Fighting "the other war" counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, 2003- 2005

Military Review, Sept-Oct, 2007 by David W. Barno

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Strategy without Tactics is the slowest road to Victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before Defeat.--Sun Yzu

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

AFGHANISTAN IN MID-2003 was at a point of transition--a strategic fork in the road. Major combat operations had ended in 2001, devolving into a long-term pursuit of Taliban and A1-Qaeda remnants, and humanitarian support was beginning to enlarge the nascent reconstruction effort; but Taliban- related activity was increasing in the south and east of the country, while heavily armed militias continued to dominate many areas. Politically, however, optimism across the nation was almost tangible. Plans were underway for a nationwide loyajirga (grand council) to draft a new constitution, an effort to begin the democratic process that would move beyond the 2002 jirga, which had appointed Harold Karzai the leader of a transitional government. Additionally, presidential and parliamentary elections were being planned for 2004.

The Bonn process had organized the overwhelming international sympathy toward Afghanistan with lead nations designated to oversee security sector reform. (1) International support for stabilizing Afghanistan was strong, focused upon the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), which was led by the renowned and influential Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi. A 5500-person International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had transitioned into a NATO-led mission, but remained confined to security duties in Kabul. On balance, however, the nationwide writ of the provisional government in Kabul was tenuous at best, and increasing security concerns threatened to undermine both international support and the nascent political process.

Unfortunately, the U.S.-led military coalition was not well postured to counter the rising threat. Coordination between the military and interagency partners was hampered by a U.S. Embassy and military headquarters separated by over forty kilometers. Unity of effort suffered; the military command and control situation was in flux; our tactical approach was enemy-focused and risked alienating the Afghan people; and the substantial draw of operations in Iraq had put severe limits on the availability of key military capabilities for Afghanistan. To make matters more difficult, the American military leadership was rotating, and the first U.S. ambassador since 1979 had departed with no replacement. Clearly, without a significant change in course, Afghanistan was at risk.

This article outlines the changes subsequently made to U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. It depicts the approach, begun in October 2003, to create a successful counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign in "the other war" that resulted in over two years of relative stability and progress. It also provides a brief assessment of the situation in Afghanistan now, as we move toward the end of 2007.

The Military Situation--Summer 2003

In mid-2003, the U.S.-led coalition embodied over 12,000 troops representing 19 nations. It was led by Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)-180, formed in June 2002 as the forward headquarters in Afghanistan and based at the old Soviet airbase at Bagram, a 20-minute helicopter flight north from Kabul.

The U.S. had downsized the original CJTF in the spring of 2003, replacing a powerful and well-resourced three-star-led headquarters (XVIII Airborne Corps) and a subordinate division headquarters (Task Force 82) with a single division-level headquarters (10th Mountain Division). (2) As a result, operational tasks once performed by the corps headquarters and tactical tasks performed by the division headquarters were now assigned to one headquarters struggling to oversee both levels of war for a very large theater of operations.

In Kabul, an Office of Military Cooperation (OMC) had been formed in mid-2002 to take on the mission of building the Afghan National Army (ANA), and de facto a number of political-military tasks as well. (3) The focus of the U.S. military effort in the aftermath of the December 2001 fall of the Taliban had been two-fold: to hunt down the remnants of A1-Qaeda and the Taliban across the rugged landscape of southern and eastern Afghanistan, and to build the ANA. "Nation-building" was explicitly not part of the formula. (4)

Despite the presence of a large U.S.-led combined and joint civil-military operations task force (CJCMOTF) then based in Kabul, the military focus on reconstruction was limited. Four provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) had been created--two American teams at Gardez and Konduz, a British effort at Mazar-e-Sharif, and a New Zealand mission in Bamian. All four were in relatively quiet areas. There was no PRT presence in the more volatile south and only one in the east (at Gardez), although an expansion of four more PRTs had been planned for the spring of 2004.

Overall, the military span of control in Afghanistan was vast: one division-size joint task force headquarters (with a series of temporary commanders in the summer of 2003) supported over 10,000 soldiers of a multinational force conducting security and reconstruction efforts across a nation the size of Texas with a population of 31 million. (Afghanistan is nearly 50 percent larger than Iraq and has 4 million more people). (5)