Category Afghanistan

Some Statistics on Afghanistan

Camp Lonestar, near Jalabad, 7 October 2010 (Photo by William A. Lawrence II)

I do have a chapter on Afghanistan in my book America’s Modern Wars. When it came to updating the Afghanistan chapter (as I had to update the book before it was published), I ended up leaning on the Secretary General reports quarterly reports on Afghanistan for my data, as it may be the most trusted source available. Those reports are here:

https://unama.unmissions.org/secretary-general-reports

In Chapter Twenty-One my book I note that in 2013 there were 20,093 security incidences or 1,674 a month. This is a definite increase since 2008 and 2009 (741 and 960 a month respectively) and only a slight improvement (decrease) from 2011 (1,909 incidences a month). See pages 259-261 of my book.

So what are the current statistics?:

              Security           Incidences      Civilian

Year      Incidences       Per Month       Deaths

2013      20,093               1,674               2,959

2014      22,051               1,838               3,699

2015      22,634               1,886               3,545

2016      23,712               1,976               3,498

2017      23,744               1,979               3,438

2018      19,995               1,666               3,384      Estimated

 

2011 was the worse year of the war as far as incident count until 2016 and 2017. Based upon incident count, the war has been pretty much “flat-lined” for the last nine years (2010: 19,403, 2011: 22,903, 2012: 18,441). Civilian deaths show that same pattern.

At the start of 2013, we still had 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, although we were drawing them down. There were 251 U.S. troops killed in 2012 (310 killed from all causes) and 85 in 2013 (127 killed from all causes). Over the course of 2013, 34,000 troops were to be withdrawn and the U.S. involvement to end sometime in 2015. We did withdrawn the troops, but really have not ended our involvement. According to Wikipeida we have 18,000+ ISAF forces there (mostly American) and 20,000+ contractors. I have not checked these figures. We left behind an Afghan force of over 300,000 troops to conduct the counterinsurgency. That force has not grown significantly in size since then.

As we note in my book “The 2013 figure of 20,093 incidents a year does argue for a significant insurgency force. If we use a conservative figure of 333 incidents per thousand insurgents, then we are looking at more than 60,000 full-time and part-time insurgents.”

Now, we actually never did have a contract to do work on Afghanistan. After we were right on Iraq in 2004 (casualties and duration), we were given contracts to do more data research and analysis of insurgencies, but never given a contract to further refine our predictions for Iraq or do a similar prediction for Afghanistan. So we have never done any in-depth analysis of Afghanistan (you know, the type of work that requires a man-year or more of effort).

Camp Lonestar, near Jalabad, 7 October 2010 (Photo by William A. Lawrence II)

 

 

Notes for 2018 estimates:

  1. 15 December 2017-15 February 2018: 3,521 security incidences (6% decrease from previous year).

  2. 15 February-15 May: 5,675 security incidences (7% decrease from previous year).

  3. 15 May – 15 August: 5,800 security incidences (10% decrease from previous year)

  4. First quarter of 2018: 763 civilian deaths.

  5. Mid-year 2018: 1,692 civilian deaths.

.

 

 

Looking At Recent Reported Combat Loss Rates In Afghanistan

Afghan National Army soldiers simulate clearing a compound with help from their instructors at the 2nd Brigade, 205th Corps ANA Non-commissioned Officer Academy on Forward Operating Base Eagle in Zabul province Jan. 10, 2012 [{Wikimedia]

Last Friday, Rod Nordland published an article in the New York Times alleging that Afghan security forces (Afghan National Army (ANA) and police) had suffered an average of 57 killed in action (KIA) per day during the previous week, up from 22 killed per day in 2016. If true, such reports would indicate a dramatic increase in loss rates over the previous years.

These reported figures should be regarded critically, however. It is not clear how Nordland arrived at the total of 22 KIA per day for 2016. His article cited another article by Thomas Gibbons-Neff, published in the Times on 30 October 2017. This reported Afghan security forces casualties for 2016 at 6,700 KIA and 12,000 wounded in action (WIA), which works out to an average of 18.36 KIA per day (6,700/365), not 22. The total number of KIA + WIA works out to an average of 51.23 per day (18,700/365).

The lede of Gibbons-Neff’s 2017 article was that the U.S. and Afghan governments had stopped providing official strength and loss figures for the Afghan security forces. Citing the last report of the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Gibbons-Neff reported Afghan security forces losses from 1 January-8 May 2017 (126 days) as 2,531 KIA and 4,238 WIA. This works out to an average of 20.08 KIA (2,531/126) and 53.72 KIA + WIA (6,679/126) per day.

