During the mid-1950s in Mao’s China power struggles were waged under the guise of innocuous names, such as the Hundred Flowers Movement. It was began as an invitation by Mao for all the dissident elements of the Party to come forward: “let a hundred flowers blossom and hundred schools of thought contend”. But it finished as a political trap. By 1957 Mao knew who dissidents were because they had revealed themselves and the prisons were prepared for their reception. Political discourse is rarely about the actual subject of discourse. It is almost always about power.
Recently the top British commander in Afghanistan, General Sir Richard Dannatt has been inspecting his troops in an American Blackhawk, provocatively saying that “Self-evidently . . . if I moved in an American helicopter it’s because I haven’t got a British helicopter.” The leader of the Tories, David Cameron, joined the fray by accusing Gordon Brown of starving the troops of equipment. He claimed that US Marine units in Afghanistan, numerically equal to the British command, had 100 helicopters versus the British 30. Channel 4 in Britain did a fact-check and found the numbers were rather worse. “While the MoD will not confirm the number of helicopters deployed to Afghanistan (for security reasons), it is understood the total is around 23 or 24.” And an expert who Channel 4 interviewed claimed the Marines had “well over 100″ helicopters at their disposal. But going back to the Hundred Flowers analogy, it would be a mistake to think the debate was about helicopters. Helicopters are a proxy subject for the real matter of British war policy, and hence, elections, and hence, political power.
Chad Hunter, a photographer embedded in Afghanistan has a striking series of photographs taken while he accompanied 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment (Airborne), Geronimo Scouts on an operation in the eastern part of the country called Thunder 2. They are images of very small groups of men moving through vast desolate spaces but living on the edge of a great ocean of aviation and electronics. The ground commander is alerted when signals intelligence pick up enemy radio chatter: they have been spotted by the Taliban. The Geronimo Scouts maneuver accordingly to turn the tables. In the steep terrain, an airborne soldier falls 40 feet down a ravine and is moderately injured. He is evacuated by helicopter. Everywhere the Geronimo Scouts go they are accompanied by an unseen but powerful infrastructure, one which can see in the dark, pluck messages from the ether, spot threats on distant hillsides, and at need turn the quiet landscape into an inferno of molten supersonic metal.
Joe Pappalardo of Popular Mechanics called it the “helicopter war” and noticed, as he boarded a Chinook while accompanying it on operation, the disparity between the disciplined, well equipped American airborne troops and the relatively rag-tag Afghan National Army. But in reality Pappalardo’s “helicopter war” phrase is as deceiving as Mao’s Hundred Flowers slogan and David Cameron’s rotary wing inquiries. “Helicopter war” is a proxy term for one of the core debates in Afghanistan: whether the American way of battle, which goes beyond the possession of mere helicopters to encompass the electronic bubble, persistent networks, fire support, logistics that permit the Geronimo Scouts to patrol in the middle of Taliban country, apparently alone but in reality, the leading edge of an invisible field of force — whether all this — could be sustained by the Afghans, even if they had all the helicopters in the world. Joe Pappalardo, understands the mission he is witnessing is a search for a sustainable model of warfare, one which the Afghans can continue on their own. It’s only called the “helicopter war”, but it is really about something far larger.
In their own ways the British debate over helicopters and Joe Pappalardo’s “helicopter war” metaphor are proxies for the respective debates over Afghan strategies of the UK and the US. In the British context “helicopters” are about whether the UK truly believes that keeping Afghanistan — and Pakistan — out of Jihadi hands is worth fighting a war for. On the face of it, a secure Afghanistan is probably worth more to Britain than America. The links between the UK and Pakistan are now so tight that a Jihadi victory would pose an immediate threat to Britain via Britons of South Asian origin. The problem the British face is one of determining and sustaining war policy; not half-heartedly, as Brown is doing, but whole heartedly. Fish or cut bait. In the American context “helicopters” denote another problem. That of finding a low-cost, low-tech and sustainable mode of combat that the Afghans can be taught to wage after the US has drawn down.
