#31 BACKGROUND

 

COIN Warfare & the ISAF’s COIN Strategy:

Battle for the Majority Population

 

– Dr Regeena Kingsley

 

* This blog is a revised excerpt taken from Dr Regeena Kingsley’s original doctoral research in Defence & Strategic Studies (2014), entitled: “Fighting against Allies: An Examination of “National Caveats” within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Campaign in Afghanistan & their Impact on ISAF Operational Effectiveness, 2002-2012.”

 

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission led by the militarily capable – but politically constrained – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and prosecuted in Afghanistan from 2001-2014, has been one of the most complex and challenging military undertakings by the international community to date. 

Although the mission slowly evolved over the years, from an initial security assistance operation in the Afghan Capital and its surrounding Kabul Province, to a fully-fledged Counter-Insurgency (COIN) war throughout the entire nation of Afghanistan, the mission goal of the operation nevertheless remained the same: to bring security and stability to Afghanistan in support of successive, democratically-elected governments of Afghanistan, and in partnership with indigenous Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). 

Bringing security and stability to Afghanistan, and by extension the Central Asian region, has always been in the collective interests of the wider international community in the age of Al-Qaeda-generated global terrorism following 9/11 and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), in order to prevent Afghanistan and its environs from being used to launch further terrorist attacks against freedom-loving, democratic countries around the world.

The ISAF mission was consequently, from the very outset, the tangible, physical expression of collective international will and the best answer by concerned and united nations of the world to the modern scourge of Afghanistan-based, international, Islamo-fascist terrorism. 

It is with this knowledge of the overall historical and political context of the ISAF mission, and its vital importance to global security, that my research on the extent and impact of national caveat limitations and prohibitions, contained within the national Rules of Engagement (ROE) of ISAF national contingents contributed to the mission, is to be understood (see blog ‘#27 My Research: National Caveats in the ISAF Operation in Afghanistan & their Impact on Operational Effectiveness, 2002-2012’).

The previous blogs #28-30 provided a historical, political and military introduction to Afghanistan, the Pakistan-created and Pakistan–backed Taliban terror entity that once ruled Afghanistan from 1996-2001, the NATO-led ISAF campaign to bring security and stability to Afghanistan from 2001-2014, and NATO’s Operational Plan (OPLAN) to achieve mission success (see blogs ‘#28 BACKGROUND – Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban’, ‘#29 BACKGROUND – The NATO-led ISAF Operation in Afghanistan: Purpose, Mission, Characteristics, Genesis, Leadership & NATO Responsibility for Mission Success’, and ‘#30 BACKGROUND – NATO’s Operational Plan (OPLAN) for ISAF Mission Success in Afghanistan, 2003-2014’).                                                                                                                              

In order to further aid understanding of the contextual setting of this research, this and the following blog (#31-32) will outline in more detail the practical military realities of the ISAF mission on the ground in Afghanistan, with particular reference to: Counter-Insurgency (COIN) warfare; NATO’s adoption of a COIN strategy in late 2006 in order to both adjust to insurgent realities and achieve the ISAF’s mission objectives; the four Lines of Operation (LOOs) within this new COIN strategy; and the division of labour between the ISAF’s various, multinational, ‘security’ and ‘stability’ force units to carry out these four COIN LOOs from 2006-2014.

This blog will begin this examination by:

(1) presenting the grave issue of the deteriorating security situation across Afghanistan during 2006 as a result of the ‘Taliban Resurgence’;

(2) discussing a proposed – but ultimately rejected – idea of a ‘mission merger’ of the two, separate, United States-led  ISAF and OEF multinational military operations, that were being prosecuted in parallel at the same time, within the same Afghan theatre of war, and increasingly with many of the same responsibilities and activities from 2001-2006;

(3) providing a brief overview of the foundational, theoretical doctrine and most important principles of COIN warfare; and finally,

(4) outlining the transition of the ISAF in late 2006 from a predominately ‘nation-building’ stabilisation operation into a comprehensive COIN campaign, also involving active combat operations at the ‘pointy end of the spear’.

 

Descent into Chaos: Deteriorating Security Realities in Afghanistan

As alluded to in the previous blog, the ISAF mission changed in the nature and form of its campaign to secure and stabilise Afghanistan during the course of the mission, altering in late 2006 from a largely stabilisation- and reconstruction-oriented ‘nation-building’ mission to an overt COIN war campaign to counter and neutralise the power and influence of Afghanistan’s multiple, insurgent, anti-Government, Enemy groups.

The notion that ISAF would have to change in the way it conducted its campaign had developed within ISAF Headquarters during the fateful year of 2006.  This was for two primary reasons. 

The Urgent Need for ISAF Combat Operations

Firstly, as the ISAF operation completed its two final geographical expansions throughout 2006 to command the entire, sovereign, geographical territory of the nation of Afghanistan, the need quickly arose for ISAF security forces to assume much heavier security tasks than they had faced previously in Kabul Province, in order to attain their primary ISAF security objectives.  Specifically, this meant engaging in counter-insurgent and even counter-terrorist operations in order to eliminate and suppress anti-Government fighting units that were operating within each of the five Regional Commands, most especially in the troubled and most volatile, Pashtun-dominated sectors in the south and east of the country nearest Pakistan (areas known as the ‘Pashtun crescent’). 

According to British commander General (GEN) Ed Butler and several NATO governments, however, the real threat to the stability and security of Afghanistan at that time was not so much the various pockets of fractured Enemy Taliban and insurgent fighters, but rather the weakness of the central Afghan government and its institutions under President Hamid Karzai since the presidential elections of 2004, which by its poor leadership of the Afghan nation, combined with the dishonesty and corruption of certain government officials, was losing the confidence and support of the Afghan population.[1]  The unstable situation at that time prompted GEN Butler to remark that: ‘This year we [the Afghan government supported by the ISAF] need to be seen to be making a difference. It is a real danger that if people do not feel safer, we may lose their consent [to fight for them, protect them, provide basic services for them, and govern them].’[2]

The 2006 ‘Taliban Resurgence’ Challenges the New Afghan State

Secondly, adding to this weak political and security situation, during the ‘fighting season’ summer months of 2006 the Taliban and other insurgent groups – supported, trained, armed and funded by Pakistan – mounted a startling and unexpectedly bloody come-back in the Afghan theatre of war, an event which became known as the ‘Taliban Resurgence’.  

With the bulk of surviving Taliban fighters having fled en masse back to Pakistan in 2001 during the OEF mission, the 6-year-long, Islamo-fascist, terrorist-supporting and severely xenophobic Taliban terror regime, that had been created and supported from its infancy by Pakistan, and was founded on the false premise of Pashtun racial superiority over all other regional racial ethnicities, had until this time seemingly been resigned to the dustbin of history as a particularly despicable, brutal and repugnant chapter in the history of Afghanistan (see blog ‘#28 BACKGROUND – Afghanistan: The Land, its Diverse Ethnic Peoples & the Pashtun Taliban’).