Nordland arrived at the figure of 57 KIA per day based on a report of 400 Afghan security forces killed in the week leading up the publication of his article on 21 September 2018. He calculated it by averaging the total over the previous seven days (400/7). Casualty rates in combat have been highly variable, historically. Brief spikes in rates are common. In the same paragraph reporting the 400 KIA total, Nordland quoted senior Afghan government officials stating that the daily average for recent months had been 30 to 40 KIA per day.

It is possible to use the figures cited by Nordland and Gibbons-Neff to make ballpark estimates for Afghan security forces casualties in 2017 and 2018. Even if the weekly loss of 400 KIA for 14-20 September 2018 represents an abnormally high total, it is reasonable to conclude that the Afghan security forces are very likely incurring sharply higher combat losses in 2018 than the previous two years. These figures do not include counts of missing or captured and thus underestimate the actual numbers of battle casualties being suffered by the Afghan forces. It is also possible that the estimates of 30-40 KIA per day apply only to the peak spring-to-autumn fighting season, which would somewhat reduce the overall 2018 KIA and WIA totals.

As Nordland reported, these losses are resulting in an increasing strain on the Afghan forces. His article stated that the strength of the ANA and police in April 2018 was 314,000, 38,000 below the authorized total of 352,000, and that the actual total was likely even lower due to fraudulent reporting and unreported desertions. The ANA suffered a monthly attrition rate of 2.9 percent in early 2017 from combat casualties, desertion, and failed reenlistments, requiring one-third of the overall force to be replaced by new recruits annually. That attrition rate is undoubtedly far higher now and almost certainly not sustainable for long.

In comparison, the Afghan government reported in August that its security forces had killed 42 Taliban fighters per day, or 1,300 per month. For the year ending in March 2018, it claimed to have killed 13,600 insurgent fighters. There has been no independent confirmation of these claims and they should be treated skeptically.

U.S. Military Deaths from 2006

Interesting chart from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Source: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF10899.pdf

OCO Deaths = Overseas Contingency Operations — meaning mostly Iraq and Afghanistan.

Non-OCO Deaths = means mostly accident, self-inflicted wounds, and illness. There are the almost 1,000 deaths a year that are going to occur in the U.S. military even when at peace. They listed accidents as 4,599 cases, self-inflicted deaths as 3,258 cases and illness/injury as 2,650 cases. Note that OCO operations also include accidents (471), self-inflicted wounded (282) and illness and injury (119). There are also 458 homicides in non-OCO and 41 homicides among the OCO deaths (along with 2,698 killed in action and 874 died of wounds).

It would have been more interesting if they started those charts in 2000 or 2001.

A few other interesting charts from that link:

The chart below is Iraq war deaths from 2006. Total Iraq war deaths since 2003 were over 4,500.

And these are Afghanistan war deaths from 2006. Total Afghanistan war deaths since 2001 add up to over 2,300.

These are, of course, only U.S. DOD deaths. There are also U.S. contractors, NATO allies, other U.S. allies, Iraq and Afghanstani forces, militia, civilians, insurgents, etc. It starts adding up.

Afghan Migration

Fascinating article from a British-based analyst, Dermot Rooney: http://www.wapentakes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016-Newsbrief_May_Rooney.pdf

A few highlights:

  1. “…war alone cannot account for the vast number of Afghan migrants or the great distance they are travelling.”
    1. “Globally, up until 1960, the ratio of refuges to fatalities in conflict zones was below 5:1.”
    2. “…in 2015 there was an almost unprecedented 50 as asylum applicants for every civilian killed.”
    3. “Whereas in 1979 over 90% of the Afghan refugees travelled less than 500 km and cross one border, now more than 90% travel over 5,000 km to seek asylum…”
  2. “There are now 1.3 million internally displaced Afghans, with the total increasing by 400,000 a year.”
  3. “The pull of economic opportunity plays a large part in the decision to migrate.”
  4. “In 2015, the population of Afghanistan was 32 million.”
    1. “…it is nonetheless obliged to import enough wheat to feed 10 million people…”
  5. “…Afghanistan’s population will pass 40 million in ten years.”
    1. “the natural growth rate of 2.3% a year added 700,000 to the Afghan population in 2015.”
    2. “Unless there is a dramatic improvement in the economy and security in that time, 16 million will depend on food aid…”

 

Why it is difficult to withdraw from (Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan….)