Neither the British nor the American debate has been resolved. But let a hundred flowers bloom and hundred schools of thought contend.
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History repeats itself oftentimes. In ancient times when Britain was a province of the Roman Empire the Roman legions kept the barbarians at bay. When they left, the barbarians came in with utter force, driving most of the original inhabitants who didn’t wish to be slaves into isolated portions such as Wales.
Yes–for those who hate American hegemony, and lust for a “multi-polar world,” be careful what you wish for–you just might get it, and it might not be to your liking.
the low-cost, low-tech and sustainable mode of combat that the Afghans can be taught to wage after the US has drawn down, is to promote the tribes and promote allegiance to them thru money. not trying to get them to de-tribalize.
work with what you got people!, you got lots of afghans that want to keep their way of life and the taliban actually infringe on that life!
thier are many ways the taliban way is antithetical to tribal lives and cultures of afghanistan, play that up dont ask for them to westernize and reinforce the taliban as agents trying to destroy traditional afghan life.
then pay them to stay enemies of the jihaadis/taliban
Latest word is that the US Army sought to buy new Mi-8 Hip choppers for the Iraqi Army, figuring that they would be easier for the Iraqis to maintain.
Yes, we are buying Russian-made helicopters. Ones right out of the 60′s in design to boot. And if that is not bad enough, the procurement ain’t going well, late and way over budget. The plan was to equip the Rooski choppers with American cockpits and electronics and they compounded it with hiring a US company to handle the whole effort that knows about as much about helos as fish know about bicycles.
Why would we not give the Czechs and Poles and people like that new American choppers and have them refurb their old ones for the Iraqis? Or just buy new or refurbed Amercian choppers
A big mistake has been the progressive impulse to give the young girls an education. Due to the mindset of the tribals this is a bad idea. More often than not it will lead to the girls getting hurt or killed. It is far better to win the war first; modernization can then come in its own sweet time.
Since video imagery is so effective I recommend that we swap solar powered direct TV sets for tribal loyalties. We would control the content via the converter boxes and programming.
A blend of manly shows dedicated to hunting, livestock and the outside world would be powerful.
Naturally some instructional material would be broadcast.
If the locals fail to up hold their end of the bargain — we can repo the toys.
RFID tags would make theft problematic.
Other trade goods for the wife: solar cookers, pots and pans…
More generally, go with barter and forget the cash economy.
I pray for the brave men who patrol those desolate slopes. It is no cover like the jungles of Viet Nam. But what exposes the Geronimo Scouts exposes their prey so the patrols must go on. With ever and ever persistent UAV air cover one wonders how much the Afghanis’ will be expected to do on their own in the future. Certainly if they can help turn the tide of this conflict their esprit de corp may attract a new generation of recruits that want to be like the men who succeeded them, not the old Mujahideen who so effectively threw off the Soviet invaders, but the new Mujahideen that fought for the principle of self rule and secured an Afghan nation for posterity.
We’ll see.
Great pics.
“Pfc. Richard Kringer, a U.S. Army sniper scout”
Anybody know what that heavy barrel weapon is? Kind of looks like an FN.
SO why are American helicopters not vulnerable to Stingers and the like that forced out the Russians? Are we waiting for the Russians to arm the Taliban?
Stingers recognize IFF codes and won’t seek on US forces.
The concepts in this post are some of the best ever stated on this blog.
I think Wretchard is stating that America can project force anywhere at any time. And, still be in control of our support structure.
This might actually include financial, cultural, and social force as well.
..Annoy mouse, it’s an AR 10, the Armies new sniper rifle. 7.62X51mm
I understand that some of the most effective forces in Desert Storm were Kuwaiti locals in Toyota 4X4 pick up trucks. They had .50 cal machine guns mounted and for anything that could not handle they had radios to call in airstrikes.