In 2006, however, with the crucial assistance of Pakistan’s covert Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, together with a safe, external, support- and supply-base in Pakistan’s Federally-Assisted Tribal Areas (FATA), the Pashtun Taliban fighters returned to Afghanistan in force and began an offensive against its replacement successor government and its supporting allies, using newly-learned tactics and weapons that mimicked the methods used by insurgents and terrorists in Iraq: suicide bombings; roadside bombings; bomb attacks involving sophisticated methods of remote-control detonation; the unleashing of intimidation and terrorization campaigns on Afghan civilians living in Afghan villages; hundreds of attacks on schools and child pupils seeking to acquire a basic education in reading and writing; and the conquest of isolated valleys disconnected from the services and security forces of the Afghan government or its ISAF Coalition allies.[3] 

Although the Taliban paid dearly for their renewed terror campaign against the new Afghan State and its diverse Afghan peoples in the ferocious fighting that followed, with at least 1,000 Taliban killed during that year compared with 163 killed among ISAF-ANSF Coalition forces, over a thousand Afghan civilians also paid for the terrorist Taliban violence with their lives.[4] 

The reality of a strengthened, technologically-savvy and emboldened Taliban insurgency not only presented a grave and urgent challenge to the sovereignty of the native and legitimate, democratically-elected Afghan government in Kabul, as well as to the safety of Afghan civilians throughout their native homeland of Afghanistan, but also to the ISAF coalition in the achievement of its security and stability mission objectives in Afghanistan. 

In early 2006 as the ISAF expanded across Afghanistan, the ISAF mission had already shown itself to be badly lacking in the appropriate levels of both force strength (troop numbers) and combat capability (both in ROE and equipment) within the multinational force, and was hence ill-prepared to meet the challenges that violently confronted it during the middle summer months of that year.  By late 2006 the NATO-led ISAF coalition found itself in the position of being faced with a strong and thriving, Pakistan-backed, Taliban insurgency that was utterly determined to destabilise the new order advocated and supported by the international community, on whose behalf the ISAF was working, and to sow – to the greatest degree possible in their power – insecurity, destruction, terror and death throughout the whole land of Afghanistan. Consequently, as Morelli & Belkin state: 

‘By late 2006 as ISAF extended its responsibilities [eastwards] to cover all of Afghanistan, the allies began to realize that ISAF would require a greater combat capability than originally believed, and the mission would have to change.’[5]   

Indeed, it became increasingly obvious within the ISAF mission that stabilisation operations in any part of the country could neither proceed, nor be at all effective, without security operations first establishing and maintaining ‘safe environments’ in which stability forces could work without fear of their designated communities, themselves, and their work being attacked, sabotaged or destroyed by insurgent and terrorist Enemy forces. 

It was plain that ISAF stabilisation operations – chiefly by means of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) – were in fact completely contingent and dependent on effective ISAF security operations conducted by robust and flexible combat-capable and caveat-free military forces. 

Combat-Averse NATO Nations Accept the Necessity of Increased ISAF Combat Operations

This truth was not at all a welcome concept to many of the combat-shy and risk-averse Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) operating as part of the ISAF – including among them many wealthy and militarily-capable NATO nations and even NATO Lead Nations in command of Regional Commands Capital, North and West (namely, Germany, Italy, France and Turkey) – which had each been stubbornly resisting American calls for greater participation in combat operations against Taliban insurgents and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan since early 2004 (besides small pockets of Taliban resistance between 2001-2005, an active insurgency comprised of tribal militias backed by Al-Qaeda had also been operating in Eastern Afghanistan along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border for some time, countered mostly by the parallel OEF mission).[6] 

Two years later in 2006, however, with the outbreak of a second Taliban insurgency operating in Afghanistan’s southern and eastern sectors, the now critical necessity of kinetic and lethal security operations by ISAF security forces became more and more accepted as an operational reality by the more combat-reluctant NATO nations as the year progressed, and the number of deadly attacks on ISAF forces and the local Afghan population escalated widely beyond their expectations.  Indeed, a November 2006 ‘Lessons Learned from NATO’s Current Operations’ report, written by the NATO General Rapporteur to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, strongly made the case for massively increased, combat operations against insurgent and terrorist forces in NATO’s most important mission in Afghanistan, stating the following:

‘Part of the [ISAF] mission is to assist in the creation of a safe environment, and a large part of that is eliminating the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaida that continue to harass the efforts to stabilize the country…

 

Some argue that it is necessary to keep the stabilization and reconstruction operations separate from the counter-insurgency mission because the more proactive military operations can cause popular resentment.  Yet, it is a potentially dangerous mischaracterization to describe OEF as the “hard” security operation and ISAF as the “soft” security operation, designed to win the hearts and minds of the population. A first step to winning the confidence of the local population is ridding them of the individuals and groups that terrorize them and threaten to disrupt the reconstruction projects that are making a tangible difference for the local community. 

 

As the parliamentary elections demonstrated, Taliban-related candidates appealed little to the general population, and many operations against Taliban and Al-Qaida elements in the country are based on intelligence tips from the local population.  In a poll of Afghans taken in December 2005, a large plurality of the respondents (41%) cited the Taliban as the single greatest danger to their country. It may be true that some segments of the population in southern Afghanistan are sympathetic to the Taliban and Al-Qaida, but a large majority are not, and welcome an opportunity to drive them out. 

 

Far from breeding resentment, those military operations often instil confidence in the local population that the international community is serious about stabilizing the country.’ [7]

Faced with a deteriorating security climate, NATO now concluded that conducting ‘proactive military operations’ was indeed, after all, an essential first step in winning the confidence of the local population, through kinetically ‘ridding them of the individuals and groups that terrorize them and threaten to disrupt the reconstruction projects that are making a tangible difference for the community’.[8] 

The question was, however, how – or in what way – the ISAF operation ought to change to better perform this necessary combat role?

 

The First Option: An ISAF-OEF Mission Merger

One possibility was to conduct a structural and strategic change by merging the ISAF security and stabilisation operation together with the far more robust, kinetic and lethal OEF counter-terrorism mission operating within the same Afghan Area of Operations (AO). 

Since late 2005 the United States (U.S.) had been greatly in favour of such a merger, as the fact of having two large but separate multinational forces operating within the same area, and within close proximity, conducting the same or similar tasks – and sometimes even in support of each other – had already presented many complications in the conduct of U.S. military operations.[9] 

In addition, as of June 2006, the Americans were encountering a further problem in that their most senior, appointed military commanders were having to perform the double-hatted function of being not only the Operational Commander of the ISAF – the COMISAF – but also simultaneously the Operational Commander of all U.S. forces within the OEF operation (Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan or COMUSFOR-A) under the rubric of ‘Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan’ (CFC-A).[10] 

An organisational chart depicting the two command structures in place to operate the two parallel missions, within the same Afghan AO, can be seen below.

 Command and Control (C²) in Afghanistan: An organisational chart showing the two separate, but parallel command structures within the ISAF (left) and the OEF (right) operations being conducted by multinational forces simultaneously within the same Afghan conflict theatre and Area of Responsibility (AOR).[11]

Opposition to an ISAF-OEF Mission Merger

This proposed merger was opposed by several ISAF contributing nations, however, due to concerns about the two supposedly ‘divergent purposes’ of the operations. 

