The Image

My guess is that those trained in Iraq (and are planting IED’s in Afghanistan) are applying their knowledge in Afghanistan, but without co-opting the US military in their effort. They are planting the IED’s and swarming the US forces as a tactic to win, instead of continuing the status quo, as was the strategy of the insurgency in Iraq.

via The Image. (Post has not been made public yet.)

Obama told reporters that his strategy will be revealed after Thanksgiving holiday. If this strategy has not been explained yet, I think it will be a strategy similar to the Taliban’s; it will be a strategy to win. It will be a strategy to defeat the Taliban, instead of co-opting it with a fight against AQ and drones. If it is not a strategy to win, then Obama does not understand the strategy of the enemy of his war, or war has only been explained in political terms.

If his strategy is one of winning, the strategy will have a heavy component of cooperation with Afghanistan’s neighbors, specifically India, but possibly Iran as well. My analysis may be just an image I picked-up after reading comments and postings on the internet, or the image of his talks with the Prime Minister of India, that I watched on TV.

There could also be a China component, from China’s interest in Afghanistan as a conduit for oil to the India Ocean, because to win you don’t try to balance the force, but overwhelm the forces.

Shlok Vaidya’s Thinking » The History and Future of Warfare

A quote from Col. Boyd taken from the comment section of Shlok Vaidya’s Thinking:

“On the other hand, if the group cannot or does not attempt to overcome obstacles deemed important to many (or possibly any) of its individual members, the group must risk losing these alienated members. Under these circumstances, the alienated members may dissolve their relationship and remain independent, form a group of their own, or join another collective body in order to improve their capacity for independent action.”

Quote from the commenter of Shlok Vaidya’s Thinking:

I believe we can build a lot of theory off of this concept. That we are all trying ‘to improve our capacity for independent action’, and with the information age fueling momentum, we will very well see that quest for independent action being achieved, or at least getting pretty damn close. We will see it in warfare, we will see it in business, in communities, in nations, etc. etc. Hell, we are already seeing it take it’s various forms now.

Anyhoo, back to the timeline… Interesting stuff Mr. Vaidya, and I will ponder my industry’s place on that diagram you have put together. Cheers.

via Shlok Vaidya’s Thinking » The History and Future of Warfare.

Col. Boyd is describing the relationship between the leader and those behind him/her. I have mentioned before that the enemy is behind the leader and not in front. It is that relationship of alienation and dissolving of relationship, of those behind the leader, in trying to remain independent, that makes them the enemy of the leader. The leader represents the orientation that is formed in an attempt to position themselves to an advantage of their environment. The leader, and those behind him/her, orients towards an advantage in the environment that is indivdually observed.

This conflict, between leader and those behind the leader, may or may not be primarily violent. However, as Tilly points out in the two quotes below from his Powerpoint, “violent conflict stems from relations that may or may not be primarily violent.” As those behind the leader continue to hold intergroup tournaments (Howard Bloom’s Global Brain) to judge the advantage that their orientation holds, those behind the leader can go independent. It is this independence (or the possibility of going independant) that makes them the enemy of those leading the orientation. Through intergroup tournaments, those behind the leader can conform to their (and not the leaders) independent orientation or generate diversity within the orientation. Both options make them the enemy of the State of orientation, which the indivduals resides. 

•Violent conflict stems from relations that may or may not be primarily violent.

The second paragraph of Tilly’s Powerpoint shows just how dangerous, to the leader, humans can be.  

 •“…humans turn out to be interacting repeatedly with others, renegotiating who they are, adjusting the boundaries they occupy, modifying their actions in rapid response to other people’s reactions, selecting among and altering available scripts, improvising new forms of joint action, speaking sentences no one has ever uttered before, yet responding predictably to their locations within webs of social relations they themselves cannot map in detail. They tell stories about themselves and others that facilitate their social interaction rather than laying out verifiable facts about individual lives. They actually live in deeply relational worlds. If social construction occurs, it happens socially, not in isolated recesses of individual minds” (Tilly 1998).

via Tilly powerpoint slides

Tip of the hat to: orgtheory.net

In today’s world there are two ways a leader can react. The first is to Isolate the orientation from outside contact from the world. The second method, open their orientation to transparency. Transparency can be a strategy as well as a state of being.

The first method is used by States such as Myanmar. The second method is used by the forces for Globalization.

