British and American military operations in the Battle of Helmand, 2006–2011

Abstract

In summer 2006, elements of the British Army were deployed to Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. The US Army followed with a surge in 2009 and 2010. The British and American military forces attempted to construct a counterinsurgency (COIN) approach to win the war in Helmand from 2006 until 2011, but the operational approach implemented was most often that of conventional warfighting. The inability to successfully implement COIN owed not to a lack of will, but rather to short tours, mission command, a lack of available resources, the particular situation on the ground in Helmand and the propensity of the Taliban to launch major conventional operations during much of the period in question.

Notes

¹ For ethical reasons and for clarity and consistency in the source material, I chose not to use the Wikileaks documents concerning Afghanistan as sources for the article.

² For a more detailed examination of this process, see FM 3-24-2 (2009, ch 3, sections IV–VI).

³ For a discussion of earlier uses of minimum force see Thornton (2004) and for a critique of the British Army's record of putting the doctrine into practice see Bennett (2010).

⁴ For a recent critical view of the debate over the excesses of British colonial campaigns see Smith (2012).

⁵ ‘Army harmony guidelines are that individuals should not exceed 415 days of separated service in any period of 30 months. At unit level, tour intervals should be no less than 24 months’ (UK Parliament 2007).

⁶ Operation Medusa.

⁷ The accounts of the extent of fighting in Musa Qala in December 2007 vary. Grey (2010) makes it look like a hard-fought battle, however, despite claims that the Taliban pulled out without a fight. In September 2010, Rajiv Chandrasekaran (2010) of the Washington Post claimed that Musa Qala's mosque had been destroyed in the 2007 fighting.

⁸ Air Chief Marshal Sir Stirrup is on the record as saying that, due to Iraq, ‘it was almost impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone in Washington about Afghanistan until the beginning of 2008’ (HC Defence Committee 2011a, Q604, Ev 130).

⁹ Orbis Operations is a consulting corporation for stabilization operations located in Virginia—Mark Moyar is the director of research.