Kandahar: Protecting the people

Further to this post,

Afstan: CF going to the people/Similar US approach? More or fewer Brits? Kiwi Update

excerpts from some very astute observations by BruceR at Flit:

About Deh-e Bagh [more here and here]

The Star, today:

He may not have mentioned it, but McChrystal appears to have had Canada in mind when he spelled out his winning conditions. Just a few months into his job and in deep contemplation about the state of the war, McChrystal travelled in July to Deh-e-Bagh, a tiny village south of Kandahar city that the Canadian military has made the centre of its counter-insurgency effort.

There McChrystal saw a mini-surge of security forces, economic development, medical care and education. Foreign troops were supporting the local population and the locals were supporting the Afghan government.

"That is more powerful than any round we can shoot," McChrystal declared.

Look, if COMISAF's beliefs were reinforced by spending time with the Canadians, good on us. This kind of write-up does tend to put the cart before the horse on the whole Canadian "model village" approach, though.

I'm a fan of the concept, to be sure. It's ink-spotting in the Afghan context, and it's learning from a lot of our and other's past mistakes, true. But it is also only possible now because of the massive influx of American troops that began in the early part of this year, which has formed an outer ring of steel around Kandahar City, one that was never there before, ensconcing the Canadians and Afghan security forces within it [more here].

Brig. Gen. Jon Vance and his staff's "model village" approach was a forward-leaning answer to the question, "okay, with all these new troops pouring in, what is the best way we can respond to this influx? With the Americans taking over much of the 'clear/hold' task in the outer districts, how could we best refocus the Canadian battle group and PRT specifically on the 'hold/build' closer to the city?" It is to Canadian planners' credit that they were thinking that far ahead, with the first model village in place even as the Americans were really starting to pour in, and not coping on the fly with changing circumstances after the fact...

...a battalion-sized FOB in the middle of a well-populated, relatively secure area IS a waste. No question. Those troops should be getting out, like the Canadians are in Panjwaii, into small platoon houses, and fighting the insurgents for the control of the night. That is the best "hold/build" template anyone's come up with so far. In the surrounding less-populated, or less-secure, or openly contested areas, the ideal template is probably a company-sized FOB, (less than 300 men total, Afghan and Western), with some surrounding smaller, more temporary outposts, similar to what Canadians had in Zhari district when I was there. In that environment, being able to assemble a sizable strike force on call is a requirement, and using all your force in defending too many small outposts means force protection replaces force projection...

All that to say protecting the population is the agreed goal here, but it will take different forms on different terrain, often in the form of concentric areas out from a major population centre. And saying simply we should "just get off the FOB" doesn't encompass some of the other adjustments to a still-fluid military situation that are also going to be required if the McChrystal plan is to succeed.