Engaging or withdrawing, winning or losing? The contradictions of counterinsurgency policy in Afghanistan and Iraq

Abstract

In the late summer and autumn of 2003, facing increasingly violent opposition in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the USA implemented contrasting policies. In Afghanistan, it began to expand its footprint, creating Provincial Reconstruction Teams (prts) around the country. In Iraq, on the other hand, the US military withdrew from cities, garrisoning itself in armed camps. Despite the worsening situations in 2005 – 06, this paper argues that establishing prts in Afghanistan is a policy that should be repeated elsewhere, albeit with significantly more personnel deployed to a country. It is far more in line with counterinsurgency theory and US military doctrine, acting to win the support of the population. In Iraq, however, the more consolidated US bases helped to set the stage for the worsening situation and should not be allowed in future conflicts. Although they lessened the danger to US forces, they contradicted counterinsurgency policy and theory in other ways, creating vacuums of power into which guerrillas could enter. More broadly this trend is characteristic of a wider policy failure on the part of the USA and reflects the profound contradictions of Washington's approach to counterinsurgency both before and after 2003.

Notes

1 US Department of Defense, ‘DoD news briefing—Mr Di Rita and Gen Abizaid’, 16 July 2003, at http://defenselink.mil/trancripts/2003/tr20030716-0401.html.

2 See, for example, S Biddle, ‘Afghanistan and the future of warfare’, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003; M Williamson & R Scales, Jr, The Iraq War: A Military History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003; and AH Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons, Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies Press, 2003.

3 LP Goodson, ‘Afghanistan in 2003’, Asian Survey, 44 (1), 2004, p 15.

4 A programme run by the Afghan Transitional Authority, with isaf and the United Nations, the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (ddr) of the Afghan Militia Forces had demobilised 8850 former combatants as of early June 2004. nato, nato in Afghanistan, 2004, at http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan, accessed 4 August 2004. However, it functioned largely on a voluntary basis and warlords were accused of using the programme as a front: appearing to disarm to appeal to the good graces of isaf and the USA while keeping modern weapons out of sight.

5 GlobalSecurity.org, ‘Military operations’, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/index.html.

6 C Recknagel, ‘Iraq: US seeks ways to improve security situation’, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 10 November 2003, at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/11/iraq-031110-rferl-165831.html. While the move towards prts is fairly widespread in Afghanistan, the withdrawal from cities in Iraq and the more aggressive US polices there were more limited. Different units are conducting vastly dissimilar actions around the country. See, for example, M Gordon, ‘Leathernecks plan to use a velvet glove in Iraq’, New York Times, 12 December 2003, A26.

7 C Soloway, ‘I yelled at them to stop’, Newsweek, 7 October 2002, p 37.

8 MJ McNerney, ‘Stabilization and reconstruction in Afghanistan: are prts a model or a muddle?’, Parameters, Winter 2005 – 06, p 38.

9 M Mazzetti, ‘Speak softly, carry a big gun’, US News & World Report, 10 May 2004, pp 40 – 42, at http://www.ebscohost.com; and M Ware, ‘Where's Bin Laden?’, Time, 29 March 2004, pp 30 – 31.

10 Ware, ‘Where's Bin Laden?’.

11 Ibid, p 31.

12 Goodson, ‘Afghanistan in 2003’, p 16; and M Coorey, ‘Scattered teams of troops bring mixed results in Afghanistan’, Agence France Presse, 22 June 2004, accessed at LexisNexis at http://www.lexisnexis.com.

13 Lieutenant General D Barno, in Defense Department, ‘Special Department of Defense Briefing re: Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan’, 17 February 2004, accessed at LexisNexis at http://www.lexisnexis.com.

14 G Cahlink, ‘Teamwork helps rebuild Afghanistan’, National Journal, 35 (52), 20 December 2003, p 3828, accessed at EbscoHost at http://www.ebscohost.com. American-led prts tend to have between 60 and 150 personnel. A German-led prt in Kunduz numbers 450 persons. Goodson, ‘Afghanistan in 2003’, p 16. See also US Department of State, ‘Fact Sheet: Provincial Reconstruction Teams’, 31 January 2006, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/60085.htm; and nato, ‘nato in Afghanistan: Factsheet’, 21 February 2005, at http://www.nato.int/issues/afghanistan/040628-factsheet.htm.

15 D Filkins, ‘Tough new tactics by US tighten grip on Iraq towns’, New York Times, 7 December 2003, A1, A13.

16 D Filkins, ‘A US general speeds the shift in an Iraqi city’, New York Times, 18 November 2003, A1; and F Zakaria, ‘Our last real chance’, Newsweek, 19 April 2004, p 47. American and British forces had previously pulled out of cities that were dominated by groups more accepting of the occupation and that did not have much opposition. Filkins, ‘Tough new tactics’.

17 Goodson, ‘Afghanistan in 2003’, p 15; and Filkins, ‘A US general speeds the shift in an Iraqi city’, A1.

18 Soloway, ‘I yelled at them to stop’, pp 36 – 38; and AA Jalali, ‘Afghanistan in 2002’, Asian Survey, 43 (1), 2003, pp 174 – 185.