From the very beginning in December 2001, when an international security assistance force for Afghanistan was first envisioned at the Bonn Conference and formed under a United Nations (UN) Security Council mandate (UNSC Resolution 1386), the work of the ISAF was seen by many in the international community to be quite separate from the work being carried out by the U.S.-led OEF mission.  While the UN-mandated and largely European ISAF force would undertake to stabilise Afghanistan, largely through nation-building and active support of the Afghan interim government and its successors, OEF would continue to conduct counter-insurgent operations against Taliban remnants within the country and remain engaged in counter-terrorism operations against the Al-Qaeda organisation and its local and foreign jihadist fighters. 

The mandates and missions of the two operations were considered to be distinctly separate and many countries contributing to the ISAF – especially those with a strong aversion towards active participation in offensive combat operations or operations in concert with combat-active U.S. forces (e.g. Germany) – preferred it this way.

Four years of operating within Afghanistan did little to change this point of view among the predominantly-European allies. In fact throughout 2005 Britain, Germany and France remained particularly resistant to any mission merger of the ISAF with OEF – even if this merger placed nearly all of OEF’s American combat forces under the command of the ISAF.[12] 

For Britain, the motivation behind such a stance was the government’s preference for stabilisation rather than combat operations, especially at a time when the insurgency posed little threat, being then reasonably small and weak.  This British point of view continued even into 2006 with the British Defence Secretary expressing publicly the ill-fated and rather naïve hope, prior to the ISAF’s southern expansion, that British forces could deploy to the ISAF’s new sector of RC-South ‘without firing a shot.’[13] 

Germany, for its part, protested that ‘merging the two missions might push for a more offensive focus and draw their forces into ground combat operations not then being undertaken.’[14]  German forces were trained only for stabilisation duties, the German government claimed, arguing further that the country simply did not have military forces available to perform counter-insurgency and counter-terror tasks (despite the fact of compulsory military conscription for males in Germany since 1956 involving 3 months of combat training during Basic Training – Allgemeine Grundausbildung).[15] 

France, meanwhile, while recognising the need for ISAF forces to sometimes engage in combat, resisted the merger out of a deep suspicion about American motives and its possible ‘broader global objectives’, fearing that the U.S. could withdraw its units from the ISAF and leave its other NATO allies – including France – to secure and stabilise Afghanistan on their own.[16] 

As for the other European members within NATO, the majority feared that any ISAF-OEF mission merger would result in ‘mission creep’, whereby ISAF units would gradually begin participating in the overtly offensive counter-insurgent and counter-terrorism work of OEF.[17]   As the German Defence Minister summarised the prevailing sentiment within ISAF at this time: ‘NATO is not equipped for counter-terrorism operations. That is not what it is supposed to do’.[18]  This was a rather puzzling and somewhat alarming statement, however, in light of not only NATO’s invocation of Article V of the NATO Charter following the 9/11 Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the American homeland in 2001, but also NATO’s active, anti-terror naval and aerial operations that were by then already taking place in and over the Mediterranean Sea.

Consequently, in 2005 the ISAF’s mission for the remainder of Phase II – Geographic Expansion had been viewed purely as stabilisation work, largely through reconstruction, training, and governance work at the PRTs, and ‘with initial concern over military threats at a minimum.’[19]  Indeed, NATO allies then claimed that the ISAF was mandated by the UN only to perform stabilisation operations, including in the new southern and eastern sectors, asserting that any counter-insurgent or counter-terror combat operations in the Afghan Area of Responsibility (AOR) would be ‘OEF’s task’ alone. [20]

Diminishing Security in Afghanistan – Increasing Support for Combat Operations

As discussed earlier, however, the year 2006 brought many changes to the ISAF mission and the attitudes of governments among ISAF TCNs, not only as a result of geographic expansion, but as a result of ever-increasing, anti-Government, insurgent attacks throughout the year, especially after the resurgent Taliban’s summer offensive. 

Most impactful of all, a watershed moment occurred in early 2006 to alter the ISAF’s view of its own responsibilities.  On 7 February one of the ISAF’s PRTs in Maimana, located in the normally quiet RC-North sector of the operation under German Lead Nation command, and operated by Norwegian and Finnish personnel, was attacked by 30 anti-Government rioters and insurgents who breached the PRT perimeter and used an arsenal of small arms, automatic weapons, grenades, Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPG) rockets, incendiary devices and rocks to kill ISAF personnel at the PRT.[21]  Due to the ISAF’s emphasis on and prioritisation of the ‘stabilisation’ aspects of its mandate over its essential and prerequisite ‘security’ components, there were no combat-capable ISAF forces in the surrounding vicinity – or indeed the entire sector of RC-North – to rescue them, since Lead Nation German ISAF forces in the sector were prohibited by national caveat bans in their ROE from ever participating in combat operations (and other nearby NATO ‘combat forces’ operated under the same combat-caveat bans).[22]  In the end, it was a caveat-free, combat-capable, British Quick Reaction Force (QRF) unit that deployed to RC-North to robustly end the PRT attack in Germany’s RC-North sector – but only arriving a full 4 hours after the violence first began.[23]

Following the incident the NATO Supreme Allied Commander – Europe (SACEUR), General James Jones, impressed upon NATO members the need for NATO to develop a rapid military response capability and asked NATO governments specifically to not only contribute ‘combat forces’ to the ISAF for the first time, but also to remove ‘combat caveats’ from other forces stationed in theatre that prohibited the participation of ISAF forces in necessary combat operations. [24] 

Soon afterwards, burgeoning insurgency across Afghanistan caused another rapid change with regard to ISAF’s view of its own mission.  In May 2006, British COMISAF Lieutenant General (LTGEN) David Richards not only starkly described ISAF’s entire third geographic expansion of Phase II into RC-South between January-July as a ‘combat operation’, but also mooted the idea that there was actually still a line dividing the activities of the so-called ‘counter-terrorist OEF’ from the newly counter-insurgent ISAF operations.[25]  In fact, according to COMISAF Richards, the counter-terror and counter-insurgency operations then taking place in Afghanistan were ‘not always distinguishable’, given the way in which terrorism was routinely employed by Taliban and other anti-Government insurgents.[26]  For example, ISAF units had been increasingly compelled to participate in offensive counter-terror operations within RC-South and RC-East, while at the same time the ‘counter-terrorist’ OEF was still heavily involved in combating insurgents and other anti-Government elements in the southern regions of Afghanistan, as well as along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. 