Transparency as a strategy can be used to hide what is inside an orientation. Transparency, as a strategy against the enemy, works because of two elements that are common to transparency (the state of being) complexity and corruption. The leader can use the complexity and corruption of the internal forces to adjust the friction between human interactions.  What leaders cannot do is change the orientation.

All change takes force and all force, within an orientation, is internal and between individuals. This internal force is what builds structure and it is this structure that the leader needs to change. The leader cannot change structure. •“…humans turn out to be interacting repeatedly with others, renegotiating who they are, adjusting the boundaries they occupy..), boundaries are the structure of the movement. Those behind the leader are the ones building the structure, the leader is not.

The leader has force of command, but the force of the movement is in control of those indivduals behind the leader. The leader in todays globalized world uses the complexity and corruption of the movements internal force to control those behind the leader/s.

This complexity and corruption works with today’s connected world, not against.

Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces – NYTimes.com

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.

The long arm of the long war (Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog)

The Long War changes that: the military comes back to society and the defense sector comes back to economic reality.

via The long arm of the long war (Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog).

I think TPMB is right; the military will come back to society. As it is, those coming back are coming back to corporations and in one capacity or another they will be contractors. The economic reality will put a squeeze on these contractors, which will put the squeeze on those who the contractors are  hiring, which will include those coming back from real shit-holes.

We will have those coming back working for just above minimum wage. The promise of middle class will be gone like the American dream. This is not something pretty to come home to and unsustainable in a nation.

All warfare is generational and those of a generation are really just a gender-nation. A nation of people, of both genders, of a certain time, if not of the same place or orientation. Because of the generational nature of warfare, the only way to win a war is by phrasing the war in terms of nations.

The only way to form a nation of Americans will be to begin the Draft and replace the volunteers, who end up trapped in place they didn’t volunteer for, with a nation of Americans–a  nation of draftees. Once the Draft is re-authorized, the war/wars will be over within four years.

Draftees are not a “better” fighting force, just more generational in nature.

Joshua Kurlantzick — What Vietnam teaches us about winning the peace – washingtonpost.com

The stated goal of the Vietnam War was the defeat of communism. But three decades later, the United States has gotten much of what it really fought for: a stable friend who could prove an ally against China. After all, it was China, the expansionist giant, that terrified American policymakers and sparked U.S. interest in Indochina in the first place.

via Joshua Kurlantzick — What Vietnam teaches us about winning the peace – washingtonpost.com.

Tip of the hat to TPMB

Comment posted on TPMB:

We could have achieved this result decades earlier, and saved thousands of lives (including some friends) if we had followed our national DNA in 1945 and supported the anti-colonial Vietnamese freedom fighters instead of trying to reinstate the pro-fascist French colonialists. The lesson of Vietnam: promoting globalization is not the same thing as trying to preserve colonialism. In fact, they are the opposite.

As Communism moves down into Australia and up from South America, I hope he is right, in that, promoting globalization is not the same thing as trying to preserve communism.

But on the larger issue of comparing Vietnam with Afghanistan. I think the person commenting on TPMB that our DNA tends to support the anti-colonial powers is correct. However, to assume the US military tried to reinstate the pro-fascist French colonialists is pure fiction, unless you believe our DNA is pro-fascist French colonialism, which it is not. It may seem like at times that the USA’s  DNA is pro-fascist, but that is only because of the heavy influence of corporations inside the Military/Industrial Complex.

Pro-fascist French colonialism is neither written into our Constitution nor into the Image of our country itself,and it is into these two objects, the Constitution and the Image of ourselves, that our DNA is written. It is this DNA that the US military uses in warfare.

All warfare is generational, and the US military carries out warfare directly by cloning, which, in the case of US, warfare is the duplication of the civilian DNA. In Vietnam, the South Vietnam military, through corruption or complexity, failed in this cloning process, the North did not. The North did not let Russia or China take command and control of their country and moved to crush the Kalmar Rouge, when they needed to Act against this Subversive DNA within their area.

Afghanistan is the center of a religious movement, and I see little evidence that the US military is spreading our DNA into the ranks of the Afghanistan military, as was done in Iraq.

