Defence of the Realm

In what must rate of a stroke of political genius, Obama has seen off the challenge by the US military over Afghanistan and, by firing McChrystal and appointing his boss Gen David Petraeus, has dumped the problem back in their laps and told them to get on with it.

On the basis that there is nothing new under the sun, there must be a precedent for a field commander being fired and his boss being appointed to replace him, but such incidents are few and far between. However, few can have expected that Obama would take this option and, in the brief period while McChrystal's fate was in the balance, you did not see Petraeus's name in the ring.

What we have been seeing is a huge amount of thrashing about, as commentators struggle and largely fail to make sense of recent events, not realising that this was most likely a deliberate ploy by McChrystal to destabilise Obama and dump the blame for a failing campaign in the lap of the president.

As such, it is most unlikely that McChrystal's quite deliberate and studied coup de main was done without the knowledge and acquiescence (if not approval) of his boss.

By appointing Petraeus to take over from his uppity subordinate – effectively a demotion – Obama demonstrates the skills acquired and honed as a street-fighting Chicago politician. He has reasserted control over – as The Guardian puts it – a politicised military, with the generals out of control.

In so doing, he dumps responsibility for success in Afghanistan in the lap of the supposed architect of the campaign, leaving McChrystal isolated and irrelevant. The Army is still very much in the frame and Obama's message about "civilian control" could not have been clearer.

Hero of the Iraqi "surge" and a Bush appointee, Petraeus must now deliver the goods in Afghanistan or go under. His appointment, to a very great extent, insulates the president from the fray. The new chief is in the hot seat, and with him the military. The game has just changed, and taken on a whole new dimension.

Comment: Afghanistan thread

Said David Cameron today in his closing speech to the Conservative Party conference, "When the country is at war, when Whitehall is at war, we need people who understand war in Whitehall."

This was a prelude to the opposition leader formally announcing that General Sir Richard Dannatt was to become a Conservative defence advisor and would join the Tory benches in the House of Lords. If the Conservatives won the election he could then serve in a future Conservative government.

Of Cameron's prelude, it is difficult to say whether his bald statement that "Whitehall is at war" was simply sloppy phrasing and therefore accidentally ambiguous, or deliberately so. Did he mean that "Whitehall" was at war with itself, or with – presumably – the Taleban?

And when the leader referred to needing people "who understand war in Whitehall", was he referring to the war in Whitehall, or that we need people in Whitehall who understand war?

The distinctions are by no means spurious – witness a piece by Michael Evans on the subject of Dannatt in The Times, headed "Fight this war in Afghanistan, not Whitehall".

In his text, Evans freely refers to the "battle" between military and politicians, which is also raging on the other side of the Atlantic. This side of the water, it is generally acknowledged that there is not only a "battle" between military and civilians, but also between the different branches of the Services, and even within the Army, as it tries to get to grips with the conflict in Afghanistan.

Whatever expectations Mr Cameron might have of Gen Dannatt, however, they are likely to be unfulfilled. Had Dannatt been more skilled at fighting the "war" in Whitehall, perhaps he would not have felt it necessary to appeal to the media in an attempt to win his battles. As it is, he lost the confidence of ministers and, according to some of his military peers, set back the cause of the Army.

As to the "war" in Afghanistan, therein perhaps lies a bigger story, resting not so much on phrasing as precise terminology. Specifically, there is no "war" in Afghanistan. It is an insurgency and our people out there are (or should be) engaged in a counterinsurgency.

For the "Tom" engaged in a "contact" with a group of fighters awarded the generic name “Taleban", the distinction might seem academic. But it is far from so being. That much Gen McChrystal got right. In a war, the focus is on the destroying the enemy and capturing territory. In a counter-insurgency, it is on the people, with the objective of convincing them that they should support the government of their country.

The fundamental difference here is that the prosecution of war is primarily the function of the military. The civil power takes the back seat. The counter-insurgency is a politico-military endeavour, which works best when there is a political lead and the military acts in support of the overall political plan. The military should take a secondary and subordinate role.

Relying on a man such as Dannatt, on advice on how to fight a "war", therefore, is not exactly a winning formula. There is a fundamental error of perception here – and one which, if it continues to dominate our thinking, will ensure our eventual failure.

This is an error, incidentally, to which I have been prey. And I freely admit that I have been in error, treating and discussing the counter-insurgency there as if it was a war, reporting and analysing it as if it was a military campaign. We are not at war. This cannot be over-emphasised. There is no "war".

In making this error, I am far from alone. We see daily in the reportage, the heavy emphasis on the military action and it is the view of the generals on the conduct of the "war" that predominate.

Of the civilians on the ground in the theatre, we scarcely know one, and in media terms they are invisible. Yet this should not be so. The civilians should be up-font, making the key decisions, with the Army clearly seen as supporting the civil authority. Where, as is currently the case, the public face of the campaign wears uniforms and carries guns, it is unsurprising that the Afghans think we are at war – with them.

Interestingly, in one of the many articles discussing Afghanistan in the Washington Post, reference is made to "executing and resourcing an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy."

The order of words is all-important - "civilian" comes before "military". And then, of course, there is that word "integrated". As it stands, the order is reversed and the two activities are very far from integrated. Therein lies our problem. To make a difference, as we noted recently, the politicians need to re-assert their primacy and put the generals back in their box.

Mr Cameron today did no such thing. He simply perpetuated the error which has dogged the campaign, and backed the wrong horse. Despite his slogan, it seems that he is not ready for change.

COMMENT THREAD

Just as US defence secretary Robert Gates is calling for "calm and privacy" as Obama considers his next move on Afghanistan, across the Atlantic The Sun has chosen to ramp up the temperature, publishing yesterday an interview with General Sir Richard Dannatt, his first since retiring as Chief of the General Staff.

"We are fighting with one arm tied behind our back," says Sir Richard, who goes on to complain that prime minister Gordon Brown had refused "a plea" for 2,000 extra troops earlier this year.

With weary constancy, a Downing Street spokesman has denied Dannatt's charge, claiming that as a matter of "fact" that the 2,000 figure is false. Far from a direct "plea" as The Sun so graphically puts it, "ministers were presented with options" but none was ever for 2,000. The most we were asked for, says Downing Street, was 1,500 (from 8300 to 9800) of which the Army got 700.

On the face of it, there is nothing new in the Sun's story, the paper effectively reducing a retired General to a political pawn (although it is not clear who is using whom - probably a bit of both). The Dannatt view is: "If you're going to conduct an operation, you're doing it for one reason – to succeed." He thus claims that his aim has always been "to make sure we've got the right number of people with the right equipment, conducting successfully the mission the government has asked us to do."

For the moment, that "mission" is to develop a self-sustaining, stable and democratic Afghanistan. Within that, the Army's specific task is to "create a stable environment to enable the Afghan government extend its authority across the country and reconstruction and development to take place" – an extensive brief which is recognisably impossible to achieve within any defined timetable. It may well take generations to achieve.

