"Getting our act together in Afghanistan"--and roads

An interesting post at Thomas Ricks' The Best Defense blog:

Sun, 02/15/2009 - 11:26am

Here is a guest report from my friend Maj. Daniel Morgan, who is not the Revolutionary War general, but who is nearing the end of a tour of duty with 101^st Airborne in Afghanistan (and also has a couple of Iraq tours under his belt).

I was especially struck by his point about cross-border communications between units below high-level headquarters. It is the type of answer that doesn't occur to anybody in a national capital -- but can make a major difference to someone spending a year-long combat tour in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan:

As I wind up here and think through things, I want to address what I think is the main focus here for success from a BCT [brigade combat team] perspective. . . . . [M]y belief is that for Afghanistan, the following three principles apply:

1. Partnership. There are two, if not three, partnership efforts here with Afghan Security Forces, consisting of the Afghan Army, Police and if on the border, the Border Police. Units must sacrifice to support the partnership method at the US battalion and BCT levels. It is only here that ANSF forces will take the lead. . .

2. Road Infrastructure. This is simple. Afghanistan is not Iraq. The tribes are not tribes here. They are communal villages or communities for two reasons. First, the rugged, foreboding terrain separates them by sheer physical presence. So, they have different needs and interests. Second, the infrastructure does not connect them to basic services or government. You have to build roads--this brings security, health clinics, markets/bazaars, etc. However, that is not enough. It is here where our example of the infamous Khost-Gardez Road success demonstrates how a BCT must fight this fight; whereas two Russian Divisions were slaughtered by the mujahideen. We have influenced mullas and tribal elders; hired a percentage of local nationals and bartered for their pay until we agreed; we built radio towers and issued radios to the population and embarked on an information campaign; we put the Afghan Police on the road to interact; we put the Afghan Army in the villages on patrol and in key observation posts in the high ground; we flew the Afghan Governor to the key population densities to maintain support and get the population to be the guarantor of security; and we conducted dozens of AASLTs and killed and destroyed the enemy and their logistics through aerial and ground signal intel and use of aerial observation. This technique applies to counternarcotics as well. You cannot eradicate unless there is security present in the area and some form of governance and alternative for the population.

3. Afghan Border and Military Diplomacy. The border requires a decentralized approached to controlling the FATA [the Pakistani border area] and other border regions to stop the back-and-forth movement of the enemy. US, Afghan, and Pakistan BDE [brigade] Commanders must be ordered and held accountable for this effort. Lessons from our poor border effort with Mexico are a prime example. Our DoS [Department of State] and DoD [Department of Defense] leadership must gain support between Afghan and Pakistan officials to build a common communication architecture at the tactical level, defined as platoon to battalion level in order to coordinate operations - not at the CJTF and General Headquarters in Islamabad. Right now, everything is at the top and the BCTs and below make modest gains now. We need to go ahead and purchase commercial off-the-shelf communications for the tactical level and someone must develop manage it between the two countries. If you do not isolate the enemy from the freedom of movement across the border, this will never end -- because all the enemy needs to do is use the terrain that separates the tribes and lack of road infrastructure that prevents connection to government and security to maintain their influence and numbers in countless safe havens.

Lastly, this remains a military operation. Until we figure out how to coordinate and streamline the interagency to report and remain within the military Commander's intent, we will continue to waste resources in a "whack-a-mole" process vice [instead of] within the correct population densities overlaid on terrain and other key factors.

US Army milblogger VAMPIRE 06, now serving in Afstan, recently had similar things to say about roads at his blog, AFGHANISTAN SHRUGGED:

Dear President Obama
...
Roads, we need more of them. A lot more! This is the cornerstone to building Afghanistan and the government. The Romans were successful not because of military technology, it helped, but because they built an extensive road network. Many of which still exist today and are in better shape than roads in Afghanistan.

Without roads the Afghans don’t really need a centralized government. That’s a broad statement but I’ll qualify it here in a minute. The tribe pretty much provides what they need. The tribe protects them, settles disputes and enforces laws. They’re more than capable of doing this and have been for the last several centuries. They fulfill the basic governmental requirements common defense, law and order.

The tribes though can’t build and maintain roads. Now, you need a centralized government to construct, maintain and protect the roads. You get an influx of money as people work on the roads and they quit getting paid to blow us up and it stimulates a demand for goods and services.

With the road comes inter-province commerce for which you need regulation by a central government; a function a tribe can’t accomplish. Sounds kind of like a little situation we had around 1776. The road brings money, communication and progress. You cut the link between Pakistan and the tribal regions because it’s now easier to travel to the interior of Afghanistan to get medical treatment, goods, services the whole lot.

So with a simple road we’ve now created an environment friendly to the support of the Afghan central government. That doesn’t exist now. It’s a lot easier to explain to the Afghans that the Army and police protect the roads and regulate commerce. Additionally taking the, “this is a war on Islam” factor out of the situation.

We’re making sure people can conduct trade and are free to travel as they wish. Sounds like freedom.

Democracy and liberty are damn hard concept to explain to someone who doesn’t see any benefit from the government in Kabul. So what if I elect the guy if he does nothing for me? The population earns money and then we explain that the government will protect their continued ability to do so and that’s a discussion someone understands...

He's also big on education.

The CF, for their part, have been taking on road-building:

February 13, 2008

Canadian military road-building project provides lifeline for Afghani people

Canadian military will spending $4.5 million over two years on 6.5-kilometre Panjwaii road

PANJWAII DISTRICT, AFGHANISTAN

Roads are for the living but the Canadian military has begun a massive road-building project that will also honour the dead in one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

The $4.5 million project to pave 6.5 kilometres of road that a local elder called the “Spine of the Panjwaii” is a two-year undertaking that will give jobs to more than 400 Afghans...

Would be interesting to know how that project is going.