In Iraq, the Surge was a tactic, but the strategy remained, i.e. build-up a One-star General with the rule-sets consistent with our DNA and then duplicate throughout the ranks. This process takes approximately 10 years. If we inject another 40,000 troops into Afghanistan, I believe it will represent year one. The use of contractors in the protection of the Afghan Government, has subverted our military strategy in Afghanistan. If we continue this madness, the only Afghans with anything like our DNA will be the Taliban, but, because they are at the center of a religious movement, the outcome will not be the same as Vietnam. As TPMB said, “The larger point: Vietnam became normal by connecting to the global economy.” In other words, Vietnam did not spread Communism, it used communism to duplicate its DNA, DNA heavily influenced by its war with French colonialist and the US military.

An Afghanistan that has beaten the West will look to the East, as the posting from Zen shows they already have gone there in their thinking.

If we continue this effort (madness?) in Afghanistan, our effort to control AQ will be successful, but fake. Unlike Vietnam, we will continue to pour money into Afghanistan, but these resources will go towards a movement that is not compatible to our DNA, At least that part of our DNA which is not religious or corporate.

Jules Crittenden » McChrystal’s Afghanistan

Jules:

NYT’s Dexter Filkins goes deep with a profile of McChrystal in action that includes an intimate look at what he wants to do in Afghanistan, the difficulties he faces, some reasons for hope, a lot of ugly truths, and for a refreshing change in current American reporting trends, some comparison and contrast on the fact that these guys have done this before in Iraq.

The bulk of Al Qaeda’s leadership, Haass pointed out, is now in Pakistan. That’s where the United States should really be focused — in Pakistan, with a population six times larger than Afghanistan’s and with at least 60 nuclear warheads.

Critics might say that Filkins, whose reporting notes the military view that Afghanistan and Pakistan are intricately entwined and cannot be separated strategically or tactically, doesn’t give the so-called Biden plan a full airing. However, it is a McChrystal profile, not a Biden one. Though that might be entertaining. Embedded in the District of Columbia.

via Jules Crittenden » McChrystal’s Afghanistan.

If the military’s view is that Afghanistan and Pakistan are intricately entwined and cannot be separated strategically or tactically, then I don’t understand the controversy between McChrystal and Bidden. McChrystal is in charge of Afghanistan, Bidden should be in charge of nothing. Bidden, along with the rest of the civilians in command of the military, should be looking at the situation as it will affect generations of people from the USA. If Afghanistan and Pakistan are really intricately entwined, then the war on this second front should be coordinated between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The statement that there is no AQ in Afghanistan has no meaning. It may be that there should be AQ in Afghanistan, but it is not in AQ’s interest to be there. In fact, McChrystal’s effort maybe working too good and the pressure from AQ is being felt in Pakistan or is building up in Pakistan to the detriment of both countries. If the Pakistan Army is making a push, as I have read it is, then the two sides, Pakistan army and the Coalition forces in Afghanistan, have to coordinate their effort or risk the possibility of breaking the resiliency of the Pakistan army. This will possibly cause the Pakistan army to break and the Taliban/AQ in Pakistan to displace forward, only to later rebound back into Afghanistan, as the US military moves out of Afghanistan towards more strategic fronts.

In my last post I said, to paraphrase myself, that corporations don’t really care who wins, because, to a corporation, that goes back to saying who can pay more. I also said that winning is more important to Kings and Generals. The uniqueness of the US system of war is that Kings and Generals are replaced by civilians. It is the civilians in command and not control of the military who need to think like Kings and Generals. Kings and Generals, who are not tyrants, think generationally. With the gap between connections between generations, getting closer, the King or Generals no longer have the luxury of time. Our civilian commanders need to think past this war and closer to home. There needs to be a coordinated effort between those in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The US effort needs to be made by the civilian command, the US doesn’t have any Kings and we don’t encourage our Generals to think generationally. We are still fighting a war on two fronts far from home. Pakistan is on the wrong side on one of those fronts.

From Macgregor House Presentation

“Afghanistan is not strategically vital to U.S. interests.”

“•The LBJ government had unfounded, naive, and unrealistic expectations of Vietnam’s near-term potential to evolve into a modern social democratic constitutional republic if the US put the “right people” in charge and provided a pile of cash and some “military assistance.” ”

I am not sure I agree with the first statement. Afghanistan has some strategic interests, if we want to get in on the oil pipeline connecting the “Stans” to the India ocean. Also, it wasn’t like putting the “right people“  in as the quotes show, it was like putting the right corporation in charge. Charge has a certain element of both command and control, and that “charge” becomes the logic of the War. 