In arguing that he wishes to "succeed", therefore, Dannatt is being more than a little disingenuous. As best, all the British Army can do – in concert with the 36 other nations that comprise ISAF – is achieve a degree of progress that brings the "mission" closer to completion.

To that end, the Army has considerable freedom to decide on what steps it will take. Senior officers – and especially the chiefs of staff - insist on maintaining the distinction between strategy and implementation, jealously guarding their right to initiate military operations without political interference. They are thus able to define what constitutes "success" by reference to objectives they, themselves, have set.

However – and especially in such a long-term and complex venture such as this – the distinction between grand strategy and the stages of implementation, including the definition of military strategy, is never precise. Dannatt, however, has insisted on a rigid division, not permitting the flexibility that the fluidity and uncertainties of the campaign demand. This has led to tension at the heart of government – and is at the heart of Dannatt's complaints of lack of support.

Shining a little light on this tension is Col Richard Kemp, commander of British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, who spoke at a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference yesterday.

At the meeting, Kemp argued that Dannatt's public attacks were ultimately harming the military's cause in Whitehall, pointing out that: "It was incredibly dangerous for him to speak out when he was in office. He was a member of the Government team."

His action, said Kemp, "undermined the relationship between the military and the politicians," adding: "It's very easy for generals to point the finger at politicians and blame them, but decisions on defence taken at the highest levels are joint decisions. I don't think the military advice to ministers has always been the very best."

Putting that in the context of Afghanistan, what we have been seeing is the military, with Dannatt as it champion, unilaterally deciding on a level of operations which have required resources far beyond those available, leaving the Army dangerously exposed.

The point – and it is one that has not properly been identified – is that the Army has been dictating the pace of operations, resisting political constraints on their conduct, arguing that any such constitute interference in military operations. Having then created the situations in which the Army is struggling to maintain its momentum, Dannatt has been demanding more resources to complete what amount to self-appointed tasks.

Additional resources, however, have then been used to increase the pace of operations still further, leading to calls for still more resources. This has presented government with the dilemma of either committing to an open-ended cycle of reinforcement or seeking to restrain the exuberance of the military by denying it the resources it demands.

In fact, what the government is now attempting to do – and has been attempting for some time – is institute a bargaining process which it calls "conditionality".

Before permitting additional troops to be sent, it is thus demanding a clearer idea from the Army of its plans, and is seeking to force the Army to match manpower commitments with the flow of other resources – especially protected vehicles and helicopters. By this means, it is trying to restrain the Army's tendency to "crack on". It also wants to see a new Afghan government in place, ready to seize the initiative on corruption, and ready to send more Afghan troops to be trained and partnered by British troops.

What is happening therefore – in effect – is that the Army is being asked to cut its cloth according to the resources available, rather than devise in isolation an operational tempo that outstrips them, creating a need for more.

Refusing to accept this discipline, Dannatt has effectively taken the view that the role of the government is to support him unconditionally in implementing what he and his senior officers consider to be necessary to complete the "mission".

And, having not been goven what he wnats, he has broken ranks and been appealing directly to the media, a process he is continuing even after he has left office. And, having put the Army out on a limb, it is very easy to make what appears to be a powerful case for more resources.

The incoming CGS, General Sir David Richards – although imbued with much the same exuberance as his predecessor – is less inclined to break ranks and more disposed, as a team player, to accept the "conditionality" constraints.

Of course, there is another "player" in this convoluted game – the "enemy". Inconveniently, the disparate groups which have acquired the generic label of the "Taleban" have shown an unwillingness to conform with the strategic role set out for them, with their increased activity and tenacity driving the Army agenda.

But this is where the crucial issue of strategy comes in. Imbued with a conventional fighting ethos, instead of addressing the different and altogether more subtle dynamics of a counter-insurgency – the instinct of the Army has been identify an enemy and then hunt it down and engage it in battle. The presence and scale of the "enemy" has thus dictated the operational tempo and determined the level of resources required.

Enter another "uppity" general, Stanley McChrystal. His "take, hold, build" ideas are by no means new, but he offers the prospect of scaling back the objectives of the campaign by proposing only to take and hold the most populous areas. For that, though, he still feels an extra 40,000 troops are needed.

However, Henry Kissinger, architect of the US withdrawal from Vietnam, perhaps offers another pointer - in the current edition of Newsweek. He notes that military strategy is traditionally defined by control of the maximum amount of territory. That has indeed been the driver of the campaign to date.

But, he observes, the strategy of the guerrilla is to draw the adversary into a morass of popular resistance in which, after a while, extrication becomes his principal objective. In Vietnam, Kissinger recalls, the guerrillas often ceded control of the territory during the day and returned at night to prevent political stabilisation.

Therefore, he concludes, in guerrilla war, control of 75 percent of the territory 100 percent of the time is more important than controlling 100 percent of the territory 75 percent of the time. A key strategic issue, therefore, "will be which part of Afghan territory can be effectively controlled in terms of these criteria."

Gen McChrystal certainly would certainly agree with the premise that the territory held should be under complete control, but he is perhaps being too ambitious. We need to take a lead from Stephen Grey's precept of doing fewer things better.

One way of doing this was suggested by Major Mehar Omar Khan, who argued that the actual areas controlled only need to be modest. Just a few districts should be held. That is enough to achieve a long-term strategic effect, while also providing bases for the "counter-terrorism" component of the grand strategy.

This is the essence of a "third way" that is being considered in the halls of power, and could well resolve the tension between the militaries and their governments on both sides of the Atlantic. It would relieve the pressure on resources, while giving the military clear and achievable objectives.

First, of all, though, the generals must be put back in their boxes. The politicians must reclaim their lost ground and take charge of the military. Counter-insurgencies are not "wars" and their direction shouild not be militarily-led. They are essentially an exercise in practical politics. The political lead must be re-asserted.

COMMENT THREAD

A particularly appropriate observation found its way into the Small Wars Journal forum recently. "Never ask the guy in the fight what the most important objective is, because it will invariably be the guy he is fighting," it said. "Strategy must be derived by those removed from the current fight, otherwise it will likely be skewed more by 'urgency' rather than 'importance'."

The truth of that observation was never better demonstrated than by a flurry of media interest today – by The Times, amongst others – in the views of Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes, a 30-year-old bomb disposal specialist.

He had been asked by defence secretary Bob Ainsworth - who was visiting Afghanistan with home secretary Alan Johnson - what he needed most. "More troops on the ground," Hughes had replied. He said later: "We have lost two guys. More troops are needed on the ground but the same could be said for equipment."

This considered strategic perspective of course mirrors the "opinion" of Gen Stanley McChrystal and, if the Staff Sergeant's comments – or the media's treatment of them – triggered a certain weary irritation in the portals of Whitehall, this is nothing compared with the reaction McChrystal's politicking seems to have triggered in Washington.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the relationship between Obama and his errant general "has been put under severe strain", with the presidential advisors "shocked and angered" by the bluntness of McChrystal's speech in London. Some commentators regarded the general's London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: "As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements." One adviser to the administration, however, said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this." He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to "pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy".