Indeed, according to Maloney, while some continued to refer to ISAF as the ‘soft’, ‘peacekeeping’ mission, implying that OEF was the ‘hard’, ‘warfighting’ operation:

‘The reality of the situation is that both organizations conduct stabilization, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism functions, in many cases working together. They have to: the insurgency in Afghanistan adapts from year to year, and this in turn prompts constant adaptation on the part of the international community and their Afghan government partners.’[27]

This view was also confirmed in the November 2006 report by the NATO General Rapporteur to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly which labelled any attempt to divide the work of the two ISAF and OEF operations as a ‘dangerous mischaracterization’.[28]  On the one hand ‘proactive military operations’ could not be deemed solely the province of the OEF, the report argued, since, as previously cited above, for the ISAF ‘a first step to winning the confidence of the local population is ridding them of the individuals and groups that terrorize them and threaten to disrupt the reconstruction projects that are making a tangible difference for the community.’[29]  On the other hand, the OEF was itself conducting stabilisation and reconstruction operations, as it had done from the very outset since 2001, and it was in fact the OEF operation which had not only created the PRT concept, but which also continued to run most of the PRTs operating in Afghanistan. [30] 

In short, significant overlap occurred between the two ISAF and OEF missions in terms of both territory and function. [31]

The Outcome: No Merger

As a result of these operational realities, arguments for a mission merger between the two ISAF and OEF operations continued to be presented to the NATO alliance over the following years.  The existence of two separate multinational operations and forces engaging in the same types of combat and stabilisation operations within the same area at the same time seemed confusing, wasteful of both energy and resources, illogical and against basic common sense. 

Moreover, the presence of two separate chains of command for the two overlapping missions appeared to fundamentally violate the military principle of unity of command.  As LTGEN David W. Barno (Ret’d), the former U.S. Army Operational Commander of OEF’s CFC-A, described in an article for Military Review journal in 2007:

‘Both the [NATO] Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM] own the Afghan theatre and its battlespace – and direct forces in Afghanistan who report separately up their two reporting chains.’[32] 

Nevertheless, despite these concerning and unnecessary realities, in August 2008 it was decided jointly by U.S. and NATO officials that a mission merger of the two overlapping operations would never formally proceed, and despite repeated pushes for and debates over the merging of OEF with the ISAF, this state of affairs continued throughout the ISAF operation until its termination in 2014, as well as during its successive NATO-led Operation Resolute Support (ORS) mission, and remains the state of play to the present day.[33]

Instead, within months of this decision being taken, the Bush Administration attempted to ameliorate the command situation by creating a new U.S. command and control headquarters to replace the former U.S. CFC-A, that had become obsolete in late 2006 following expansion of the NATO-led ISAF throughout Afghanistan.  The new headquarters – U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) – was intended to better manage U.S. forces and improve unity of effort and effectiveness, by placing a single commander over all American forces operating within the two ISAF and OEF operations.  This senior commander would be at the head of the two, separate, American, ISAF and OEF command chains but subordinate to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Florida.[34]

 While this alteration seemed to confirm the preferred European idea of ‘separateness’ with regard to the two mandated ISAF and OEF operations being conducted simultaneously within the Afghan AOR, it did not resolve the issue of a dual-hatted U.S. commander.  Indeed, the first U.S. Commander to assume the post in June 2008, General (GEN) David D. McKiernan, became simultaneously Commander of U.S. forces within OEF (excluding counter-terrorist Special Forces operations which were commanded and controlled by CENTCOM) as well as the Commander of U.S. forces within ISAF.   

As a result of the transition of the ISAF mission into a COIN campaign in late 2006, moreover, a change which resulted in the ISAF coalition’s preference for an American commander to lead and direct NATO’s ISAF COIN campaign, GEN McKiernan was also compelled to assume a third, additional role and function as the overall Operational Commander of the ISAF – the COMISAF – operating this time under NATO’s chain of command under the direction of NATO’s highest Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Belgium, thereby becoming perhaps the first ‘triple-hatted’, ‘triple-chained’ – and terribly overloaded – American commander in modern military history.

 

The Second Option: Counter-Insurgency (COIN) Warfare – Battle for the Majority Population

The other possibility for changing the ISAF mission, to better match Afghanistan’s urgent security needs and realities at the end of 2006, was to alter the type of ISAF mission from a stabilisation-focused mission into an overt COIN campaign. 

COIN – A Form of War

Counter-insurgency warfare is most simply defined as ‘all measures adopted to suppress an insurgency’, but has been defined by NATO as:

‘Those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency.’[35] 

This NATO definition, first published in 1973, remains intact among NATO publications to the present day, and may be found within official government publications from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Australia, including the U.S. COIN Manual of 2006 (see endnote).[36]

COIN, while vastly different from conventional warfare, is still a form of war.  As one of the leading experts on modern insurgency and counter-insurgency warfare, David Kilcullen, states on the matter:

‘War is armed politics, and COIN is an armed variant of domestic politics in which numerous challengers compete for control over the population.’[37] 

Indeed, like all forms of warfare, COIN is an expression of politics – it is a political instrument wielded by political masters towards a political objective.  It can only be understood with reference to, and in counterbalance with, an insurgency.  In this way insurgency and counter-insurgency – insurgents and counter-insurgents – are always a dichotomy: two sides of the one coin. 

COIN: A Struggle for the Right to Govern

The landmark 2006 U.S. COIN manual (which, rather surprisingly given the commonality of insurgency warfare in world history, was the very first modern COIN manual to be written for American military personnel since the ignominious withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam War three decades earlier in 1975), explains these two insurgent and counter-insurgent forces in the following way:

‘Political power is the central issue in insurgencies and counterinsurgencies; each side aims to get the people to accept its governance or authority as legitimate.

 

Insurgents use all available tools – political (including diplomatic), informational (including appeals to religious, ethnic, or ideological beliefs), military, and economic – to overthrow the existing authority… an established government or an interim governing body. 

 

Counterinsurgents, in turn, use all instruments of national power to sustain the established or emerging government and reduce the likelihood of another crisis emerging.’[38]

 As may be seen by this description, COIN is in essence a competition with insurgents for the political power to govern. 

The insurgent fights to impose disorder, by building up informal structures, local institutions, and armed entities, while at the same time recalling older identities.[39]

The counter-insurgent fights to impose order, and does so by establishing formal structures, central institutions, and unarmed entities, while simultaneously affirming newer identities.[40]

To truly secure the right to govern, however, one side must achieve legitimacy in the eyes of the people– that is, their cause must be supported and approved of by the majority of the local population residing in the area.  It must secure the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local populace, and therefore their support, allegiance and vote of confidence.  It must also prove itself to be an effective, reliable and stable means of government.   As the 2006 U.S. Counter-insurgency Manual states:

‘The long-term objective for all sides remains acceptance of the legitimacy of one side’s claim to political power by the people of the state or region’.[41] 

At its deepest level then, COIN is a competition with an insurgency for power over the local populace. 

The people are the king-makers: the victor will be determined by the local populace alone.