In our original attack on the Taliban we had special forces riding horseback with GPS and radios while we got some old T-55 tanks for our allies. With that and airpower the Taliban crumbled in short order.
That sort of thing is why the old military concept of worrying about the size of the “logistics tail” compared to forces at the tip of the spear no longer makes much sense. The Logistics tail for GPS is huge – but supports far more than a few guys on horseback. Ditto for the B-52′s on Diego Garcia. What counts is capability and the size of the force you have to have right there. In a sense the logistics tail is the part you need to make robust and the tip of the spear needs to be as small as possible.
After a Hundred Flowers comes the Rectification Campaign. Larry Summers having been purged once is a compliant tool in pushing the socializing agenda. Five minutes with Rahm Emmanuel suffice to tamp down most nervous Congress-critters.
Regarding the military arts the American way of war is not simply a matter of largesse, of teeth to tail ratios. It is a cultural matter built up over generations that empowers the Scout, or Ranger or Seal or Tanker, at the spear point by assuring him that whole apparatus and the nation behind it are there with him. In Leon Uris’ Exodus (or was it in Michener’s The Source?) there is a wonderfully graphic description of how corruption could destroy a 1950s Egyptian Army before it could reach Israel.
Once I gave a lesson illustrating two small units, one Israeli and one Syrian, facing each other in the Golan. To begin with I was very clear that the individual Arab soldier could be assumed to be as brave and as intelligent as the Israeli facing him. What then explained the repeated differences in their results? It is not a matter of equipment per se. The arabs had the best equipment that at various times the British, French and Russians could provide. They had the money, the manpower and the materiel. What they did not have was a sense of common purpose. This can be surprising to the students since authoritarian states and communities are given to endless displays of unified marching, crisp uniforms and shiny medals along with blood curdling speeches proclaiming their unshakeable faith and unity and determination. The Israelis, even more then the Americans, appear given to endless argumentation and back biting, with a studied contempt for authority and a determination to look like they just fell out of bed.
The difference is that the Israeli soldier sitting in a foxhole in the Golan knows that the artillery crew two miles away and the communications crew 3 miles away and the logistics team 4 miles away and the medical team 5 miles away and the aircrew 10 miles away and everyone in the entire country have no greater concern then the safety and success of that soldier in his foxhole. The arab in the foxhole facing him could be at the tip of the mirror image in organizational and technical assets but at the critical moment he knows that he is alone. The stultifying effects of Soviet centralized command doctrine follows from that cultural condition.
There is another example that illustrates the military benefits of a democratic culture. Consider three European nations, the English, the Germans and the Spanish. If you took a random sample and asked the man in the street to rank them according to their reputations for “Militarism” I predict the results would be 1. Germany, 2. Spain, 3. England. Germans are famously aggressive and militaristic, after all they produced Kaiser Bill and the Nazis. German men were so determined to be seen as manly that they would refuse to carry umbrellas. Spanish culture has given rise to the concept of machismo. Spanish men are in literature endlessly willing to resort to violence to assuage their wounded honor. They fight bulls to prove how tough they are. As for the English, how tough and manly is their reputation? Weak tea, umbrellas, gardening and sexual confusion do not make for a very tough image.
How have these three nations actually performed in combat over the last 400 years? The English last lost a sizable war when some upstart colonials got help from the French over two hundred years ago. Arguably that could be considered a Civil War within the English community. Spain won a guerrilla campaign against France two hundred years ago and since losing their Empire have generally remained quiet except for when they got mauled by the Americans in 1898. Arguably that may have been intentional on their part as an “Honorable” way to cede colonial burdens while showing an aristocratic contempt for the lives wasted. The Germans were part of territories that eventually came together on the winning side to defeat the French in 1815 and had one winning episode in 1871 against, you guessed it, the French. Since then they have caused enormous carnage but they haven’t won a war.