The general is certainly taking more than a little flak in Washington, with Eugene Robinson, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post taking him to task. He is entitled to his opinion about the best way forward, says Robinson. But he has no business conducting a public campaign to build support for his preferred option.

McChrystal's view, Robinson continues - that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be "short-sighted" - is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

McChrystal, in his public advocacy for more troops, seemed to be trying to limit Obama's options. But what we want to achieve in Afghanistan is a political question, and we don't pay our generals to do politics. That's the job of the president and the Congress - and whether our elected leaders decide to pull out tomorrow or stay for 100 years, the generals' job is to make it happen.

For the record, adds Robinson, this would be my position even if McChrystal were arguing for an immediate pullout - or even if George W. Bush, rather than Obama, were the president whose authority was being undermined.

He then tells that, in October 2006, when the chief of staff of the British army said publicly that Britain should pull out of Iraq because the presence of foreign troops was fueling the insurgency - a view with which he wholeheartedly shared - he argued that he ought to be fired. Robinson wrote that he didn't like "active-duty generals dabbling in politics," even if he agreed with them. "If military officers want to devise and implement geopolitical strategy, they should leave their jobs and run for office."

In Britain, though, we not only seem to have Generals and Flight Lieutenants but now Staff Sergeants.

Privately, says Robinson, Obama needs to hear McChrystal's advice. Publicly, he needs to hear one simple phrase from the general: "Yes, Mr. President." US defence secretary Gates (pictured), it seems, also agrees, declaring that US military officers and civilians advising Obama on Afghanistan should keep their views private. "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately," he says.

The same nostrum would not go amiss this side of the Atlantic.

COMMENT THREAD

The media, predictably, made great play of the intervention of Flight Lieutenant Victoria Anderton in the question session after General Stanley McChrystal's address to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"I'm actually going out to Kandahar to serve with the Tornado GR4s next year," she told the general, "and can I say how much more confidence I have now in my chain of command than I had after Prime Minister Gordon Brown was here a couple of weeks ago? " She then went on to thank him for his determined assurances that the campaign could be turned around and asked him if he was confident that he could transmit that attitude to Mr Brown and President Obama.

Whatever happened to "apolitical" one might have asked, that honourable tradition in the British Armed Forces, where serving members of the military do not discuss politics in public? Anderton might have enjoyed her brief notoriety but, with her pointed and highly political comment, rode rough-shod over a convention for which the military is rightly respected.

More to the point, it was a facile intervention from a young lady who did nothing more than demonstrate her own ignorance of the politics of an issue that is growing in complexity by the day.

McChrystal, of course, is a politician and, while wearing the uniform of a US Army general, his appearance in London was a highly political act, reinforced by later meetings with Gordon Brown and the leader of the opposition, David Cameron. He has a political case to make, one which is taking centre stage in Washington, where the issues have are being debated hotly and have yet to be resolved.

And, while Flt-Lt Anderton might be "confident" in McChrystal's analysis, there are many who are not. Three of those yesterday gave evidence to the US Senate foreign relations committee. All three warned of the failure of other countries' attempts to deal with Afghanistan in the past - including occupations by the Soviet Union and Britain – speaking against the McChrystal plan.

The first, Milt Bearden, is a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Islamabad. He spoke of the Soviets who had spent ten years in Afghanistan, with an average troop strength of 120,000. It was never, ever was enough to defeat that insurgency.

Bearden's view was that there would always be enough ethnic Pashtuns who viewed any foreign force as an occupation and who would engage US troops on the battlefield. "There is no, in my opinion, there is no possibility for the United States to provide enough troops in Afghanistan to pacify the situation," he said.

Another expert at the hearing, Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the US, also said that a military escalation would be unlikely to succeed and would intensify rivalries in the region, such as the one between India and Pakistan.

Other negative consequences of a military surge could be an influx of militant and al-Qaida fighters into Pakistan. Furthermore, it could enhance the vulnerability of US and Nato ground supply routes throughout Pakistan, and would likely mean more Afghan refugees pouring into Pakistan. "It could endanger, erode and unravel the key public consensus that has been achieved in the past one year to fight the militancy," she said.

In his evidence, Steve Coll, President and CEO of The New America Foundation, suggested an alternative. The coalition should make it would make clear that the Taleban will never be permitted to take power by force in Kabul or major cities, he said.

"It would seek and enforce stability in Afghan population centres, but emphasize politics over combat, urban stability over rural patrolling, Afghan solutions over Western ones. And it would incorporate Pakistan more directly into creative, persistent diplomatic efforts to stabilize Afghanistan and the region," he added.

Under the chairmanship of John Kerry, these invited witnesses are obviously partisan, but it is not only Kerry's "chosen few" who are questioning McChrystal's megalomania. Published by Small Wars Journal, we have Mehar Omar Khan, "a Pakistani infantry officer who may soon end up being another name on an ever-growing list of the fallen soldiers in the war against terror".

Khan writes an impassioned plea for a different kind of strategy, under the title: "Don't Try to Arrest the Sea." What we are facing in Afghanistan is a "Pashtun Intifada". It is only "led" by bearded mullahs calling themselves "Taleban". Take out the Taleban and the insurgency will continue, he says.

While Gen McChrystal has his own agenda, he does, however, welcome the fact that there is a political debate underway, venturing the opinion that, even though it was taking time, the consequences of making a wrong decision were such that it was better to talk through the issues than rush into making a mistake.

The idea of a debate, though, was clearly above Flt-Lt Anderton's pay grade, with her having already decided to buy into the general's pitch. So too, it seems has UK foreign secretary David Miliband, who is urging Obama to "back his general", to a chorus of uncritical approval from Robert Fox of The Guardian who is accusing the US president of "dithering".

Nor indeed is the leader of the opposition expressing any concern about the general's line – which is hardly surprising since his shadow defence secretary seems to have bought into it. Mr Cameron, we are told, is ready to set up a "war Cabinet" to deal with the Afghan conflict if he wins the general election – thus displaying, perhaps, a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the conflict. It is not a "war", as such, but a counterinsurgency, for which – it is rightly held – there is no military solution.

"Our military is at war in Afghanistan, but quite frankly, Whitehall isn't," says Cameron. But the fact that the military seems to be running the show, and considers itself "at war" is actually part of the problem. This is another person who does not seem to have been thinking it through.

COMMENT THREAD

Those interested in the Afghan issue are doubtless aware of the recent McChrystal assessment report, and most will have either read the redacted copy or, at the very least, read one or more of the numerous media reviews of it.