Key to Success: Winning the Majority Support of the Population

Because the conduct of an insurgency-COIN campaign in an area usually results in the political polarization of the populace, this competition is in fact waged over the undecided majority of the population – sometimes called the ‘empty middle’ – with each side seeking to win this majority’s support (see image below).[42]  

Battle for the Population: Diagram showing the typical division of any population when in the grip of an insurgency. The passive majority is key to any counter-insurgency campaign and must be won over into active support for the COIN campaign in order for the campaign to be effective and to achieve real success.[43]

T.E. Lawrence, the British leader of the Arab insurgency against Turkish rule during World War I, once wrote on this point that: ‘Rebellions can be made by 2 percent actively in the striking force and 98 percent passively sympathetic.’[44] 

David Galula, the classical French COIN theorist and practitioner with experience in China, Greece, Southeast Asia, and Algeria also underscored the importance of winning the support of the majority population, arguing that COIN warfare is essentially a battle for the population: the population is the ‘prize’ – the main goal or objective of the war.[45] 

Likewise, Kilcullen argues today that: ‘Control over the population (through a combination of coercion and consent) is the goal of both government and insurgent.’[46] 

Securing control over the population is particularly important for the counter-insurgent because, as Galula explains:

‘If the insurgent manages to dissociate the population from the counterinsurgent, to control it physically, to get its active support, he will win the war because, in the final analysis, the exercise of political power depends on the tacit or explicit agreement of the population or, at worst, on its submissiveness.’[47] 

This means that within COIN campaigns, in order to gain the upper hand and suppress the insurrection the counter-insurgent must not only secure control over the population, but additionally also work hard to win over active public support for the governing authority – in order to move them from a passive neutral majority to an active supportive majority – something achieved primarily through political rather than purely military operations.[48]  For the counter-insurgent, more than the insurgent then, ‘every military move has to be weighed with regard to its political effects, and vice versa’.[49] 

In other words, in COIN warfare, campaigns are waged not so much to “defeat the Enemy” as to “win the people”, and thereby take away from the Enemy force their civilian support base supplying them with shelter, food, weapons and new recruits.

It is this centrality of winning over the approval and support of the local population to achieve success, and fighting a political rather than purely a military war, that renders COIN warfare so complex and difficult to execute effectively.

Conducting COIN

Indeed, COIN campaigns are far more complex than conventional warfare, and must be fought in a vastly different fashion.  Rather than being solely a security campaign, COIN warfare is first and foremost a political war – representing a political crisis – therefore requiring firstly political, then military solutions. 

Consequently, unlike in conventional warfare, the aim of COIN is not to crush the Enemy through overwhelming military force, but rather to steadfastly wear away the insurgents’ support base (refer to the diagram below).  That is, the military must work to actively win over the perceptions – the emotive ‘hearts’ and cognitive ‘minds’ – of both the local population and Enemy fighters (usually through financial aid, development projects, and general goodwill), while at the same time continuing to suppress hostile activity and eliminate hard-line fanatics.[50] 

COIN Warfare: The difference between force manoeuvers in an Enemy-centric, conventional war campaign and that of a population-centric, counter-insurgency campaign.[51]

In truth, the success of COIN campaigns depends almost entirely on the local population.

Only through majority support for the COIN campaign, in addition to popular participation through taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to government rule, can the people of the area ensure the success of a COIN campaign, and thereby guarantee their own safety and a stable future.[52]

The role of military forces in COIN is therefore to support wider political goals and through minimal force to, first, protect the population, and second, provide the security necessary for stabilising political gains to be achieved that will ultimately win the support of the people.[53] 

This centrality of popular support in counter-insurgency warfare renders COIN a population-centric, rather than Enemy-centric, campaign, the maxim being to ‘control the population’ (or ‘win the population’), in the belief that progress will subsequently follow.[54] 

Insurgents seek to seize this control over the population primarily through coercive means.

Counter-insurgents, however, lack this coercive power and therefore must seek to win control over the population by winning popular consent. [55] 

Hence, rather than military destruction of the Enemy, the onus for counter-insurgents is on winning ‘the war of perceptions’ by earning the respect and support of the local populace (in particular the key ‘opinion leaders’ and respected ‘elders’ within the population, who are central figures and leaders of particular social groupings within the populace).[56]  As General Sir Gerald Templer stated in 1952 in regard to the Malayan COIN campaign: ‘The answer lies not in pouring more troops into the jungle, but in the hearts and minds of the Malayan people’.[57]

Unlike in conventional wars then, military troops involved in COIN must, as a basic standard, adopt an attitude of tolerance, sympathy and kindness towards the local population – goodwill rather than hostility. 

Kilcullen describes this unconventional military focus on ‘winning hearts and minds’ as not an exercise in niceties, but rather ‘a hard-headed recognition of certain basic facts’. [58]  Namely that:

(1) the Enemy needs the people to act in certain ways, without which the insurgency will wither;

(2) the Enemy is fluid while the population is fixed, making control of the population attainable whereas destroying the Enemy is not;

(3) due to this Enemy fluidity, an insurgency can never be eradicated through solely Enemy-centric means, the Vietnam War which the United States lost despite its Superpower status and powerful military being a case in point; and

(4) the local population is easily identifiable whereas the Enemy, often comprising multiple threat groups, frequently is not.[59]

In short, the military’s task is to engage in the psycho-political battle with the insurgent Enemy and win control over the population, by competing for the hearts and minds of the local population. 

Counter-insurgents must work to win over the emotive hearts and cognitive minds of the local people by convincing them, respectively, that:

(1) success of the counter-insurgency is in their long-term interests; and

(2) the counter-insurgency will ultimately succeed against the insurgency and will permanently protect their interests and safety. [60]

From this overview it is evident that the establishment of indigenous counter-insurgent security forces, and close cooperation with these local forces, is also a critical component of any COIN campaign. 

Not only are indigenous COIN forces critical in gathering popular support for the COIN cause, but they are also essential for assisting external, non-native, counter-insurgent forces to deliver on their promises. 

This is because it is only indigenous forces that can match the Enemy, in not only possessing a true and practical understanding of the local culture and its core values and imperatives, but also in their on-going presence and long-term commitment in the AO, as well as their devotion to the security and well-being of their own native land and its people.[61] 

Indeed, it is these native COIN forces alone who will ultimately become the guarantors of security in the AO once international security forces withdraw from the campaign and the theatre of operations. 

Winning Control of the Population: The 80/20 Rule

One may see by this that it is the civilian population, rather than insurgent areas of operation, that forms the true frontline in any COIN campaign. 

In a people-centric war, the local population is the counter-insurgent’s greatest asset.  A population won over from an insurgent movement is the counter-insurgency’s greatest strength, politically and militarily – its political and military ‘Centre of Gravity’ (or ‘Centre of Strength’) around which the war will revolve.  The primary objective for any COIN campaign is consequently, as it is for insurgents, ‘to control the population’.

While this is so, however, it is also worthwhile to also keep in mind that, as Kilcullen argues, ‘the enemy and the terrain still matter’ within a COIN campaign, with terrain-centric (positional warfare) and Enemy-centric (manoeuvre warfare) actions still ‘vital and crucial to success’.[62]  As Kilcullen concisely concludes: ‘Enemy and Terrain still matter, but Population is the key’. [63]

However, winning back governmental control over the population from any insurgent force is a difficult task and requires the military to play a dual role in all COIN campaigns: the primary and largest function being political, and the secondary minor function security (see diagram below). 

The 80/20 COIN Rule: The political and security dimensions of a COIN war campaign, involving  a majority of non-kinetic political operations (comprising 80 per cent of all activity) in combination with a minority of kinetic security operations (comprising only 20 per cent of all activity), the latter nevertheless comprising an essential component of COIN work to ‘protect the population’.

