I just returned from Iraq and people have started asking me what I think of the Afghan Surge.  (I spent some time in Afghanistan this Summer.)

The Afghan Surge can work if Battalion Commanders on the ground fight the war correctly and if it lasts longer than one troop rotation.

As of this morning I am lacking in confidence on both counts.

Via Jules Crittenden I read about operation "Cobra's Anger."

As the headline to Jules' blog makes clear, it is a classic Hammer & Anvil operation and destined to be a waste of time and resources.

I participated in a dozen such operations in Iraq--sometimes clearing the same areas twice!

But don't take my word for it.  In late 2005 I was introduced to the book that became the game plan for the Marines 'The Long Long War:  The Emergency in Malaya 1948-1960' by British Brigadier General Richard L. Clutterbuck.  Reading Clutterbuck is like reading the history of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but written in 1966.

Here is a telling quote:

"Initially, because of their previous training and experience, senior army officers were inclined to launch their units into the jungle in battalion strength--either in giant encirclement operations when a[n] [insurgent] camp was known to be in the area, or in wide sweeps based on no informatin at all.  Neither of these types of operations had any success.

"The predilection of some army officers for major operations seems incurable.  Even in the late 1950's, [near the end of the war], new brigade commanders would arrive from England, nostalgic for World War II, or fresh from large-scale maneuvers in Germany.  On arrival in Malaya, they would address themselves with chinagraphs to a map almost wholly green except for one red pin.  'Easy,' they would say.  'Battalion on the left, battalion on the right, battalion blocking the end, and thena fourth battalion to drive through.  Can't miss, old boy.'  So a thousand long-suffering lieutenants, sergeants and privates would be launched on an operation described by some name as 'hammer and anvil' or 'splitting the disc' or 'rabbit hunt.'"

The Hammer & Anvil came up in today's New York Times as well.

"Ever since Osama bin Laden escaped American forces in December 2001, crossing the mountains of Tora Bora from Afghanistan into Pakistan, American strategists have spoken of a “hammer and anvil” strategy to crush the militants. Until now, the border has proven so porous, and Pakistani governments so squeamish about a fight, that the American hammer in Afghanistan was pounding Taliban fighters there against a Pakistani pillow, not an anvil....

"“We finally have an opportunity to do a real hammer-and-anvil strategy on the border,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who follows the Afghan war. “We’ve never done it before because we’ve had insufficient strength on both sides of the border or insufficient political will on the Pakistani side.”"

The Hammer & Anvil operation at the street level requires the Taliban to be stupid enough to actually get into a stand-up gun-fight with US Marines.  The enemy, with the exception of a few morons with an extreme desire for martyrdom, usually gets smart, drops the AK-47 and fails to cooperate rendering the whole operation a waste of time and diesel fuel. 

At the Strategic, country-wide level Hammer & Anvil analogies are absurd.

Any Company, Battalion or Brigade commader in Afghanistan would be well served by reading Lt. Colonel Jim Crider's paper published by the Center for a New American Security.

(I embedded with Crider's unit in 2007 and recently bumped into him in Iraq.  He is now the G3 (operations officer) of the 3rd Infantry Division.  Although he is doing important work in Iraq, I feel his experience and talents could be put to greater use in Afghanistan.)

There is no way to Hammer an isurgency to death.  The best way to beat the Taliban is to strangle it to death by conducting a detailed census, building a huge database so you know who lives in each mud hut then going out and confirming the census data daily.  The census data prevents the Taliban from hiding in plain sight forcing them to move on to another area or be slowly suffocated, cornered and then, finally engaged and killed or captured.

In Iraq, most of them just gave up or switched sides.

Squandering time and resources with Hammer & Anvil operation is bad enough--but the real flaw in the Afghan Surge is the lack of time.

For this lesson we go back in time 130 years and learn a lesson from another Brit, Sir Robert Warburton whose book "Eighteen Years in the Khyber" is essential reading to understand the tribal areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Warburton writes about discussions he had with the leaders of the tribe around Jalalabad and their skepticism.

"Sahib, when Major Cavagnari first came here we joined him and threw in our lot with the British government, thinking you were goin to remain here for good.  But you cleared out on the first opportunity and left us to our fate.  For six months we lived with rifles in our hands, dreading every moment that our last day had come--not that Amir Yakub Khan oppressed us, but that our real enemies, our cousins, heirs to our landed property, were hounding on the Mullahs to attack and kill us because we had been friends to the Feringhi, [outsiders, non-muslims] so that our cousins might get hold of our houses, lands and possessions.  You have come again, and we have once more joined our fortunes to yours.  Tell us now what your government intends to do in the future.  Are you going to forsake us once more, and leave us in the hands of our enemies?"

The Afghans are asking us the same questions they asked Warburton and when we say that the Surge is temporary what motivation is there to help NATO and US forces?

The Afghan Surge can work with the application of proper tactics and time--a lot of time.

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