Those who have done neither could, if they so wished, read the speech delivered today by Liam Fox to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

With the working title, "Beyond the Smoke: Making Progress in Afghanistan", its substantive parts are unashamedly lifted from the McChrystal assessment report, comprising an evaluation of "three areas in the current struggle in Afghanistan". These are the role of the Afghan population in the war, capacity building of the Afghan Security Forces and the need to improve governance across Afghanistan.

Fox even admits the source, stating that they have been identified as priorities by the General, then somewhat rashly declaring that they form the basis of future strategy in Afghanistan.

Whether McChrystal was defining a strategy or simply a new (as applied to Afghanistan) tactical approach is moot, but the strategy comprises in essence the implementation of the "Integrated civil-military campaign plan", which goes well beyond the three areas enumerated by Fox.

Crucially though, Fox seems to have fallen into the trap (one of many) of assuming that the McChrystal assessment is a done deal. He is behind the curve, seemingly unaware that president Obama has not acted on it and, instead, has commissioned his own strategic review. Whether McChrystal's recommendations will become policy, therefore, remains a matter of speculation. They certainly cannot be taken as read.

The "game changer", of course, was the Afghan presidential election. It is recognised that any successful counterinsurgency requires a stable and legitimate political partner in the host country and, whether Karzai manages to cling on to power or not, there is general agreement that he will be weakened and that his administration will lack legitimacy.

On that basis, there are serious doubts as to whether the classic counterinsurgency strategy, advocated by McChrysal, can actually work. It was that which led Obama to commission his new review, from which an entirely different strategy might emerge.

Apparently completely oblivious to this development, Fox – in his only substantive reference to the election - states that it is "crucial" that it "must be seen to be credible and reflect the wishes of the Afghan people." This is wishful thinking beyond peradventure.

Thus, we are left with what amounts to a slavish adherence to the McChrystal creed, with not one scintilla of critical exploration. Fox's only concern is to ensure that the "strategy" is properly resourced. That much is picked up by The Times, which provocatively headlines: "Tories would send 2,500 more troops to Afghanistan, says Liam Fox".

The paper then reports that the shadow defence secretary had "indicated" that a Conservative government would increase British troop numbers in Afghanistan by up to 2,500 and deliver more helicopters, armoured vehicles and "other key battlefield enablers".

In what could have been an opportunity to set out a new direction for what is evidently a failing campaign, Fox has therefore sold the pass. Like so many before him, he pays lip-service to the received wisdom that the campaign cannot be resolved by a "military victory", but he then defines success as securing security – which of course he seeks to achieve by military means.

No one, it seems, can see the logical absurdity in this approach – least of all Fox. A military solution is not possible ... therefore we must seek a military solution. "The reconstruction will follow," says Fox. "The factors of prosperity, individual freedoms, and free markets ... may someday come to Afghanistan. We should do all we can to help this to happen but it will not happen overnight," he adds.

It does not dawn on him, the simple precept that the order might be reversed. Focus on economic reconstruction, build prosperity, and protect a people who then have a stake in their society and something to lose. Security will follow. In the final analysis, security comes not from the barrel of a gun – it comes from the will of the people. But then, that is probably too difficult for Fox to understand.

COMMENT THREAD

Doug Beattie is back in print, this time with another book to sell. So, for a change, he offers a narrative of almost unremitting negativity, under the heading: "The descent of Britain's Afghan campaign into a Vietnam-style madness".

Doubtless, it is a good book – the last one was – but this is the same Doug Beattie who recently was telling us why we must hang in there and finish the job in Afghanistan. Reading his current account though – and indeed the first book – you cannot fail to come away with a sense of the utter futility of the campaign, to say nothing of strongly signalled presentiments of failure.

In assessing his call to finish the job, we called for strategy, not blind faith. Now, with the emergence of General McChrystal's assessment report, strategy is firmly on the agenda – in the US media, at least – turning a little-known solider into an instant hero, with earnest hagiographies in the likes of Newsweek.

Only gradually did it emerge that McChrystal was not so much offering a new strategy as a continuation of a strategy agreed in March by the incoming president Obama. That event was reinforced with 21,000 extra troops drafted in to take territory from the Taleban, the first of three phases labelled with the deceptively simple title of "take, hold and build".

Taking, though was the easier bit. To hold that territory requires a two-tier approach – providing coalition troops while expanding and training up the Afghan National Army which would eventually take over. That would require still more troops, even though Obama signalled as early as July that he "wasn't inclined" to send more combat troops to Afghanistan.

That may well have precipitated the "leak" of the assessment report to the Washington Post and the coordinated publicity campaign which was clearly aimed at bouncing Obama into agreeing to raise manpower levels, even though no formal request had then been made for extra troops.

Now, however, we learn that McChrystal has placed a formal bid with his Defense Department, in the upper range of expectations, at 40,000. The call is being backed by Britain's top general in Afghanistan – Lt-Gen Jim Dutton - in the hope that the British government will follow suit and send some more of its own.

Dutton tells The Times that victory was a matter of "straightforward force ratios". "If you want to achieve long-term stability, and therefore a lack of terrorism potential in an area, you need to be doing more than simply patrolling the skies," he says. "The ultimate answer to this problem is a stable democratic state of Afghanistan in which their own forces are capable of maintaining the rule of law and security."

Already, it has emerged that Obama was having second thoughts about precisely this "counterinsurgency" strategy and was considering an alternative "counter-terrorism" strategy, the so-called "whack-a-mole approach", achieved mainly by patrolling the skies with armed UAVs.

Next, though, we find out that Obama's March strategy review, which culminated in putting McChrystal into position, wasn't a strategy review after all. The decision to send 21,000 more troops, thought to be directed at implementing the strategy, was "made hurriedly within weeks of coming into office to stanch the tactical erosion on the ground and provide security during Afghan elections."

Through the good offices of vice-president Joseph Biden, we are now having the strategy review that we did not have in March. McChrystal's request for more troops will not even be put to the president until the review is completed, and the world marks time until a decision is made. Unsurprisingly, US defence secretary, Robert Gates, has now revealed that the review could take several more weeks.

On the other hand, examination of McChrystal's not-a-strategy shows it to be remarkably similar to Petraeus's "surge" template, which achieved some success in Iraq, although under very different conditions. Not least, in Iraq, the national army came of age and – albeit with considerable help – proved capable of taking the load. As regards the Afghan National Army, even the staid Jamestown Foundation has its doubts, while Captain's Journal has no doubts at all. The Afghan army is "horrible".

Perhaps conscious that relying on the Afghan army is not a quick-fix solution, secretary Gates has dismissed calls for a timetable for withdrawal. "The notion of timelines and exit strategies and so on would all be a strategic mistake," he says.

All these developments have left the UK rather out in the cold. UK commentators have tried to engage in the debate, but they are reporting rather than participating. There is no political traction here and the real debate is across the pond. By and large, therefore, our media confines itself to the only things it can do well, emoting, reporting on bickering generals and bitching about equipment shortfalls. Intelligent debate has become a rarity - nothing new there.