Indeed, in most COIN campaigns at least seventy-five percent of all activity comprises non-military tasks.[64]  This division of labour in a COIN campaign is sometimes referred to as Galula’s 80/20 rule, being ‘20 per cent military action and 80 per cent political.’ [65]  As Galula states:

‘Essential though it is, the military action is secondary to the political one, its primary purpose being to afford the political power enough freedom to work safely with the population.  The armed forces are but one of many instruments of the counterinsurgent, and what is better than the political power to harness the non-military instruments, to see that appropriations come at the right time to consolidate the military work, that political and social reforms follow through?’ [66]

 

The ISAF Adopts a COIN Strategy

It was this COIN warfare option, rather than a merger of the ISAF with the OEF mission in Afghanistan, that NATO chose to pursue as the best and most appropriate means by which the mission could address and counter the strengthening, anti-Government, Pashtun Taliban insurgency within the ISAF mission. 

Indeed, the adoption of a COIN strategy seemed the most logical step forward for the ISAF at this point of time, since an emphasis on ‘countering the insurgency’ at the strategic level would, as a matter of course, encompass all of the ISAF’s former stabilisation work, including its reconstruction, development, governance, and ANSF-training work.  In other words, these stabilisation activities would become the 80% non-traditional, non-kinetic and non-lethal effort of the COIN strategy, while the remaining 20% traditional, kinetic and lethal effort would comprise all of the combat and security operations executed by large and small ‘Combat Manoeuvre Units’ (CMUs) and security units mandated and deployed specifically for the task. 

Consequently at the NATO Riga Summit in November 2006, it was officially decided that a COIN approach involving both security operations (20%) and stabilisation operations (80%) was the best way forward for the ISAF operation, and the most effective means by which to counter the insecurity and destabilisation that the Taliban and other insurgent and terrorist groups were determined to foster throughout the country.  The kind of ‘security assistance’ provided by the ISAF in Afghanistan had hence changed fundamentally.

OEF’s COIN Strategy (2003-2005)

Ironically, however, this was not the first time that COIN doctrine had in fact been applied to operations within the Afghan war.

Prior to NATO’s incremental geographical expansion throughout the country in four phases between 2003-2006 (see blog ‘#30 BACKGROUND – NATO’s Operational Plan (OPLAN) for ISAF Mission Success in Afghanistan, 2003-2014’), U.S. OEF forces operating in the Afghan theatre of operations had already designed and enacted a traditional COIN campaign under the command of LTGEN Barno of OEF’s CFC-A (depicted in the image below). This American COIN strategy had been enacted in the OEF’s AOR in Afghanistan from 2003-2005, in recognition of and response to the increasing insurgent activity in the country during 2003, combined with the pressing need to re-establish security in order to pave the way for the 2004 Afghan national elections. 

According to Barno, during this three-year period the OEF COIN strategy had ‘positive and dramatic results’, reportedly effective in not only stemming the insurgent tide, but also in restoring safety and hope to ordinary Afghans.[67]  This was evidenced by the way that, despite insurgent intimidation, twice the expected number of Afghans both registered to vote and actually took part in the national elections (an estimated 10.5 million and 8.5 million people respectively).[68]  As Barno concluded:

‘The late 2003 shift in strategy from an enemy-centric counterterrorist strategy to a more comprehensive, population-centred COIN approach marked a turning point in the U.S. mission.’[69]

The COIN Strategy of OEF (2003-2005): A diagram depicting the COIN strategy designed and enacted by Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A) under U.S. Army Lieutenant General (LTGEN) David W. Barno, and active throughout Afghanistan prior to the ISAF’s geographical expansion nationwide from Kabul Province.[70]

In its early handling of the mission, however, NATO made the very grave mistake of dissolving step-by-step, with each of its geographical expansions northwards, westwards, southwards and eastwards, the successful American COIN strategy already in operation under U.S. OEF forces.

As NATO expanded its command throughout the Afghan AO, gradually relieving U.S. CFC-A forces deployed to OEF-A between the years 2003-2006, the U.S. COIN strategy for the country became a casualty of the ISAF nations’ single-minded focus on ‘stabilisation’ and ‘nation-building’ tasks at the expense of appropriate strategy and effective security operations. 

As a consequence of this  strategic tunnel-vision, the security operations that were executed by the ISAF between 2003-2006 harkened back to the traditional, counterproductive, Enemy-centric, counter-terror approaches of warfare used in the initial OEF campaign in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban between 2001-2002, in which progress was measured more by the body count numbers of killed Enemy fighters after each engagement, rather than on the COIN indicator of the level of support and trust the ISAF had won from the local ‘majority population’.  

In brief, in advancing forward to replace the OEF operation, the NATO-led ISAF mission had, by a minimization of security realities, a fundamental misunderstanding of strategic necessities, and a slowness to adjust quickly to the developing security situation during the years 2003-2006, taken itself – and the entire country of Afghanistan – one, giant, strategic step backwards.

Indeed, it could be argued that it was NATO’s failure to both recognise the need for COIN, and keep or reinstitute a COIN strategy following its assumption of command over the ISAF in 2003, that is directly attributable to the ISAF mission’s inability to adequately respond to, control or quell the escalating violence caused by Afghan insurgents over successive years following 2003.  As a result, security degenerated rapidly as both the Pashtun, Islamo-fascist Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorist insurgencies gained strength and suicide attacks in the Afghan AO increased, the total number sky-rocketing during NATO’s geographic expansion phase from 17 in 2005 to 139 in 2006.[71] 

In late 2007 LTGEN Barno, the designer and implementer of the earlier and successful OEF COIN campaign, lamented this negative and unnecessary series of events, stating with regard to the ISAF:

‘Since mid-2005, the comprehensive U.S.-led COIN strategy described above has been significantly altered by subsequent military and civilian leaders who held differing views.  With the advent of NATO military leadership, there is today no single comprehensive strategy to guide the U.S., NATO, or international effort. Unity of purpose – both interagency and international – has suffered; unity of command is more fragmented; area ownership has receded; and tactics in some areas have seemingly reverted to earlier practices such as the aggressive use of airpower. The “bag of capital” representing the tolerance of the Afghan people for foreign forces appears to be diminishing.’[72]

The ISAF’s COIN Strategy: SHAPE, CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD (2006-2014)

Now that COIN had at last been embraced once again in the Afghan theatre of war following the NATO Riga Summit of November 2006, however, NATO was confronted in its leadership with a difficult enterprise. 

First of all, the NATO organisation itself – comprised of conventional forces trained to conduct conventional, if not nuclear, war against a traditional enemy like the former Soviet Union – seemed manifestly the wrong instrument for the task. 

Secondly, its own allied members were very divided by differing ideas, approaches and national experiences with COIN warfare, e.g. British COIN success following the campaign conducted by British forces against Communist Chinese forces in Malaya, in comparison with French failure in the COIN campaign conducted by French forces in Indochina (‘Indochine’ in French – a French colonial territory from 1887-1954 which at its height encompassed the three nations of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in addition to the leased, Chinese, coastal region and ports of Guangzhouwan). 

Thirdly, despite having leadership of the ISAF mission, NATO had no comprehensive doctrine for conducting COIN operations, nor did it have any real experience with such complex and highly-political campaigns. 

