TW: Kilcullen was an early voice for the type of politically oriented initiatives that have likely provided the most value in reducing the temperature of conflict in Iraq. When it became clear Petreaus was using guys like Kilcullen in Iraq I started having some hope that mess might improve. To be clear it is still a mess, a patently unnecessary mess and a mess into which the US should have never gotten involved. Nevertheless it is better now than it was and Kilcullen is one of the reasons why. If you have time read the 2006 New Yorker article focused on Kilcullen.
He now turns his attention to Afghanistan. Some of his key points include: not trying to replicate an Iraqi type surge in Afghanistan (different place and people) and not just dumping more combat troops into the fray without changing the strategies (e.g. banging your head harder against the wall will not knock the wall over).
From the New Yorker interview with Kilcullen:
"...It’s bad: violence is way up, Taliban influence has spread at the local level, and popular confidence in the government and the international community is waning fast. It’s still winnable, but only just, and to turn this thing around will take an extremely major effort starting with local-level governance, political strategy, giving the Afghan people a well-founded feeling of security, and dealing with the active sanctuary in Pakistan. A normal U.S. government transition takes six to nine months, by the time new political appointees are confirmed, briefed, and in position. But nine months out from now will be the height of the Afghan fighting season, and less than a month out from critical Presidential elections in Afghanistan. If we do this the “normal” way, it will be too late for the Obama Administration to grip it up.
The classical counterinsurgency theorist Bernard Fall wrote, in 1965, that a government which is losing to an insurgency isn’t being out-fought, it’s being out-governed. In our case, we are being both out-fought and out-governed for four basic reasons:
1) We have failed to secure the Afghan people
2) We have failed to deal with the Pakistani sanctuary
3) The Afghan government has not delivered legitimate, good governance to Afghans at the local level
4) Neither we nor the Afghans are organized, staffed, or resourced to do these three things
...There has been an emphasis on fighting the Taliban, which has led us into operations (both air and ground-based) that do a lot of damage but do not make people feel safer
...I doubt that an Anbar-style “awakening” is likely in Afghanistan."
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/11/kilcullen-on-af.html
The 2006 story:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/12/18/061218fa_fact2
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