Thus, while Beattie writes of, "The descent of Britain's Afghan campaign into a Vietnam-style madness", the situation can be summed up more succinctly as simply a descent into madness. The Vietnam parallel is not necessary. Casualties will continue to mount, more attempts
will be made to sort out the election results – while Ban Ki-moon complains about "the level of uncertainty" - and the Taleban carries on causing havoc.

And madness will prevail.

COMMENT THREAD

Gradually, the British media is absorbing the implications of the McChrystal assessment, and the political ramifications surrounding it, and we are beginning to see some in-depth reports.

The Times for instance, is running a six-part series on Afghanistan, the latest dealing with the battle for "hearts and minds" on the home front, picking up on a theme it rehearsed in July.

The biggest challenge for the government, says this paper, is not how to beat the Taleban but how to keep the public at home onside. People tend to support the Armed Forces whatever they do but if there is any perception that British troops are dying in Afghanistan for no good reason the tide of opinion will turn.

Keeping people "onside" requires, at its most basis, a government which is able to offer a clear strategic direction and an indication that progress is being made, at an acceptable cost, with some prospect of an end in sight.

Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, agrees that the government has to make clear the real reason why we need to be in Afghanistan. First and foremost, he then says, we must get security right so that we can prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a haven for terrorism.

Only then does he moves on to tell us that building the Afghan state - its education and health services, alternative livelihoods to drugs and a strong legal system - will give the people a better future than the one offered by the Taleban.

The problem with that is that Ainsworth does not make a clear causal link between his assertions. A "secure" Afghanistan, he asserts, is necessary to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists. He then asserts that building the Afghan state will give people a "better future" than the one offered by the Taleban, but he does not tell us that this condition is necessary to defeat the Taleban. We are left to assume that, as indeed we have to assume that achieving this desirable condition is conditional on achieving security.

The sequential relationship between establishing security and then building the Afghan state, however, seems to have lodged as the prevailing paradigm, with the greater problem that we appear to be stuck in stage one, as yet unable to establish the security on which everything else depends.

However, it is now readily acknowledged that defeating the insurgent – in this case the Taleban – and thus achieving security, depends entirely on gaining the support of the people. Yet, to gain the support of the people, it is necessary to give people a "better future" which, under the prevailing paradigm, demands that security is first achieved.

Expressed thus, this is something of a self-defeating task, unless overwhelming force can be brought to bear over a very short period of time, thus to secure an area and allow rapid improvements to be implemented, all with the aim of convincing Afghans that there is a prospect of a "better future".

This, presumably – and, in fact, almost certainly – is what McChrystal aims to achieve through his assessment. And, while he has not yet formally asked for more troops, we learn from The Washington Post that he is about to do so. That request, though, will be made to the Department of Defense, which has indicated that it will not immediately forward it to the White House, pending the current strategic review which is being conducted by the president.

Here, one can understand the dilemma in the White House. There is absolutely no guarantee that the McChrystal plan – such that it is – will actually work, or indeed any indication that it has any chance of working. Based on the Iraqi "surge" concept, there is in fact every chance that it will not.

Thus, one can see the attractions of trimming back the ambitions, turning away from a counterinsurgency strategy, where the focus is on the people, to a counterterrorism strategy where the focus is on killing the enemy – in this case al Qaeda. Unfortunately, as Captain's Journal makes abundantly clear, that strategy is unlikely to work either.

Torn between two equally unattractive prospects, therefore, the response of the White House has been delay. Since late August when McChrystal delivered his report to the president, there has been no progress. No decisions have been made and there is no indication that one is forthcoming. A dangerous strategic vacuum is building up, where troops on the ground are marking time, waiting for a decision – and action – that they believe will enable them to make progress.

That delay is the worst of all possible worlds, and it is being noticed. Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian writes that Gordon Brown and, "less characteristically" (his words, not mine), Barack Obama appear irresponsibly indecisive. US and UK military chiefs are tearing their hair out at the inability of their political masters and civil agencies to get a grip on the Afghan conflict.

If the home front needs signs of direction, firm leadership and progress, this indecision simply reinforces the sense of drift. As casualties mount – as they doubtless will – the frustration and uncertainty may yet spill over into outright hostility to the war, culminating in demands for complete withdrawal.

We are, in effect, on the road to nowhere and while, generally – in road safety terms – we are told that "speed kills", on this particular road the greater danger might be delay. But if the wrong decision is also likely to have fatal consequences, there is a problem building up of alarming proportions. An immediate decision might rebuild public confidence in the short-term but the longer-term cost might be strategic failure, with catastrophic effects on public sentiment.

Perhaps the real problem is, in fact, the focus on strategy without due consideration for tactics. We will have a look at this in a future post.

COMMENT THREAD

It is the New York Times that is now telling us that Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan. The process includes considering a plan advocated by vice president Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out al Qaeda there and in Pakistan.

This amounts to a "wholesale reconsideration" of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago, helpfully summarised by Newsweek. That strategy involved defeating the insurgents, preventing Al Qaeda from re-establishing a sanctuary and working to set up a democratic and effective government.

Crucially, it also involved training Afghan forces to take over from US troops and coaxing the international community to give more help. There was also an added element, focusing on Pakistan - "assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunities for the people of Pakistan."

In pursuit of the Afghan end of what became known as the AFPAK strategy, Obama agreed to despatch an additional 17,000 troops to the theatre and then another 4,000 to help train Afghan security forces. And it was that strategy which Gen McChrystal took as his brief, working to produce his "assessment" of how it should be implemented.

What has actually confused the issue is that McChrystal writes extensively about needing a new strategy. In fact, the strategy had already been determined. What he has offered is a "significant change in ... the way we think and operate."

As we know, the essence of this "significant change" is defined as "take, hold and build", the first step having been achieved in part with the 17,000 extra troops. But now the coalition forces have taken more territory, McChrystal finds – as he always would – that he needs more troops to hold it. The figure of 30-40,000 has been mentioned.

Now – or so it would seem – Obama is having to confront the inevitable consequence of a strategy defined last March, which effectively rubber-stamped what Bush had put in place, and is now having second thoughts. Thus do we learn that Obama met with his top advisers on 13 September to "begin chewing over the problem", only to find no consensus – in fact, quite the reverse. "There are a lot of competing views," said one official.

Major factors which have prompted the second thoughts, though, are deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and McChrystal's own report. However, there is view that Obama might just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to additional troops.

This notwithstanding, the debate seems to have polarised into two separate camps, on the one hand a counterinsurgency strategy – on which basis McChrystal has been working - and, on the other, a focus on counterterrorism. The latter is not dissimilar to that advocated by George F. Will known as "offshore balancing" which, as the New York Times observes, "would turn the administration's current theory on its head'.

Given that in May, Gen David D McKiernan was replaced by Gen McChrystal, who was empowered to carry out the "new" strategy, McChrystal can perhaps feel aggrieved by now having his assessment second-guessed at this late stage, after so much effort and energy has gone into responding to the original brief and the strategy has been partially implemented.