The fact that this COIN campaign was to be designed and led by NATO then, and within the context of a country far outside its traditional European and North Atlantic operational area, populated by a non-European people, was clearly a cause for concern. 

 ‘SHAPE, CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD’ 

Nevertheless, under the command of American COMISAF General David McNeill (June 2006 – June 2008), an ISAF COIN strategy was developed for the ISAF mission, encapsulated by the motto: ‘SHAPE, CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD’ (S-C-H-B). 

SHAPE – Reconnaissance, Planning & Combat Deployments

During this initial ‘SHAPE’ phase, reconnaissance was first carried out to identify the key security, economic and social metrics of a given area within the Afghan AOR. 

Based on the information gathered during this reconnaissance, planning was then undertaken to select the appropriate blend of ISAF forces for the security and stability needs of the area – first of all combat and security forces, and then subsequently reconstruction, development and governance stability forces. 

The unique blend of made-to-measure combat and security forces for that locality was then deployed to the area and amassed there in readiness for operations to counter insurgents in the insurgent-controlled or insurgent-threatened area.

CLEAR – Create Security by Removing Insurgents & Dividing the Enemy from Civilians

During this subsequent ‘CLEAR’ phase, the deployed ISAF combat forces created initial security within the operational environment of the designated AO by conducting combat operations to remove insurgents and other anti-Government forces operating within the area. 

This was mostly achieved by the removal of hostile insurgent, terrorist and other anti-Government fighters via elimination, detention or expulsion, and was conducted by ISAF forces in coordination with ANSF forces, which at that time in early 2007-2008 were assuming a supportive role in all ISAF combat operations taking place throughout the country.[73]

The aim or objective or these combat operations was to divide off the Enemy fighters from the local Afghan civilian population and create a “space” between them.  Once established, this safe “space” between the non-combatant civilians and combatant insurgents not only gave civilians a basic level of security for their daily lives, but also limited the insurgent Enemy’s ability to harass, intimidate, terrorize and attack the civilian population, while also denying them physical presence within civilian areas to forcibly exploit or recruit civilians as a support or supply base for their anti-Government activities.

 Changing Emphasis in the Conduct of COIN: The changing relationship between security and development during the four phases of the ISAF COIN strategy.

HOLD – Maintain & Expand Security & Begin Stability Operations

During this next ‘HOLD’ phase, ISAF and ANSF forces first focused on maintaining the security that had been initially created within each area by the ‘CLEAR’ phase above. This was achieved by both maintaining a strong ISAF presence in the area, and continuing combat and security operations to deny insurgents freedom of movement or access to civilian population centres within the AO, and to prevent opportunities for their return. 

In addition to security maintenance, moreover, these combat and security forces acted to expand the ‘security bubble’ within the locality – or “space” between the civilians and the insurgent Enemy forces – by conducting ongoing military operations to eliminate, detain or expel hostile insurgent, terrorist and other anti-Government fighters.

At the same time, the designated stability forces arrived at the ‘cleared’ locality and began an array of reconstruction, development, governance and (post-2008) counter-narcotics projects, programmes and activities in order to create stable and enduring connections between the local Afghan civilian population of the area and their central Afghan government in Kabul.

BUILD – Accelerate Stability via Governance Support, R&D, & ANSF Training & Mentoring

Finally, during the last phase of the ISAF COIN strategy, greatly increased numbers of stability forces were deployed en masse to the AO locality. The bulk of ISAF activity in each AO was from this moment mostly concentrated on building and accelerating progress in all spheres of governance, reconstruction, development and counter-narcotics in support of the central government of Afghanistan, with the aim of extending and solidifying Afghan government authority, along with its fundamental role of providing basic government, health, educational, transport and electricity services etc., to the civilian population in the designated area.

Meanwhile, ISAF security units remained occupied in training and mentoring both of the native Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) security forces, in order to build the capacity of Afghanistan’s own indigenous security forces.  For it was these native Afghan security forces that would always be the hope of the Afghan nation: one day soon, following the withdrawal of international security assistance forces, these national Afghan security forces would stand alone, with the full authority and responsibility of maintaining, developing, and employing their military capabilities to create, maintain and expand the security and stability of their own Afghan nation.

Low-level combat operations also took place simultaneously within the AO, both to maintain the security gains already achieved in the locality and to increase security in outlying geographical areas to the point of connecting ‘security bubbles’ between the specific designated area and other secured and stabilised areas in surrounding towns of the district, and ultimately, the whole province of the sector, whether in the north, west, south or east of the country.

In short, in this last ‘BUILD’ phase, ISAF and ANSF forces sought jointly to capitalise on the security and stability created in the preceding ‘CLEAR’ and ‘HOLD’ phases to establish the basic political, social, economic and security infrastructure and institutions that would allow the area to become fully secured and stabilised, and safeguard the future of the Afghan people in that locality.[74]

Through this new, population-centric, COIN strategy of ‘SHAPE, CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD’, the ISAF hoped that a secure and stable environment might be established and maintained within the entire sovereign territory of the nation of Afghanistan, and thereby, the ISAF mission in the country effectively and successfully achieved and accomplished.

The following blog will examine this COIN approach within the ISAF operation in greater detail by outlining the 4 Lines of Operation (LOOs) or ‘pillars’ within the ISAF COIN strategy and the primary areas of activity contained within each of these LOOs, and describing the practical military realities of COIN on the ground in Afghanistan with regard to the division of labour between ISAF nations and ISAF ‘security’ and ‘stability’ forces in the prosecution of the ISAF’s COIN campaign to secure and stabilise Afghanistan (see blog ‘#32 BACKGROUND – The ISAF COIN Strategy: 4 Lines of Operation (LOOs) & ‘Division of Labour’ among ISAF Nations & Forces’).

 

* For more information on the impact of national caveats within the NATO-led ISAF Operation in Afghanistan, see Dr Kingsley’s full Thesis and its accompanying volume of Appendices (including ISAF national caveat lists), which can be freely viewed and downloaded from Massey University’s official website here:

http://mro.massey.ac.nz/xmlui/handle/10179/6984

 

  Endnotes

[1] United States Library of Congress, V. Morelli & P. Belkin, Congressional Research Service (CRS), 3 December, 2009, p. 32, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33627.pdf, (accessed 20 February 2013).

[2] Ibid.

[3] S. Ulph, ‘Taliban Resurgence in Afghanistan’, Terrorism Focus – Jamestown Foundation, vol. 2, no. 19, 17 October 2005, p. 4; G. Grant, ‘Tribal War’, GovernmentExecutive.Com, 1 March 2007, http://www.govexec.com/story­_page­_pf.cfm?articleid=36236, (accessed 15 October 2008).

[4] Grant, ibid.; M. Boot, ‘Get Serious About Afghanistan’, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), 4 October 2006, http://www.cfr.org/publication/11598, (accessed 15 October 2008); P. Bergen, ‘The Taliban, Regrouped And Rearmed’, Washington Post, 10 September 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090801614.html, (accessed 15 October 2008).

[5] U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, op. cit., p. 10. 

[6] Ibid., p. 22.