19 C von Clausewitz, On War, ed and trans Michael Howard & Peter Paret, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp 595 – 596; and MG Manwaring, Internal Wars: Rethinking Problem and Response, Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, September 2001, p 13.

20 Manwaring, Internal Wars, p 10. See also G Bulloch, ‘Military doctrine and counterinsurgency: a British perspective’, Parameters, Summer 1996, pp 4 – 16; AF Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp 10 – 15; usmc, Small Wars (Draft), 2004, available at http://www.smallwars.quantico.usmc.mil/2003SmallWars.asp, p 39; and US Army, FM 3 – 07, Stability Operations and Support Operations, February 2003, pp 2 – 7.

21 B Hoffman, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, Rand National Security Research Division, June 2004, p 15.

22 Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam, pp 10 – 15; and DS Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era, New York: Free Press, 1977, p 308.

23 Mazzetti, ‘Speak softly, carry a big gun’.

24 C Maechling, Jr, ‘Counterinsurgency: the first ordeal by fire’, in MT Klare & P Kornbluh (eds), Low Intensity Warfare: Counterinsurgency, Proinsurgency, and Antiterrorism in the Eighties, New York: Pantheon Books, 1988, pp 39 – 40.

25 Quoted in Cahlink, ‘Teamwork helps rebuild Afghanistan’. See also CT Cobane, ‘Provincial reconstruction teams and security assistance: comments on an evolving concept’, disam Journal, Summer 2005, pp 91 – 97.

26 RM Cassidy, ‘Back to the street without joy: counterinsurgency lessons from Vietnam and other small wars’, Parameters, Summer 2004, pp 73 – 83.

27 KJ Costa, ‘Interagency team touts benefits of predeployment training for prts’, Inside the Pentagon, 8 June 2006, at http://www.lexis-nexis.com. For critiques of interagency co-operation, see also McNerney, ‘Stabilization and reconstruction in Afghanistan’, pp 36, 44 – 45; and R Perito, ‘Hearts & minds model?’, Armed Forces Journal, December 2005, pp 44 – 45.

28 Cahlink, ‘Teamwork helps rebuild Afghanistan’. See also Goodson, ‘Afghanistan in 2003’, p 16.

29 Quoted in N Bristol, ‘Military incursions into aid work anger humanitarian groups’, Lancet, 267, 4 February 2006, p 385.

30 Coorey, ‘Scattered teams of troops bring mixed results in Afghanistan’.

31 Quoted in usmc, Small Wars, pp 43 – 44.

32 JT Quinlivan, ‘Burden of victory: the painful arithmetic of stability operations’, Rand Review, Summer 2003, pp 28 – 29.

33 R Thompson, No Exit From Vietnam, New York: David McKay Company, 1969, p 53; and usmc, Small Wars, p 41.

34 OF Desjarlais, Jr, ‘The abcs of prt’, Department of Defense, US Air Force Releases, 23 June 2006, at http://www.lexis-nexis.com.

35 Recknagel, ‘Iraq’.

36 usmc, Small Wars, p 42.

37 J McGreary, ‘Which way is the exit?’, Time, 15 March 2004, pp 36 – 43, at http://www.ebscohost.com.

38 Ibid.

39 Filkins, ‘A US general speeds the shift in an Iraqi city’.

40 Zakaria, ‘Our last real chance’, p 47.

41 McGreary, ‘Which way is the exit?, p 40.

42 Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era, p 308.

43 uscm, Small Wars, pp 36, 40, emphasis in the original. See also FM 3‐07, Stability Operations and Support Operations, pp 3 – 6.

44 usmc, Small Wars, p 42.

45 usmc, Small Wars Manual, Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, 1940, pp 1 – 9, 15 – 16.

46 The Brookings Institution, ‘The state of Iraq: an update’, 16 May 2004, at http://www.brookings.org/views/op-ed/ohanlon/20040516.pdf; and ‘A model of diplomacy’, The Daily Item (Sunbury, PA), 20 June 2004, 11A.

47 McGreary, ‘Which way is the exit?’, pp 39 – 40.

48 ‘A model of diplomacy’, 11A.

49 R Nordland, ‘Iraq's repairman’, Newsweek, 5 July 2004, pp 22 – 30.

50 ME O'Hanlon & N Kamp, ‘Iraq index: tracking variables of reconstruction and security in post-Saddam Iraq’, Brookings Institution, 31 August 2006.

51 E Schmitt & D Rohde, ‘Taliban fighters increase attacks’, New York Times, 1 August 2004, A1.

52 JS Landay, ‘Five years into Afghanistan, US confronts Taliban's comeback’, McClatchy Newspapers, 26 September 2006, at http://www.KansasCity.com. See also D Rohde, ‘An Afghan symbol for change, then failure’, New York Times, 5 September 2006.

53 TG Mahnken, ‘The American way of war in the twenty-first century’, Review of International Affairs, 2 – 3, 2003, pp 73 – 84; and CS Gray, ‘Irregular enemies and the essence of strategy: can the American way of war adapt?’, Strategic Studies Institute, March 2006. See also HS Rothstein, Afghanistan & the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare, Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006.