The "game changer" though appears to have been the Afghan presidential election, which has undermined the administration's confidence that it had a reliable partner in Karzai. As Bruce O. Riedel – the man who led the AFPAK strategy review – observes, "A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That's in doubt now."

Obama, says the NYT, now has to reconcile past statements and policy with his current situation. And, says former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, "The longer you wait, the harder it will be to reverse it." In fact, Obama has left it a bit late now to question the very basis on which McChrystal was working, when strategy issues should have been settled from the outset – as indeed they appeared to have been.

COMMENT THREAD

Yesterday, confronted with the McChrystal assessment for the first time, we took the document at face value, starting on a process of review and analysis which is far from complete.

More than 24 hours later though, the document – seen through the prism of US political analysts – looks very different. From Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent, we see that the review itself is far from a neutral military appraisal of the situation on Afghanistan, and that the circumstances and the timing of the leak have strong political dimensions.

Via James Joyner of the Atlantic Council, we see the view expanded that the leak was an attempt "to box President Obama in to a static request for more U.S. troops and dare him to refuse his chosen commander’s recommendations", with a strong suspicion that the military was behind the leak.

I make no apologies for what might seem to a US observer as a certain naivety in my work so far. Firstly, it is difficult enough to get a grip with British politics and the subtleties of US politics are a minefield for the outside observer – we only need to see the mess US commentators make trying to understand British and European politics to see the pitfalls.

Secondly, with a complex document such as the McChrystal assessment, thrust into a highly political environment, the only way to evaluate it properly is to start at the beginning, and take it stage-by-stage, unpeeling it like an onion to reveal the inner workings.

What is amusing to see though is that while McChrystal deliberately plays down the resource (i.e., more troops) issue, putting strategy at the top, either he or the authors of the leak seem to understand the media all too well, fully expecting the Washington Post to focus on the need for reinforcements.

All it then needed was to rely on the coprophagic tendencies of the rest of the media to spread the word and, within a very short time, "more troops" would become the only game in town, the hope being to bounce Obama into giving the go-ahead for another 30,000 "boots on the ground". Predictably, the media fell for it, either not realising or perhaps not caring that they have been well and truly manipulated.

Looking in more detail at the assessment document, the view is beginning to gel that, although McChrystal is arguing for a new strategy, he is actually not offering one.

It was Herschel Smith of the admirable Captains Journal who started me thinking, when he remarked that counterinsurgency (COIN) was not a "strategy", per se. Rather, it is a collection of tactics. Thus, when McChrystal calls for a COIN strategy, he is actually defining a need to do things in a different way, but is not setting out any strategic concepts, the lack of which is dogging the Afghan campaign.

It was pointed out on our forum that the assessment bears some resemblance to the Briggs Plan of 1950, which shaped the Malaya campaign, and indeed it does. What is missing though is the all-important framework of the civilian role, in which context the military is supposed to be subordinate to the civilian power.

The McCrystal assessment, by contrast – and inevitably – is militarily orientated, which is what you expect from an army general. That notwithstanding, the Briggs Plan was framed by Lieutenant General Sir Harold Briggs, then retired, afterwards to become Director of Operations in Malaya.

Briggs, it seems, was able to transcend his military background. McChrystal, it seems, has not. What we have, on the face of it, is not a new strategy but simply a rag-bag of new tactics and a re-appraisal of tactical priorities.

One hates to concede that Paddy Ashdown (pictured) might have a point, but he is currently arguing for a proper political strategy for Afghanistan to support the military intervention in the country.

He has half a point – we need a proper political strategy, but not to support the military intervention. The military intervention should support the political strategy, and thus needs to be defined within the overall framework of a political strategy – not the other way around.

Emerging from the Malaya campaign were two basic precepts. Firstly, the government had to give priority to defeating political subversion, not the guerrillas. Secondly, to succeed, counterinsurgency efforts had to meet the true grievances of the people better than the insurgents.

McChrystal partially acknowledges these requirements, but he does not really spell out how they will be achieved, and it is not for the military to say. What we are missing, therefore, is that all-important civilian dimension, around which the military effort should be focused. All we are left with is a call for more troops. We have been had.

COMMENT THREAD

That is the blunt assessment from General Stanley McChrystal, the senior US commander in Afghanistan, in his aptly-named "assessment report" leaked by The Washington Post.

"The situation in Afghanistan is serious," he writes. "Neither success nor failure can be taken for granted." And, "although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress," he adds, "many indicators show that the situation is deteriorating."

McChrystal sees three major problems, and he does not distinguish in importance between them. There is "a resilient and growing insurgency", but there is also "a crisis of confidence among Afghans" – in both their government and the international community. That undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents. Thirdly, there is "a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents."

Despite that, McChrystal believes that success is achievable. And in a single sentence, he injects a degree of realism that may yet make it happen, cutting through the cant and false optimism that we have been hearing for so long. That success "will not be attained simply by trying harder or 'doubling down' on the previous strategy."

The general concedes that additional forces are necessary but, he writes, "focussing on force or resource requirements misses the point entirely." The "key take away from this assessment", he declares, "is the urgent need for a significant change in our strategy and the way we think and operate."

There is no mistaking this phrasing. No matter how much the media – and anyone else - might spin it, McChrystal puts strategy as his first priority, his "key take away". To focus on force or resource requirements "misses the point entirely". You cannot get clearer than that but, just in case there is any doubt, he later adds: "... it must be made clear: new resources are not the crux."

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), McChrystal avers, requires a new strategy which is credible to, and sustainable by, the Afghans.

When it comes to resources, he frames this carefully, stating that the strategy must be "properly resourced" but he links this with the requirement that it must be executed "through an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign that earns the support of the Afghan people and provides then with a secure environment."

There is no room for debate here either. McChrystal is making it clear that this is a "civilian-military" effort. He is not talking about the military winning the fight on its own.

Nevertheless, McChrystal concedes that the campaign in Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced, and "remains so today". ISAF, we writes, "is operating in a culture of poverty". Consequently, it requires more forces, well in excess of those which can be achieved by efficiency gains.

But, he admits, those greater resources will not be sufficient to achieve success. They will merely enable the implementation of the new strategy. Conversely, though, "inadequate resources will likely result in failure". Then, again emphasising the primacy of strategy, he declares "without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced".

There is no messing here. Strategy comes first, then it must be resourced. Without the right strategy, there should be no resources, but without the resources, the "likely" result is failure. And the result of that, inevitably, must be withdrawal. McChrystal is effectively saying, change the strategy or pull out.

As expected, he lays great emphasis on growing and improve the effectiveness of the Afghan National Security Forces (ASNF), but he adds that the coalition must "elevate the importance of governance."

