In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as quickly as possible — to 134,000 in a year from the current force of more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population than the Pentagon could ever supply.
“The most significant challenge to rapidly expanding the Afghan National Security Forces is a lack of competent and professional leadership at all levels, and the inability to generate it rapidly,” concluded one of the reviews, a grim assessment forwarded to Washington in September from the American-led training headquarters.
via Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces – NYTimes.com.
This article shows the two basic and related strategic strategies of the same Grand Strategy, of the US military, at work in Afghanistan right now.
The first paragraph that I site from the article tells of a strategy of Isolation, while the second paragraph is a strategy of subversion between the military, government and the civilians of Afghanistan. Both strategies fall under the Grand Strategy of Modern Warfare, which are two simultaneous waves of energy with the acronyms: OODA and PISRR.
After the US military Penetrates a country, by Americans or American trained troops such as was the case in Cuba and the Bay of Pigs expedition, there is a need to create a force of change. This force of change is done by creating a force vector between areas of Isolation. Isolation means killing (the ultimate short-term Isolation), but that is not all it means. Isolation also means to create a center of gravity or, in other words, potential energy.
The penetrating army Isolates the Citizens, Government, and the Opposing military from, at times, life and, more importantly, from each other. This Isolation creates a force vector between potentials inside Afghanistan (the potential government, Citizens, and military). This force can be an attractive or repulsivie force, and the potentials can be one of want or need. By building-up the Afghan military and police force, the US military believes it can, with coalition forces, form an Isolation of 50-1 inside Afghanistan, which the civilians will need the coalition forces for security and want the government to support these forces.
At 50 civilians to 1 American trained military personnel, Gen. Stanley A McChrystal believes the US military can bring security to Afghanistan. At least enough security that Afghanistan can maintain its GDP without subversion by the insurgency.
Between the 3 Isolations, civilians, government, and military, the US military is most able to subvert the Afghanistan military. The US military can stand-up a one-star Afghan General with the implicit rule-sets constant with the standards of the Constitution of the USA, support it, and hope it becomes a part of the Afghan military. A part of this subversion says that the civilian leadership has control over the military of the country. This act of subversion connects two of the three potentials inside Afghanistan, i.e, government, and military.
While the US Government has allocated 3 years worth of the Afghanistan GDP towards this subversion, the article clearly explains it will take a lot longer. It has been said that it takes approximately 10-years to standup a one-star General in a country that has been penetrated by Modern Warfare. After reading this article, it does not look like this subversion (the One-star General) is even close to a beginning.
Perhaps the Government of Afghanistan needs to be further Isolated (create a potential that the civilian and military need) and the 50-1 Isolation of the civilians to the insurgency needs to happen, before a One-star General can come forward out of this mess. This is certainly something the civilian leadership of the USA needs to be thinking about.