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A US Army soldier assigned to C Company, 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, engages the enemy during a patrol near Combat Outpost Honaker Miracle in Kunar province, Afghanistan, on July 29, 2009. US Army photo by Evan Marcy. |
I’ve received some criticism for noting that the US withdrawal from remote outposts in the Korengal Valley (as well as from other remote bases in Kunar and Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan) has been a major mistake. My position has been that these locations, as difficult as they can be to defend, keep the Taliban at bay and at the least allow the US to maintain a presence in these areas and prevent the Taliban and al Qaeda from fully controlling these areas [see here, here, and here for examples on the Korengal Valley]. Without US forces in these areas, the pressure is off the Taliban and their Pakistani and al Qaeda allies, and they will be free to launch attacks deeper into Afghanistan. Also, the US withdrawal from these bases gives the Taliban a propaganda coup just when the US needs to show it is committed to remaining in Afghanistan and taking the fight to the Taliban.
The conventional wisdom in many circles is that the bases are too far flung and difficult to defend, that the bases are in strategically insignificant locations, and that if we’d just withdraw from these areas, the insurgency would burn out as the US presence is the driving force for local hostility.
This must-read article at Stars and Stripes supports the first half of my argument: not only have the Taliban now established safe havens in the Korengal, they are using these bases to extend their strikes. Combat Outpost Michigan, which sits at the opening of the Korengal Valley, is now bearing the brunt of the Taliban attacks:
Michigan is attacked so frequently now that soldiers at the other three Pech River Valley bases, who all have heavy fights on their hands, grimace when they hear that Michigan is a visitor’s destination.
In most places in Afghanistan, soldiers who stay inside the wire, meaning behind the base walls, are usually considered on safer ground. At Michigan, “sometimes guys feel like they are safer outside the wire,” said Capt. Dakota Steedsman, commander of Company D.
Soldiers spend 80 percent of their time just defending the base or reacting to attacks from the surrounding mountain walls, a far cry from the focus on counterinsurgency and governance in other parts of the country.
Many of the buildings have the scars of recent repairs after taking direct hits from incoming fire, among them the brand new shower building with a gaping hole in its ceiling. Its 14 showers will remain unused until they can reinforce it.
And later in the article:
Steedsman said he sees coordination among different groups of fighters. Some battalion officers say that is a direct result of the pullout from the Korengal, because it gave the Taliban a free safe haven to set up a command center where there once was an American post.
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14 Comments
Hi Bill,
You have a great site, I am a regular reader after it was referred to me by a colleague during my most recent rotation to Afghanistan. I am an active duty soldier in the army.
I have to disagree with you on withdrawing from the Korengal. Not for tactical reasons, but for strategic ones. It became clear to me that there is no plan for exit/winning the Afghan war at the senior military and civilian level. It was only after rising US deaths in that country that leadership was compelled to get their acts together.
My basic objection to remaining in Korengal is that putting troops in such a blatantly high-risk, high-profile location is not worth the cost of more lives lost, especially when the Taliban’s safe haven is right across the border. Our troops ought to be on the offensive moving into Pakistan killing these scumbags where they train, equip and organize, rather than just sitting atop some COP constantly being ambushed and attacked. Sitting there drawing fire and creating whitespace is no way to win this war. Alas, we cant officially move troops into Pakistan because of political concerns, and 2 presidents who don’t have the will to fight this war as it should.
Bill,
From the description and photographs of COP Michigan, it seems that the base is very badly positioned: In the valley floor with high ground overlooking it from multiple directions. This would not be a problem if there were other supporting outposts holding that high ground. Without them you are asking to be pummeled.
This same problem was evident in the battles of Wanat and Kamdesh. I am baffled as to why this sort of elementary mistake is being made again and again.
“It became clear to me that there is no plan for exit/winning the Afghan war at the senior military and civilian level. It was only after rising US deaths in that country that leadership was compelled to get their acts together. ”
That’s about it.