But then, in a clear change of direction, he notes that, in a country as large and as complex as Afghanistan, ISAF "cannot be strong everywhere". Therefore, we must, he writes, "prioritise resources in those areas where the population is threatened, gain the initiative from the insurgency and signal unwavering commitment to see it through to success."

Interestingly, McChrystal also devotes considerable space to looking at the nature of the "fight". We will look at these observations in detail in a separate post but, in summary, he tells us that we must redefine the nature of the fight, clearly understand the impacts and importance of time, and change our operational culture.

This is a different kind of fight, he states. It is not an annual cyclical campaign of kinetics driven by an insurgent "fighting season". Rather, it is a year-round struggle, often conducted with little apparent violence, to win the support of the people. Protecting the population from insurgent coercion and intimidation demands a persistent presence and focus that cannot be interrupted without risking serious setback.

As if that was not problematical enough, we are told that the coalition must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations in an environment that is uniquely complex. Three regional insurgencies have intersected with a dynamic blend of local power struggles in a country damaged by 30 years of conflict. This makes for a situation which defies simple solutions or quick fixes. Success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign.

As to the strategy, it cannot be focused on seizing terrain or destroying insurgent forces; our objective must be the population. In the struggle to gain support of the people, every action we take must support this effort. The population also represents a powerful actor that can and must be leveraged in this complex system. Gaining their support will require a better understanding of peoples choices' and needs.

Within that, there is both a short and long-term fight. The long-term fight will be decisive. Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) – while Afghan security capacity matures – risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.

And then we get some serious candour, Formidable as the threat may be, McChrystal says we make the problem harder. ISAF is a conventional force that is poorly configured for COIN, inexperienced in local languages and culture, and struggling with challenges inherent to coalition warfare. These intrinsic disadvantages are exacerbated by our current operational culture and how we operate.

Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a matter that distances ourselves – physically and psychologically – from the people we seek to protect. In addition, we run the risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical wins that cause civilian casualties or unnecessary collateral damage.

The insurgents, he concludes, cannot defeat us militarily but we can defeat ourselves. How McChrystal thinks we can avoid that, we will look at in more detail in successive posts.

COMMENT THREAD

The Washington Post has obtained a copy of Gen Stanley McChrystal's 66-page "assessment report" on Afghanistan. On the back of that, it headlines: "More Forces or 'Mission Failure'" with the strap: "Top US Commander For Afghan War Calls Next 12 Months Decisive". The lead paragraph of a long article written by Bob Woodward then tells us:

The top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict "will likely result in failure."

McChrystal makes clear that his call for more forces is predicated on the adoption of a strategy in which troops emphasize protecting Afghans rather than killing insurgents or controlling territory. Most starkly, he says: "[I]nadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced."

The US mission in Afghanistan will "likely result in failure" unless troops are increased within a year, the top general there has said in a report. He recently called for a revised military strategy in Afghanistan, suggesting the current one is failing.

Following on from Stephen Grey's critique of the campaign in Afghanistan, sociology professor Anthony King offers his own observations about the capabilities of the British Army, in a piece entitled "Why we're getting it wrong in Afghanistan".

King is an interesting observer, having carried out several studies of the British military, and he is thus better qualified than most to contribute to the ongoing – albeit limited – debate about the performance of the Army.

In framing his own critique, he picks up on Grey's identification of the role of the institutional culture of Britain's armed forces: "cracking on" - the unshakeable determination of Britain's troops. Says King, the British army's determination to "crack on" in Helmand may be brave, but foolish.

Grey is right, according to King, in asserting that the ethos of "cracking on" is the army's greatest quality; effective armies require fortitude and morale in order to endure the losses that they will inevitably suffer. Yet, as he notes, it may be the army's greatest weakness too.

King tells us that he has worked with the British armed forces for the last five years, watching them on operations in Kabul and Basra. From that experience, he says, it has become clear to me that the culture of "cracking on" may not mean merely that British troops from the Somme to Sangin have dutifully enacted orders which they know to be poor but, more seriously, it affects operational command itself.

Rather, he observes - as Grey notes - British commanders have blithely conducted missions in Helmand despite a woeful lack of intelligence about the theatre and knowingly inadequate military resources for any realistic chance of success.

Now follows King's analysis, which is more than a little illuminating. During their initial training at Sandhurst, he notes, army officers are taught to retain the initiative: when they are confronted by the immediate presence of an enemy, it is better to do the wrong thing decisively than to do nothing at all. Passivity almost always leads to defeat, while determined, concerted action - even if initially implausible - can often unhinge opponents.

Thus, on recurrent exercises primarily based on conventional warfare, the centrality of activity, of tempo and offensive action - of cracking on - is repeatedly emphasised to trainee officers. At the tactical level, this prioritisiation of action and initiative is surely correct, imbuing a robust work ethic in Britain's armed forces which is appreciated and valued by their allies, like the US. From the Balkans to Afghanistan, multinational commanders have looked to British troops to carry out tasks that other nations have been reluctant to perform.

The trouble is though that the same ethos of action is evident at staff college where officers are trained for operational command. Although the concept behind Britain's Joint Service Command and Staff College (created in 1997) was innovative, the institution was imbued with traditional British military culture. It was and remains a testament to "cracking on."

Giving students little time for thought and independent reading and research, the college seems to replicate a conventional military exercise in which the speed and quantity of output is prioritised over quality - and potentially incorrect action over cautious contemplation. The result is that Britain's operational commanders feel the need to act and impose themselves on any situation.

More worrying still, says King, British commanders often have a narrow concept of the ideal form of military action. Despite well-worn claims to expertise in counter-insurgency, the British army actually regards conventional military combat as the ideal - and indeed ultimate - test of their professionalism. Like Clausewitz's military genius, British officers today want to test themselves under "the most murderous fire."

This encourages the premature and excessive use of violence despite wider the political situation. In June 2008, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith judged the Taleban insurgency to have been defeated (at least temporarily) as a result of a series of decapitation missions by special forces he had commanded. But by the end of the tour in October, he took a rather different line, arguing that this was a campaign which could not be won by the very military methods which he had advocated only months earlier. British commanders are prone to confusing local tactical superiority with operational success.

Even now there are inadequate numbers of troops in Helmand. However, rather than tailor the campaign to their resources, commanders have consistently "cracked on"; seeking to dominate the whole of Helmand, a hostile province the size of Wales, with just a few thousand troops, and dispersing their forces across the province into small, isolated platoon and operating bases.

Even in the Sangin Valley, King observes, where there are several significant positions, the British bases cannot mutually support each other; they are too far apart, while Musa Qaleh is some twenty miles away to the north. As British commanders in Sangin have themselves noted, troops in these locations "sit in a bubble," and this inevitably means they are engaging in numerous firefights.

Institutional factors within the military establishment seem to have further encouraged this preference for "cracking on." Never easy, tensions between the services have become increasingly strained over the last decade as a result of declining defence budgets and, as they approach the future defence review in 2010, these frictions have reached a crisis point. Each service is desperately seeking to protect itself from cuts; furious and bitter arguments have been reported, with each service trying to undercut the other.

