Here’s my short plan (started here) for the War in Afghanistan (as opposed to Obama’s Surge and run plan):
0) Bring up the combat force Level
1) Employ 3-D Maneuver to kick the Ass of enemy formations and strongholds that dare to exist
2) Deep Predator strikes based on Sigint and Humint
3) Full Spectrum Influence Warfare to make Taliban/Al-Qada appear as: silly, weak, ridiculous, evil, non-Islamic, tools of the Iranians, boy-lovers, goat-lovers, tools of the Chinese, of high mortality, hypocritical
4) SysAdmin work to clean up the place and train the Afgani Army and Police
5) Influence Warfare to keep the USA/West domestic opposition at bay: Perhaps lots of photos, videos, and audio of Taliban/Al-Qada attrocities and positive first person Afghan accounts
6) Repeat steps 1 through 5 until victory
Filed under: Influence Warfare, National Security, The War on Islamofascism |
PurpleSlog - The Future Will Be Kludged 
Where does the hand to hand duel to the death between Obama and Osama come in?
Heh…in his late second term.
Obama would win. Physically, there’s just no match. OTOH, will plays a role, and I wonder if Osama would have a much easier time of killing another human being in hand-to-hand combat. Actually, this fantasy scenario reminds me of the final battle in DUNE. Obama’s no Paul Atreides, but I can see Osama using a poisoned blade……
Off-topic but the original movie Dune always makes me think of Robb’s GG model: “He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing”. I don’t recall if the line was in the book or not.
Ya blew it with your last step.
“I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory,’ because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur,”
– Barack Obama
He doesn’t even want to defeat the enemy anymore. He wants them degraded instead. What degradation normal American soldiers and Marines could inflict on pederests and goat/donkey rapers remains to be seen. More panties on the head?
“Ya blew it with your last step.”
Sort of. Over time, the training of Afgani forces would allow US forces to be replaced with more and more Afgani forces. Eventually the Taliban would degrade into a small narco-poppy crime movement.
“He doesn’t even want to defeat the enemy anymore.”
Right now, I don’t think this generation of Dem party national leaders can not be trusted on natrional security issues. The Dems are not the Party of Truman and Scoop Jackson anymore. On security, they are the party of VP Wallace and McGovern.
“He doesn’t even want to defeat the enemy anymore. He wants them degraded instead.”
This reminds me of an old, sometimes-half-mocked D5GW post called “A Kinder, Gentler War?” —
I think Obama’s statement re: “victory” might be related to this idea. (I say this not knowing the context or, in fact, ever having seen that statement before this thread.) I.e., the type of WWII “victory” most people imagine when they imagine victory is not likely to happen in the current conflict because this ain’t your grampy’s war. And so,
–or, this gets back to the old idea that, rather than try to destroy a 4GW force, attempt to change it.
For the record…I never mocked the idea. To change an enemy in a subtle way (they don’t realize they are being redirected and don’t see you doing it) seems like a very good 5GW is idea.
Destruction is harder then re-direction/nudging.
Some enemies need destruction though…or mostly being destroyed.
Forgot to mention: I can just see how that last quoted paragraph would be seized by the anti-Obamites should he utter something similar. “If we do our design work in a way that apparently also benefits our opponents…”
— OH FOR GOD’S SAKE NO would be the reply.
And why would that be the reply? Because most politcos, by far the vast majority, are still 4GW mind-set: to them, it’s an “us vs. them, make a choice dammit!” kind of world.
I don’t think favoring 5GW approach would rationally be considered pro-Obama or anti-Obama. True, rationality often has little to do in political debates.
I don’t think a 5GW approach is needed to AL-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Kinetics is needed.
Now an anti-Al-Qada 5GW approach is needed partially in Pakistan, partially in the US and fully toward the world wide Muslim community. Note I did not say “against” the world wide Muslim community.
Nothing could bring more misery and wasted potential to the world wide Muslim community fulfillment of AL-Qada type goals and assumption of AL-Qada type folks to leadership positions.
The trick is to have the world wide Muslim community come to think that way seemingly “on their own”.
One change to #3: Deep Predator based ONLY on SIGINT or HUMINT. Ditto manned aircraft; there’s only so much a person several hundred feet up going at several hundred mph is going to be able to tell about a group of locals in civilian outfits.
On #4: Train them how? If this author is any judge
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091005/ajones
we’re currently trying to turn a bunch of natural-born light infantrymen into clones of NATO-style heavy infantry. Fixing that would mean figuring out how a national army of light infantry would be used in this day and age and how to get enough trainers in to build them up rapidly (on the plus side, less equipment we need to buy!).
The literacy is certainly an issue. Also, they are light infantry but if I understand correctly…there are lots of problems with fire discipline and small unit leadership tactics. I am not expert on those things those.
For training, I was thinking more of Nagl’s training Corps idea:
Click to access MilitaryReview_20081031_art007.pdf
I posted it with minor changes to:
http://zenpundit.com/?p=3455#comment-18945
0) Bring up the combat force Level
1) Employ 3-D Maneuver to kick the Ass of enemy formations and strongholds that dare to exist
2) Deep Predator (and Manned Bomber) strikes based on Sigint and Humint
3) Full Spectrum Influence Warfare to make Taliban/Al-Qada appear as: silly, weak, ridiculous, evil, non-Islamic, tools of the Iranians, boy-lovers, goat-lovers, tools of the Chinese, of high mortality, hypocritical
4) SysAdmin work to clean up the place and train the Afghan Army and Police
5) Influence Warfare to keep the USA/West domestic opposition at bay: Perhaps lots of photos, videos, and audio of Taliban/Al-Qada atrocities and positive first person Afghan accounts
6) Repeat steps 1 through 5 until Mission Complete (Taliban/Al-Qada as nuisance and/or just a small narco-crime movement)
I note that I don’t really address our enemy Pakistan:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083102912.html
http://zenpundit.com/?p=3444
MOre ideas
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/06/5-minutes-with-general-petraeu/