Joe,
Thank you very much. You make a very good argument, and its one that I would agree with if I felt the military wasn’t playing to win, or at the least outlast the Taliban (I am leaving the civilian leadership’s motivations out here as I am looking at this from a military standpoint). Because if that is the case (not playing to succeed), there is little argument to be made to deploy in places Helmand, Kandahar, Paktika, Khost… I could go on, and increasingly some areas in the north and west. So I am making my argument that the military is making decisions with the idea that it is playing to win. Hope that makes sense…
Sparsh,
The location of Michigan wasn’t a problem until the interior of the Korengal was surrendered. Where do the Taliban hit next once Michigan is abandoned? And this gets to Joe’s point, where he said:
“My basic objection to remaining in Korengal is that putting troops in such a blatantly high-risk, high-profile location is not worth the cost of more lives lost, especially when the Taliban’s safe haven is right across the border.”
So what happens as you increasingly draw inward? The Taliban havens move closer to the center. The problem becomes less about the havens in Pakistan (which I do hope my position on these are clear) and about the havens inside Afghanistan, which we can in some way control/influence.
Alas the lack of a real strategy to deal with Pakistan is a major contributor to the problems.
All of that said, I think these are disagreements reasonable people can, and should, have.
My apologies in advance if I don’t get an opportunity to weigh in again on any responses. Time is my enemy.
I always thought you wanted to take the high ground?
What a hell hole. I agree, it would be different if we were fighting this war to win, but we aren’t. I hate reading about bases like this. All for naught. I really do not know how our guys manage to maintain, and what a luck of the draw place to be. God Bless them.
That whole situation there brings back bad memories of Beruit. You all beat me to the punch on the point that they’ve got to at least secure the high ground.
Hopefully, with Petraeus now running the show, they will retake those outposts that they so foolishly abandoned. I never did place much faith in McChrystal’s “clear, hold and build” strategy.
I hope they turn that area into a “drawfire”-like deathtrap for the Taliban and AQ. With a good strategy, maybe this situation can be turned into a Fallujah-like turning point.
At the very least it just may impress upon the taliban and aq that the US is in this for the long haul and is not exiting without a fight.
Ah, now I see the strategy. Since we can’t go into Pakistan, we must withdraw further into Afghanistan, then AQAM will have to move further into Afghanistan to attack us. Then we can attack them since they are on Afghan soil.
Since we are stopped at the border, we need to draw them further in. What sheer genius. Problem is we are not attacking them but just using our soldiers as bait.
I am all for crossing the border into Pakistan without advance notice. We can kill a few big rats that way. Then we just play the political game like they play with us. Thats works both ways or at least it should.
Bill, please excuse my cynicism. I know your mind is in the right place as you have a tremendously informed grasp on what is going on over there. Not to backpedal from my fundamental opinion, but from a hard-nosed tactical perspective, yes, we should be there to disrupt the terrorist’s freedom of movement.
It’s just so striking how we take for granted the fact that virtually all of Afghanistan’s violence is sourced right across the border in Pakistan. All the locals know it, and to see just how little there is in material belongings in Afghanistan, all those weapons, bombs, fertilizer have to come from somewhere. There is even a Fighting Season in Afghanistan, when during the fall and winter the TB fighters and commanders return to Pakistan to rest, regroup, and rearm themselves. How do we expect the locals to stick their necks out and fight the TB when they know the TB is still intact right across the border? The locals know they can’t stand up to them.
Pardon my rant, but it really is a messed up situation over there. I don’t advocate immediate withdrawal, I do believe we need a permanent presence to keep the fanatics in check, but the current course is unsustainable and needs to be revamped.
Joe,
No apologies needed. I actually understand where you are coming from, and suspect we aren’t too far apart on this. I also suspect we approached this from different angles (and yes I am looking at this from the tactical perspective). Again my approach assumes the military is executing what it believes to be a winning strategy (as this is how the McChrystal/Petraues COIN strategy has been sold).
The havens in Pakistan are something we refuse to deal with. Many think the “covert” Predator strikes are the solution, but that is a fool’s game. That should be but one of many tools in the toolkit, but sadly our toolkit contains but one tool. The only “solutions” we’ve seemed to come up with with respect to Pakistan are to flatter the military and government, and throw money at them. Sadly our top military leaders, including Mullen and Petraeus, have bought into this “solution.”
