operate independently near contested areas. One idea was to tow giant offshore oil platforms to a conflict zone and lash them together to form an airport large enough for helicopters and even transport planes. It was ultimately dismissed because the platforms would have been too vulnerable to attack and insufficiently mobile.

The design of the floating bases expands on what is called the mobile landing platform, which is used to get Marines and their war-fighting equipment from ship to shore. Those landing platforms are built by General Dynamics Nassco, which is also constructing the new basing ships. To the untrained eye, the vessels look very much like an oil tanker.

To accommodate the many missions of different military branches aboard the floating base, the vessels will be outfitted with a helicopter hangar on the deck and with access portals for small, fast boats. A hospital suite and a water purification facility also are on board.

“It will be a ship that is ‘purpose built’ to have that capability, whereas we have taken Ponce and converted her to provide that capability, or we have taken another ship offline to do the mission,” said Ms. Stiller, the Navy official.

Pentagon and Navy officials note that the decades-old quest for an afloat forward staging base was accelerated, and finally became a reality, owing to pressure from the global combatant commanders — especially from senior officers at Central Command and Special Operations Command.

“Mine countermeasures operations are critical to protecting sea lines of communication by mapping out and neutralizing sea mines,” said Lt. Col. T. G. Taylor, a Central Command spokesman. “Sea mines are indiscriminate to their victims and require a robust countermeasures program to ensure the safety of all maritime vessels.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/wo...ef=global-home

Here's an example of military action in the Persian Gulf between the US and Iran in 1988:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Praying_Mantis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Prime_Chance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

I suspect US Navy Special Warfare as well as US Navy counter mine efforts are pinging maximum on their respective meters in terms of their operational tempo.

I think it would be incredibly unlikely that Iran would attempt to conduct any form of conventional action against it's gulf neighbors as the consequences of doing so would be incredibly high.

But it's entirely possible, and even quite likely based on previous behavior and recent arrests in India, Thailand, and Kenya suggest; that Iran will attempt to use asymmetric means to achieve it's own objectives.

My guess is that US Navy Special Warfare and counter mine efforts in the Gulf Region are there almost exclusively to mitigate the risk of deniable-ish Iranian efforts to spark incidents that could create price spikes in energy markets to Iran's benefit.

Yemen is like the Olympics of Special Forces at the moment.....with Iranian SF/Hezbullah operating there, as well as Saudi, US, Pakistani, Moroccan, and Jordanian SF....as well as AQ.

[BadJuju]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

Yemen is like the Olympics of Special Forces at the moment.....with Iranian SF/Hezbullah operating there, as well as Saudi, US, Pakistani, Moroccan, and Jordanian SF....as well as AQ.

It makes you wonder how wild life must be in the circles of the special forces.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Afghan: Classic Drawdown

It makes you wonder how wild life must be in the circles of the special forces.

I think what you MIGHT find surprising is not a HUGE amount has changed(beyond the higher than peacetime casualties) since they've often had to deal with quite high operational tempo.

Even during peacetime, US Army SF(and other elements of SOCOM) have quietly been active in hundreds of locations around the world, more frequently than not with little to no media coverage because it's not the exciting Hollywood door kicking stuff, it's more often along the lines of open air classroom stuff....not exactly Hollywood or news rage worthy.

Some are self motivated to happily return to the same operational environment time and time again, often at great personal cost. An example of this would be an Australian SASR soldier recently killed in Afghanistan who was on his 7th tour. Some US Army Rangers have reportedly been on over 12 deployments(into the teens) since 2001.

Others strive for a more balanced work/life environment and choose to find employment elsewhere.

I think anyone who has been on operations(special/conventional/otherwise) will describe it as mind numbingly boring at times punctuated by occasional moments of poop your pants scary.