Dueling Surges

Suicide bomber in Baghlan Jadid, April 2009. The bomber was walking down the road trying to set of an explosive device as the photographer passed by in a truck. The bomb failed to explode. The bomber was found later by the local Afghan police still wearing the harness, but with no explosives. They released him (photo by William A. Lawrence II)

This is effectively “So What Does My Book Say About Afghanistan? – part 6. It is continuing the discussion on Afghanistan drawn from fragments of text from pages 262-264 of America’s Modern Wars:

DUELING SURGES

Afghanistan shows that a surge and good tactics alone do not win insurgencies. It is claimed by some that this is what turned around Iraq, but in fact, what was most important to correcting Iraq was buying off of the insurgents and forming the Iraq Sunni Awakening Councils. Without a successful buy off in Afghanistan, the surge and good U.S. tactics have not turned the situation around and by itself, will not. In the end, you still need to have sufficient troops on the ground to control the terrain, protect the population, and contain the insurgents. There are few shortcuts that allow you to avoid the basics.

….[skipped several paragraphs describing how the surges worked in Iraq and Afghanistan]…

…So, 36 months into the start of the strength increase done by President Obama [in Afghanistan], there is no drop in the level of violence. Only in 2012, after it was clear that the U.S. and coalition forces were withdrawing, does the level of violence drop. In contrast the surge in Iraq achieved a measurable result in nine months.

The difference between the two is striking and clearly makes the point that the whole strategic situation needs to be fully addressed and these problems cannot be solved by simply applying a technique from one war to the next. The surge in Afghanistan is simply larger, more sustained and has achieved less dramatic results when compared to the rather limited and brief surge in Iraq.

(to be continued)

Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

Articles: 1455

3 Comments

russell1200

September 2, 2021 / 8:17 am Reply

“buying off the insurgents” that is pretty much inline with Jacqueline Hazelton’s thesis.
Clinton Reilly

September 2, 2021 / 5:35 pm Reply

I had no idea that the Iraq intervention had resort to – “what was most important to correcting Iraq was buying off of the insurgents and forming the Iraq Sunni Awakening Councils.”

I had thought it was mostly or entirely military.

That is more enlightened than I had realised.

I wonder if anything like that was tried in Vietnam.
- Christopher A. Lawrence
  
  September 5, 2021 / 2:58 pm Reply
  
  No, “the surge” in Iraq did not turn it around. It was forming and funding the Iraq Sunni Awakening Councils that resulted in the sudden improvement of the situation. This effort was initially at the initiative of some Iraqi sheiks. The Awakening Councils and “the surge” were both going on at the same time. The fact that some people credited “the surge” with such success resulted in them trying the same thing in Afghanistan. It did not work. A temporary year or two troop surge, by its very nature, is not going to have a long-term impact on a multi-decade insurgency.
  
  The Sunni Awakening Councils have been written about by a number of people. Jim Michaels, A Chance in Hell, is a decent account.