The point is that people at first glance confuse “manliness” with combat effectiveness and war-fighting ability. Obviously I am not arguing against the utility of fostering traditional qualities of courage, discipline and aggression in building a winning military. What we must not due is confuse those qualities with the vices cultivated by Authoritarianism. Democracies win wars.
O.T. Wither Habu? I haven’t seen a posting from him in some months. Has anyone heard anything?
Ned
Habu said a few weeks ago that he was going on vacation for the summer. Hopefully he will be back around September.
(*dramatic sigh*)
…If there IS a September…
Yay helicopters!!!
DaveD – 10 eh? Nice… by 51? Ain’t that like the nATO round?
Habu?… I miss that possum tater.
This one will be similar to Iraq. I forget the author….brb… “The Strongest Tribe” by Bing West details why the Anbar Awakening worked. We was the baddest sob in the valley, stuck together, kept our word, etc.
This whole thing is exactly what GWB said he did not want to do – nation building. And, of course, we know that The 0bamanation will not have the stomach for something as long and far reaching as will be necessary. If fact, I believe the opposite is true for BHO, he wants to lose.
7.62 x 51mm is older NATO. The more ‘modern’ is 5.56 x 45mm for the M-16/AR-15.
Annoy Mouse/Robohobo,
Correct, 7.62 x 51mm is an older round but it does have some distinct advantages; range and knock-down power. Your sniper doesn’t want to have to double/triple tap a target to put it down. It also reliably reaches out several hundred meters further than the 5.56 round. I haven’t had a chance to shoot an AR-10 yet, hopefully it is as accurate and reliable as the old M-14.
I guess that the Barrett .50 cal is just too darned heavy for climbing up and down mountains with.
I think the biggest problem that we (and the rest of the Western world) face is that we are trying to conduct “nation building” in places that, until recently, weren’t nations. Iraq was invented by diplomats at the end of WW1 as they took turns carving off pieces of the old Ottoman Empire. Most of the other borders in that area were drawn up at the same time, more with an eye to grabbing resources or controlling access routes than with regard to ethinc or national boundaries.
Afghanistan is even worse, it is a place rather than a nation. Even the Mongols (who had more of a stomach for “roughing up the locals” than any modern government since the Nazis) only demanded nominal tribute and the right to pass through enroute to their other conquests.
Perhaps the biggest problem is the insistence since WW2 that borders cannot be changed, even when they cross traditional populations and historic national limits. Look at the mess that taking apart the crazy-quilt country that was Yugoslavia made, I shudder to think what it would take to reassemble South Asia into some sort of rational set of nations.
Lifeofthemind: “… one Israeli and one Syrian, facing each other in the Golan.”
Reminds me of what Napoleon said about the Mamelukes, the elite soldiers of Egypt, after he conquered Egypt. “One Mameluke is the equal of three Frenchmen, but a hundred Frenchmen are the equal of five hundred Mamelukes.” Five hundred Mamelukes were a collection of five hundred great individual warriors. A hundred Frenchmen were a unit.
Bob Hawkins,
Excellent point.
My basic question remains unanswered – aren’t we vulnerable to advanced weaponry in the hands of the Taliban? SOMEBODY has an equivalent to the Stinger that could be given or sold to the Taliban and would nullify most of our advantages from helicopters.
We already know that China could nullify GPS with anti-sat missiles.
Anton’s point about Afghanistan NEVER being a nation in the modern sense is critical. We are not restoring a country, we are forcing its conception and development.
20. anton,
I quite agree. Contrary to most of the liberal caterwauling, OIF went very well and Tommy Franks won historic victories; he was engaged in “nation-breaking”. It was only aftr General Franks departed and we turned to “nation building” that things went awry.
Nation building is also how we went wrong in Viet Nam. You mention Yugoslavia – that monstrosity was the brainchild of Woodrow Wilson, the same Progressive Moonbat who has since inspired all our progressive nation building factories. The fruit of social engineering. I thought Bush II told us that we would not do nation building. What happened to him?