Like Iraq, Vietnam was fought by corporations, so of course some mistakes were made. Maximizing profits is no way to run a war. War is too important than to let corporations in charge of wars. War is generational, while corporations are not. Corporations just die and rise again, exactly as they were.

On the other hand, War is between humans, which are generational. And of course the biggest problem is that humans are too smart for corporations. The humans always run towards the corporation that is going to win, so those penetrating into a foreign land always run to the corporation that they think is going to win, or in other words, pay better. Market forces don’t always care who “wins”, Kings and Generals do.

Update:

“•Remember, no matter what happens in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, al-Qaeda will survive and remain a threat, but not an existential threat. There are many options for them from Morocco to London, England!”

“The goal is to make the AQ “irregular” bleed for his tribe/ religion/country while we expend as little blood and treasure as possible to secure vital US interests. (Key point is vital!)”

If that is the case, then Morocco is probably the next “dollar” involvement. Morocco and Algiers have been in an arm’s race and it sounds like things are starting to get hot. Let us hope it is true that we are expending as little blood and treasure there as possible, if Morocco or Algiers is even a vital US interest, even if there is a King there or not.

It is going to come down to how far do we withdraw from the situation, which includes Afghanistan. You do know, the shit will probably hit the fan when Cheney’s pipeline hits the Indian Ocean? This will probably happen in nine years, or not.

“In 1959, President of France, Charles de Gaulle confronted similar circumstances [fighting an insurgency and not AQ] when he decided to leave Algeria. French generals insisted a withdrawal would deliver Algeria into the hands of Soviet-backed communists. It did not and de Gaulle replaced the generals.”

 

That sounds good, “decided to leave”. It does sound familiar, but with Pakistan having nukes, I don’t think that will ever happen (going communist). But the nukes are probably pointing north as well as any direction. North maybe the real reason for them anyway. The movement of the EU, USA and China is really about power, and the most common source of that power is oil, or in a few years, gold.

“•However, if the Afghans harbor anyone – al Qaeda or anyone else who threatens the United States and its allies, we must state clearly we will annihilate those who threaten us without concern for the welfare of those Afghans who harbor them.”

This is the real sticking point. We are going to become France, and I am not sure they still say they are going to annihilate anyone. I mean what was France’s relationship with those they decided to leave in Algiers? If the government had decided to team up with AQ, could France have stopped them?  

Of course this probably will not be a problem as long as we pay them off to keep AQ out. But this is from a position of weakness, which is going to be especially true if we begin to meet the Asian challenge in the South of America.

Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Crowdsourcing a Presentation: The History of Warfare

“…the history of military organization and doctrine is largely a history of the progressive development of four fundamental forms of engagement:…”

via Chicago Boyz » Blog Archive » Crowdsourcing a Presentation: The History of Warfare.

There is no progressive or gradient form of warfare; there are only armies who fight that way.

Indian embassy blast kills 17 in Afghan capital – washingtonpost.com

KABUL (Reuters) – A large bomb exploded outside the Indian embassy in central Kabul on Thursday, killing 17 people and wounding 76, in the latest of a series of militant attacks on diplomatic and government buildings in the capital.

via Indian embassy blast kills 17 in Afghan capital – washingtonpost.com.

At least it wasn’t nuclear, yet.

Get on With It

So, if nothing else, just take what we have learned about war and file it under some lessons-learned East-coast think-tank. Leave China and India out of Afghanistan and bring in the Sysadmin team from Persia to help the Afghan government set-up an administration in Afghanistan that will work. While there was fraud during the elections in Iran, I have not heard a single person say the outcome would have been different; of course I don’t get around much.

It appears that the Taliban are becoming powerful and wealthy off of the US and it needs to stop. We are beginning again to fund the same people we are fighting, not good.

In America, corporate wealth has maxed-out, and our guys are hold-up in the low-ground and are going to get picked off one-by-one, especially after 6+ terms. This is true in Afghanistan and Iraq as well.

Give China the smart grid from South America to here (BPA) and let India write the program and control the app’s, and divide the logistics up with whoever is left. They are already dividing up their southern hemisphere.

This will give America back its Army and, if nothing else, we can use it to fight the guys we trained, just across the border in Mexico. It would be a lot closer to home and the guys could come home on weekends.

Or go to plan B.