[7] North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), J. Miranda-Calha, NATO General Rapporteur (Portugal), ‘Draft General Report: Lessons Learned from NATO’s Current Operations 061 DSC 06 E’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly 17 March 2006, pp. 2-4, http://www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=997, (accessed 14 December 2011).

[8] Ibid., p. 4.

[9] ‘ISAF’, GlobalSecurity.Org, 2011, www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/isaf-intro.htm, (accessed 1 November 2011).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Modified diagram taken from United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), The Pentagon, Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan – Report to Congress in accordance with section 1230 of the National Defence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public Law 110-181), as amended, April 2010, p. 15, http:// www. Defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Report_Final_SecDef_04_26_10.pdf, (accessed 14 January 2013).

[12] U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, op. cit., p. 22.

[13] Ibid., pp. 17, 22.

[14] ‘ISAF’, GlobalSecurity.Org, op. cit.

[15] U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, op. cit., pp. 17, 22. 

[16] Ibid., p. 22

[17] ‘ISAF’, GlobalSecurity.Org, op. cit.

[18] Cited in U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, op. cit., p. 17.

[19] Ibid. 

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.; United States Department of State (U.S. DoS), United States Embassy Kabul (released by Wikileaks), Cable 06KABUL544, Violent Protests Continue Into Second Day, 7 February 2006, http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06KABUL544&q=faryab%20prt, (accessed 9 October 2013); U.S. DoS, U.S. Embassy Kabul (released by Wikileaks), Cable 06KABUL725, ISAF Response To Anti-Cartoon Riots: “Restraint”, Reliance on ANP, And Gaps In Capability, http://cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=06KABUL725&q=faryab%20prt, (accessed 9 October 2013).

[22] U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, ibid., p. 17.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid., pp. 17-18.

[25] Ibid., p. 18.

[26] Ibid., p. 18.

[27] S. Maloney, ‘Conceptualizing the War in Afghanistan: Perceptions from the Front, 2001-2006’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, vol. 18, no. 1, March 2007, p. 28.

[28] NATO, Miranda-Calha, ‘Draft General Report: Lessons Learned from NATO’s Current Operations 061 DSC 06 E’, op. cit., p. 4.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Ibid., p. 2.

[31] Ibid., p. 1.

[32] D. W. Barno (LTGEN, Ret’d), ‘Fighting “The Other War”: Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003-2005’, Military Review, (September-October) 2007, p. 43.

[33] ‘ISAF’, GlobalSecurity.Org, op. cit.; U.S. Library of Congress, Morelli & Belkin, op. cit., p. 22.

[34] U.S DoD, ‘Defense Department Activates U.S. Forces-Afghanistan’, 6 October 2008, http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12267, (accessed 30 November 2011).

[35] D. Kilcullen, ‘Counter-insurgency Redux’, Survival, vol. 48, no. 4, (Winter) 2006, pp. 111-112; NATO Standardization Agency (NSA), Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2008), 2008, p. 2-C-18, http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/other/nato2008.pdf, (accessed 6 January 2011).

[36] NATO, NSA, Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2008), ibid., p. 2-C-18; United States Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), Headquarters Department of the Army (DA), FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, 15 December 2006, p. 1-1, http://www.cfr.org/publication/12257/, (accessed 29 January 2009); United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (U.K. MOD), Glossary of Joint and Multinational Terms and Definitions: Joint Doctrine Publication 0-01.1, 2006, p. C-26, http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E8750509-B7D1-4BC6-8AEE-8A4868E2DA21/0/JDP0011Ed7.pdf, (accessed 5 January 2011); Australian Department of Defence (DOD), ADFP 101 Glossary, Australian Defence Force Publication- Staff Duties Series, Canberra, 2009, p. C-18.

To illustrate, France has adopted the exact French translation of this NATO English-language definition for counter-insurgency, or in French ‘contre-insurrection’, defining it as: « ‘Mesure militaires, paramilitaires, politiques, économiques, psychologiques ou civiles destinées à combattre les menées insurrectionnelles » (cited in NATO Standardization Agency (NSA), NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions (English and French), AAP-6(2010), 2010, p. 3-C-20, http://www.scribd.com/doc/40014713/NATO-AAP-6-NATO-Glossary-of-Terms-and-Definitions-English-and-French-2010, (accessed 6 January 2011).

[37] D. Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, a presentation given at the Small Wars Center of Excellence Counterinsurgency Seminar 07, Quantico, VA, 26 September 2007, http://smallwarsjournal.com/documents/COINSeminarSummaryReport.doc, (accessed 5 January 2011).

[38] U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1-1.

[39] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[40] Ibid.

[41] U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1-2.

[42] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[43] Modified image ‘Figure 1-2. Support for an insurgency’ taken from U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., pp. 1-20.

[44] ‘Iraqi Insurgents Learning from Lawrence’, Small Wars Journal, cited in Small Wars Council – Historians [web blog], http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5330, (accessed 5 January 2011).

[45] D. Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice [1964], Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers, 2006, p. 4; Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[46] U.S. DoD FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, cited in D.J. Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, ibid.

[47] Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, op. cit.

[48] B. Reeder, ‘Book Summary of Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice by David Galula’, Conflict Research Consortium, The Conflict Resolution Information Source, http://www.crinfo.org/booksummary/10672/, (accessed 6 January 2011).

[49] Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, op. cit., p. 5.

[50] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[51] Modified image taken from Kilcullen, ibid.

[52] U.S. DoD, Headquarters DA, FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, op. cit., p. 1-1.

[53] C. Gray, ‘Irregular Warfare: One Nature, Many Characters’, Strategic Studies Quarterly (SSQ), (Winter) 2007, pp. 48-49, 50; D. Ucko, ‘US counterinsurgency in the information age’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, vol. 17, issue 12, (December 2005), p. 10; P. Melshen, ‘Mapping Out a Counterinsurgency Campaign Plan: Critical considerations in Counterinsurgency Campaigning’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. 18, no. 4, (December) 2007, p. 669.

[54] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Cited in Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, ibid.

[58] Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, ibid.

[59] Ibid.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Ibid.

[64] J. Kiszely, ‘Learning about Counter-Insurgency’, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Journal, December 2006, p. 16, http://www.rusi.org/publication/journal/ref:A4587F6831E1A6, (accessed 11 March 2009).

[65] Galula, Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice, cited in Kilcullen, ‘Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Theory and Practice, 2007’, op. cit.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Barno, Fighting “The Other War”, op. cit., p. 42.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Modified image taken from Barno, ibid., p. 35.

[71] Barno, ibid., p. 42.

[72] Ibid., p. 43.

[73] U.S. Department of Defense (U.S. DoD), The Pentagon, Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan – Report to Congress in accordance with the 2008 National Defence Authorization Act (Section 1230, Public Law 110-181)’, January 2009, p. 16,  http://www.defense.gov/pubs/OCTOBER_1230_FINAL.pdf, (accessed 14 January 2013); A. Cordesman. ‘Shape, Clear, Hold, and Build: The Uncertain Metrics of the Afghan War’, Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Burke Chair in Strategy, 3 December 2009, pp. 58, 64- 65, http://csis.org/files/publication/091201_afghan_metrics_0.pdf, (accessed 9 April 2010).

[74] U.S. DoD, Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, January 2009, ibid., p. 16.