04 March 2011

The general believes he and his team have significantly improved the military’s ability to dismantle insurgent bomb-making networks and find specific IEDs before they can be set off. But as he prepares to relinquish command this Friday, Oates acknowledged that the IED fight is far from won. “Statistically, you can’t argue that things are getting better in terms of IED efficacy in Afghanistan,” [outgoing Oates said, pointing...

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04 March 2011

In late 2009, President Obama re-emphasized the importance of building the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) as a priority objective of U.S. national security and military strategy in Afghanistan. Previously, the Coalition’s primary focus had been to expand the Afghan National Army (ANA). With additional resource support, the major thrust of the train and equip efforts over the past year has been development of the ANP, which is recognized...

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04 March 2011

Counterinsurgency has always required a holistic or comprehensive approach of one form or another. At the global level, the comprehensive approach articulates the connections of the full spectrum of complexity of operations, from security through rule of law and governance to humanitarianism, and describes the most appropriate roles for soldiers and civilians. At the national level, it is an approach that conceptualizes the interaction among security...

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04 March 2011

The Marines in Nawa district were among the first U.S. military units to engage in a fully resourced counterinsurgency (COIN) mission in Afghanistan. The approximately 1,000 Marines and 500 Afghan security forces in the district, which is home to about 75,000 people, yielded exactly the 1-to-50 ratio prescribed by U.S. military’s COIN doctrine. The Marines focused on protecting the population by engaging in frequent foot patrolling—each...

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