Iraq and Afghanistan

Juan Cole reprints in his blog the opinion of Professor Kahl of Minnesota on the apparent counterinsurgency strategies of the United States since the beginning of the Iraq war. Let me summarize briefly Professor Kahl's points. He divides the COIN operations into four phases.

Phase 1: Denial. Until April 2004, there was a general denial that an insurgency existed. The result was that the different commanders were pretty much on their own. Some concentrated on providing the population with protection, while others conducted aggressive search and destroy operations. This phase ended with the Fallujah uprising and the revolt of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Phase 2: Learning Curve. The military woke up to a problem and began developing new strategies and tactics. It took more seriously training Iraqi forces. Yet the bulk of the effort still went in to alienating search and destroy efforts. Only in early 2005, did the leaders begin to systematically learn from their mistakes.

Phase 3: Getting it. The military now began a number of experiments, especially in Tal Afar and Ramadi to place the emphasis on the protection of the people. This effort was, however, compromised by two other factors. First, the military had begun in 2004 to consolidate its basing by closing many of its smaller bases in the countryside. The was a natural development of the idea that we needed to reduce the Iraqi perception that their country was under occupation. But it also meant that the forces were less able to implement the people protection mission. The other problem was that we simply did not have enough forces for the hold strategy. We attempted to fill the gap with Iraqis. But this effort took more time than had been imagined.

Phase 4: Doing it. In January 2006, Bush announced a new strategy that would make possible the achievements foreseen in Phase 3. We would bring in more troops and we would assign more to population protection. Kahl notes that this was not actually a new strategy. The strategy had been created in Phase 3. But it was an effort to provide additional forces that might make the "clear, hold, and build" option actually work. But as Kahl further notes, this might be too little and too late.