And intense tactical activity in Helmand has become a potent tool in this competition: it is very difficult to cut regiments that have fought hard and suffered numerous casualties in Helmand. Budgetary pressures, then, have actually precipitated a preference for high-intensity war-fighting in Helmand - a pathological institutional reaction to chronic under-funding, ministerial mismanagement and poor governmental guidance.

So, King asserts, a new Afghan strategy is essential - and the announcements from US General McChrystal and Gordon Brown at the end of August recognise this. However, their new strategy in Helmand also requires a reformation of Britain’s armed forces themselves.

The success of General Petraeus in Iraq rested finally on a common recognition by the US Army and Marine Corps that the way in which they trained, planned and conducted military operations required profound revision. In short, operational success demands institutional reform at home.

While valuable at the tactical level, the culture of "cracking on" needs to be expunged from operational command. The armed forces, the ministry of defence and government need to develop more mature criteria on which to assess the performance of commanders - judging them by their political contribution to the campaign, not by the number of air assault operations they have conducted.

There is some evidence that the British armed forces may be capable of this change, says King. In previous campaigns in Malaya and Northern Ireland, the British recognised, after false starts, that the key to success in counter-insurgency campaigns was the slow suppression of insurgency through intelligence, negotiation, the presence of adequate security forces and cross-governmental coordination.

The British now need to relearn these lessons very quickly. The alternative is that their commanders in Helmand will continue to disperse their forces in futile and blunt demonstrations - ensuring that they crack on to defeat not only in Helmand but at home, in the arena of public support, as well.

And that is the view of an academic, but one with a profound knowledge of the military. Rarely do I find myself reviewing a paper and ending up repeating it almost word for word. But with such a taut analysis, there is little "fat" and much to think about.

King's analysis, added to Grey's, and much more – including the recent observations in the British Army Review - all add up to the singular fact that the British Army is failing to perform.

While some less perspicacious observers prefer to direct their attention to the political management of recent campaigns, even the military seems to concede the need to rethink its operations, while the evidence mounts as to the scale of the failings.

COMMENT THREAD

You have to give the Chief of the Defence Staff, Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, some credit. His sense of timing is immaculate. No sooner does he go live on the MoD website telling us that "the UK strategy in Afghanistan is the right one," up pops General Stanley McChrystal to tells us that the coalition strategy in Afghanistan is failing.

McChrystal's views are covered in diverse media sources, not least The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian, the latter announcing that McChrystal is to liken the US military to a bull charging at matador, when he delivers his strategic appraisal to the US Central Command on Monday.

A more useful analysis, however, can be found in The Washington Post where Anthony H. Cordesman holds forth. He tells us that the United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan in the next three months. Any form of even limited victory will take years of further effort, he says. It can, however, easily lose the war.

While serving on the assessment group that advised McChrystal on strategy, he did not see any simple paths to victory but he did see all too clearly why the war is being lost.

The most critical reason, he believes, has been resources. Between 2002 and 2008, Cordesman argues that the US has never provided the forces, money or leadership necessary to win, effectively wasting more than half a decade. A power vacuum has been left in most of Afghanistan that the Taleban and other jihadist insurgents could exploit and occupy. Washington did not respond when the US Embassy team in Kabul requested more resources.

Interestingly, Cordesman does not confine his complaints just to a shortage of military force. He gives equal prominence to money and, crucially, leadership. He is also particularly scathing over the failure of the US to develop an integrated civil-military plan or operational effort even within the US team in Afghanistan. Far too much of the aid effort, he asserts, has been focused on failed development programmes.

In terms of additional troops, "almost every expert on the scene has talked about figures equivalent to three to eight more brigade combat teams - with nominal manning levels that could range from 2,300 to 5,000 personnel each - although much of that manpower will go to developing Afghan forces that must nearly double in size, become full partners rather than tools, and slowly take over from U.S. and NATO forces."

Similarly, says Cordesman, a significant number of such US reinforcements will have to assist in providing a mix of capabilities in security, governance, rule of law and aid. US forces need to "hold" and keep the Afghan population secure, and "build" enough secure local governance and economic activity to give Afghans reason to trust their government and allied forces.

They must, he says, build the provincial, district and local government capabilities that the Kabul government cannot and will not build for them. No outcome of the recent presidential election can make up for the critical flaws in a grossly overcentralized government that is corrupt, is often a tool of power brokers and narco-traffickers, and lacks basic capacity in virtually every ministry.

And therein lies much of the problem. Cordesman tells us that "strong elements in the White House, State Department and other agencies seem determined to ignore these realities."

They are pressuring the president to direct ambassador Eikenberry and McChrystal to come to Washington to present a broad set of strategic concepts rather than specific requests for troops, more civilians, money and an integrated civil-military plan for action. They are pushing to prevent a fully integrated civil-military effort, and to avoid giving Eikenberry and McChrystal all the authority they need to try to force more unity of effort from allied forces and the UN-led aid effort.

Much as we have argued that the war in Afghanistan will not be lost in the deserts of Helmand, but in the corridors of Whitehall, similarly Cordesman is making the case that the war will be lost in Washington.

President Obama, he argues, will be as much a failed wartime president as George W. Bush. He may succeed in lowering the political, military and financial profile of the war for up to a year, but in the process he will squander our last hope of winning. We have a reasonable chance of victory if we properly outfit and empower our new team in Afghanistan; we face certain defeat if we do not.

COMMENT THREAD

General McChrystal has recently released counterinsurgency guidance for the ISAF. Captain's Journal is distinctly unimpressed.

There is much with which to agree, he writes, but there are so many things with which to disagree it's difficult to know where to begin. Of one statement, he declares, it "goes so far down the path of the Western-trained PhD sociology student that it's unclear why we aren't reading that 'flowers are beautiful, butterflies are too, and I love you!'"

We would not even begin to challenge this analysis, but, in the "agree" department, few could argue with this sentiment, expressed in the guidance:

Although disruption operations may be necessary at times, we must recognize that their effects are temporary at best when the population is under insurgent influence or control. Sporadically moving into an area or a few hours or even a few days solely to search for the enemy and then leave does little good, and may do much harm. The local insurgents hide in plain sight and the people remain ambivalent. Once we depart, the militants re-emerge and life under insurgent control resumes. These operations are not only ineffectual, they can be counterproductive.

Take action to improve the stability in your area. Learn how to adapt, how to shape the environment, and how to be more effective with the community leaders and the people.

As well as being trained to a higher level in Infantry skills, Pioneers are also artisans and builders, so once they have built the Army's bases, they may defend them as well. They have a key role on both operations and exercises and can turn their hand to almost any job, including carpentry, bricklaying, fuel handling and JCB driving. A Pioneer's skill at multi-tasking means that their only problem when leaving the Army is deciding what to do.