Posts Tagged ‘counterinsurgency’
Notes on the US Budget for FY2011 as it Affects Afghanistan and Pakistan
This review of the U.S. President’s FY2011 budget request reflects two underlying concerns: (1) how much of the U.S. taxpayers’ money is being provided for military and diplomatic expenditures in the main theaters of war; and (2) how long can the United States sustain these levels of spending, and at what cost? While these questions are not [...]
Afghanistan: Making “Counterinsurgency” Work
abc News | By Tom A. Peters | 31 January 2010 Afghanistan: Making Counterinsurgency Work Afghanistan War: Good Counterinsurgency, Like Good Politics, Is Local COMBAT OUTPOST PENICH, Afghanistan — After US Army Capt. Michael Harrison completed his first tour in Afghanistan almost two years ago, he kept in touch with many of the locals [...]
Karzai to Set Up Reconciliation Council
The News | 29 January 2010 All Eyes Set on Ending Afghan War LONDON: The Afghan government and its Western allies now have their eyes firmly set on ending the eight-year war and recognise the only way to do that is to talk to the Taliban and give them a role in Afghanistan’s future. President Hamid Karzai will first set up a National Council [...]
Jeff Huber: The Counterinsurgency (COIN) Myth
Antiwar.com | By Jeff Huber | 11, 13 & 18 January 2010 The COIN Myth Part I The U.S. military’s fabled counterinsurgency field manual (FM 3-24) is an authoritative-sounding 281-page volume of balderdash. Even the legend of its origin is a fabrication. Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of forces in Iraq and now in charge of [...]
Text of the Secret Eikenberry Cables Advising Against the Surge in Afghanistan
New York Times | Undated (Probably 25 January 2010) Ambassador Eikenberry's Cables on U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan Jump to: Start of Post | Cable 1: COIN Strategy | Cable 2: Looking Beyond COIN In November 2009, Karl W. Eikenberry, the United States ambassador to Afghanistan and retired Army lieutenant general, sent two classified cables to [...]
To COIN, or not to COIN?
Zenpundit | By Mark Safranski | 25 January 2010 The Post-COIN Era is Here There has been, for years, an ongoing debate in the defense and national security community over the proper place of COIN doctrine in the repertoire of the United States military and in our national strategy. While a sizable number of serious scholars, [...]
Still in Kansas: The Americans in Afghanistan
“Religious discussions will be frequent. Say what you like about your own side, and avoid criticism of theirs, unless you know that the point is external, when you may score heavily by proving it so. With the Bedu , Islam is so all-pervading an element that there is little religiosity, little fervor, and no regard for externals. Do not think [...]
U.S. Should be Promoting Insurgency in Pakistan — Former C.I.A. Agent
In a remarkable interview (video and transcript, below), former C.I.A. agent Henry (“Hank”) Crumpton reports on how he recruited Afghan collaborators (the offer being: co-operate or die) immediately after “9/11” and reveals the logic of why the U.S. is supporting an insurgency (by faux-Taliban, Baloch separatists, etc.) in Pakistan today [...]
USMC Report: “In Iraq…the U.S. military and civilians…were the source of the insurgency.”
Aviation Week | By Paul McLeary | 28 December 2009 USMC Anbar Awakening Report Faults U.S. Neither Petraeus nor his COIN Manual was the key in Anbar : : Al-Anbar Awakening, Volume II: Iraqi Perspectives; From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq 2004-2009, a publication of Marine Corps University Press. The companion document is Volume I: [...]
Widening Maoist Insurgency in India
New York Times| By Jim Yardley | 31 October 2009 Maoist Rebels Widen Deadly Reach Across India BARSUR, India — At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other [...]