Bill,
You make a fair point that the positioning of COP Michigan was not problematic until after the Korengal withdrawal. But then I would argue that the Korengal withdrawal should have been followed by establishing supporting outposts on the high ground overlooking COP Michigan.
As you draw increasingly inward, the Taliban havens will not *move* towards the center, the will *expand* towards the center. You will have only increased the magnitude of the problem. Which brings me to what you and Joe said about the merits of holding places like the Korengal valley in Kunar and Nuristan. The primary value of these places is that they provide infiltration routes. You need to hold them in a manner designed to dominate the terrain and carry out counter-infiltration operations. Counter-insurgent operations in and around the sparse population centers of these places are a secondary concern.
It seems to me that the US military has not given enough attention to putting a robust counter-infiltration system into place and has instead concentrated on counter-insurgent operations in and around population centers. I find this baffling. You are, in effect, conceding the initiative. The circumstances surrounding the battles of Wanat and Kamdesh illustrate the point I am trying to make. I think I know why this is so: There aren’t enough soldiers to do both. To the best of my knowledge, the entire US military has roughly 500 rifle companies combined. Out of these say 200 are deployed in Afghanistan at any given time. 200 rifle companies are nowhere near enough.
Please do note that a robust counter-infiltration system is required regardless of the havens in Pakistan. And how to deal with these state-sanctioned safe havens in Pakistan? Quite frankly I do not have any good ideas and we have had to deal with this pain for longer than you have. Containment seems to be the only workable idea out there.
@Joe, thank you very much for your service. This may be a jaded sentiment, but you really do fight there to keep us safe here. I understand your frustration in fighting this war where the enemy can retreat to safety and rearm in Pakistan, and you are unable to follow in hot pursuit. Undertaking an insurgency this long is no small feat, and the question to be asked is where are the Taliban getting their arms and ammunition and funds from, and why aren’t we taking out these sources? Cut these supplies and the tide will turn.
There also must be clear pain imposed when Pakistan doesn’t cooperate. Their military leaders ill-gotten assets around the world should be targeted at the very least. Failure is not an option, and Pakistan duplicity severely punished. For starters, we could encourage the Pashtuns to carve out their own region and break out of the hold that the ISI has over them. Just as in Iraq where the Kurdish and Shia-dominated regions got their autonomy and thrived, and the Sunnis eventually realized that violence was getting them nowhere, the separation of Af-Pak into containable autonomous regions may be the best way out of this mess.
“It seems to me that the US military has not given enough attention to putting a robust counter-infiltration system into place and has instead concentrated on counter-insurgent operations in and around population centers. I find this baffling. You are, in effect, conceding the initiative. The circumstances surrounding the battles of Wanat and Kamdesh illustrate the point I am trying to make. I think I know why this is so: There aren’t enough soldiers to do both. To the best of my knowledge, the entire US military has roughly 500 rifle companies combined. Out of these say 200 are deployed in Afghanistan at any given time. 200 rifle companies are nowhere near enough.”
Sparsh, I agree with your assessment. If anything, it would seem to me that Korengal just may hold more strategic importance to the overall mission than Kandahar would.
The good thing about sparsely populated and rugged areas like Korengal is that you you could “lure” the enemy, especially the foreign elements, out there and then hit them with everything you’ve got (air support, missiles, etc.) with almost impunity since that there would be a minimal risk to civilians; versus Kandahar or heavily populated areas you’d be limited where high civilian casualties would be a major concern.
They act like they don’t like US anyways in Kandahar and I suggest if it comes down to an “either, or” situation, we’d be better off maximizing our footprint in Korengal, and minimizing it (if any) in Kandahar.
@Charu, thanks for the kind words, I wish there was an easy way to go about things over there.
We won WWII on all fronts primarily with our engineer troops.
Though they rarely get much press, then or now, they were deemed in the top ten weapons against the enemy by the brass upon reflection.
Back then it was because we were the only power fielding significant numbers of bulldozers and scrapers. That meant ‘instant’ airstrips and road-cut outs.
We gave the British landing mats, they gave us the Quonset hut and the Bailey bridge.