23. Whitehall,
In theory the Russians have a number of new manpads missiles SA-14 Gremlin, SA-16 Gimlet, SA-18 Grouse, all of which are in the same class as Stinger, or better – at least in their sales catalogs, and there are certainly new Chinese analogs. But neither country is really anxious to see the Taliban succeed in driving out the Americans – merely to bleed and humiliate us.
Rurik,
I understand a CURRENT reluctance by Russia and China to allow a Taliban takeover, but that could change with the geopolitical winds.
Blert,
Stingers do not recognize IFF, which is encrypted and changed daily. The US supplied stingers’ batteries died long ago, and cannot be easily replaced (even by a US S-4 – batteries are one of the most difficult logistics annoyances). Hell, even Patriots don’t recognize IFF (see gulf war friendly fire).
Another thing to remember is that we don’t have to bring the Afghani Army up to US standards. We only have to train them to the point that they’re just better than anyone else in the region. Fortunately, that’s a relatively low standard.
If we can instill discipline, cohesion, and a sense of purpose, we will have solved most of it.
Lifeofthemind: You ought to read Thomas Cahill’s “How the Irish saved Civilization”. Essentially, one day the Romans were there in all their spectacular military glory, but the Rhine froze over, and the next day all that was gone. Please note the suddenness and incomprehension at the time.
The poorly noted death of one Walter Cronkite should remind us the rot has set in and thrives apace. Vast sections of the Democratic party and all too many Republicans are committed to eviscerating the military… its costly tech, its traditions, its codes of behavior, its ideals. And while things look all bright and rosy, the soldier of today must certainly sense that the unquestioned support – support you point out as so necessary, support once taken for granted – is now questionable at best.
So I submit to this most distinguished Blogs’s commentors three questions:
1) How soon will it take for Obama to yell the pivotal word ‘Quagmire!’ taught to us so tellingly by the aforementioned Walter Cronkite?
2) How many wars can a great power lose before it officially joins the list of historical ‘has – beens’?
3) When will the military’s recruitment pool of strong, committed, capable young men* dry up? For whatever reason, and there are very, very many now.
*My female readers, if there are any, should reread the paragraph above where I make reference to the rot and erosion of traditions and behavior, keeping in mind my allusions to the ongoing destructive assault, clothed in the best of motives and ends, of course, by the rising political forces of our day.
“The problem the British face is one of determining and sustaining war policy; not half-heartedly, as Brown is doing, but whole heartedly”.
That may not be the problem.
It is possible, sad as it makes me to say it, that Brown is whole heartedly pursuing the erosion of the British Army by keeping it in conflicts in which he will not properly support it.
As the fear of a civil war within Britain grows, Brown may believe that the best way to prevent a civil war is to be unable to fight one. Keep the Army abroad and keep it running hot, and eventually another of Britain’s “unreformed institutions” may break down and pass into history*
I may simply be deranged, but watch for him taking steps which will jack up the casualty rate, further downgrade the treatment of the wounded, and do nothing to slow the traffic between Britain and Pakistan.
*see: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/speech_chex_150499.htm
oldies but goldies…
Afghanistan is the correct place to be and we are doing the correct thing. We have our best military there and the best leadership. The Marines are not in Anbar any more they are in Afghanistan.
AF/Pak is critical. If we pull out, it is chaos with atomic weapons. From Afghanistan we put pressure on Pakistan to do what they are doing right now; attacking the Taliban. Why have they not done this seriously before? That is another story.
The Taliban and Al Quaeda are getting ground down on both sides of the border. The Taliban is suffering casualties so high that the news adds their numbers into the total of ‘violence’. The tribal people along the border are often turning against them. This is good. Does it make the cut-and-run main stream press? Not so much.
The Afghan Army has courage and is fighting. Are they as far along as the Iraqi Army? Well, er, no.
And both Pakistan and Afghanistan have epic corruption and foolishness. Both countries have fairly honest elections. They need and deserve our help. We have to be smart. And we have to stay the course.