Leaving an unstable country in some regions is an invite to further international problems. This was the case with Afghanistan in the 1990s, which resulted in Al-Qaeda being hosted there. This was the case with Somalia, which not only hosted elements of Al-Qaeda, but also conducted rampant piracy. This was the case with Iraq/Syria, which gave the Islamic State a huge opening and resulted in them seizing the second largest city in Iraq. It seems a bad idea to ignore these areas, even though there is a cost to not ignoring them.

The cost of not ignoring them is one must maintain a presence of something like 2,000 to 20,000 or more support troops, Air Force personnel, trainers, advisors, special operations forces, etc. And they must be maintained for a while. It will certainly result in the loss of a few American lives, perhaps even dozens. It will certainly cost hundreds of millions to pay for deployment, security operations, develop the local forces, and to re-build and re-vitalize these areas. In fact, the bill usually ends up costing billions. Furthermore, these operations go on for a decade or two or more. The annual cost times 20 years gets considerable. We have never done any studies of “security operations” or “advisory missions.” The focus of our work was on insurgencies, but we have no doubt that these things tend to drag on a while before completion.

The cost of ignoring these countries may be nothing. If there is no international terror threat and no direct threat to our interests, then there may not be a major cost to withdrawing. On the other hand, the cost of ignoring Somalia was a pirate campaign that started around 2005 and where they attacked at least 232 ships. They captured over 3,500 seafarers. At least 62 of them died. The cost of ignoring Afghanistan in the 1990s? Well, was it 9-11? Would 9-11 have occurred anyway if Al-Qaeda was not free to reside, organize, recruit and train in Afghanistan? I don’t know for sure…..but I think it was certainly an enabling factor.

I have never seen a study that analyzes/estimates the cost of these interventions (although some such studies may exist).  Conversely, I have never seen a study that analyzes/estimates the cost of not doing these interventions (and I kind of doubt that such a study exists).

Hard to do analyze the cost of the trade-off if we really don’t know the cost.

 

Future Conventional Warfare Scenarios

What are the U.S. Armed Forces’ potential conventional warfare missions?  Is conventional warfare gone, leaving the U.S. Army conducting special ops, training, coordinating air and drone strikes, providing counterinsurgency support, and generally just kicking down doors?

Well, there are still a few potential conventional warfare scenarios out there, even if they have a low probability of occurring:

  1. Korea: We still have the majority of the 2nd Infantry Division deployed in Korea as a reserve force for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army. If a war blows up in Korea, then we are immediately right in the middle of a conventional war. It is 1950 all over again. Amid all the “fire and fury” type comments, I do consider this to be a low odds of occurring. Still, it is one conventional warfare mission that has existed since 1950 and does not appear to be going away.
  2. Taiwan: I don’t think China is going to invade Taiwan (their third largest trading partner), but stranger things have happened. I believe we are informally committed to defend Taiwan if this happens. We have no ground troops there.
  3. Ukraine: We have no commitment to defend Ukraine. On the other hand, if Russia rolls across the border with tanks and is heading towards Kiev, then we may decide we need to intervene. Exactly with what forces we would use is a question, but this is potentially a mission in the future. I don’t think it is likely. If Russia was going to conduct a conventional invasion of  Ukraine, it would have done so in 2014.
  4. Baltic States: On the other hand, we do have a commitment to defend the three Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia). They are members of NATO. Right now, with the forces currently in place, a Russian conventional invasion would sweep over these three countries in a matter of days. Then what? The U.S. would be challenged to be able to quickly move a single armored or mechanized division there, let alone the several divisions it would probably take to re-claim them. We currently are not defending them and do not have the ability to quickly re-take them. That said, the odds of Russia doing this is very, very close to zero, because they do end up in a war with 29 nations. This is probably not the best use of their time.
  5. Belarus: On the other hand, I don’t rule out tanks rolling into Belarus at some point in the future. Lukashenko, the Belarus dictator, is 63 years old, and these guys don’t live forever. Once he is gone, will Belorus undergo a calm transition of power to a new president (for life)….or does Russia take this opportunity to reclaim Belarus? Unlike Ukraine, there is not a strong nationalist group that is clearly ready to fight off any Russian invaders. If Russia did decide to take Belarus (probably making sure they were invited, like they were in Afghanistan in 1979), is there anything we could do about it? How concerned would we be about it?
  6. Georgia: Russian already had a five day war with Georgia in 2008. Russia probably could have overrun Georgia if they wanted to. They probably can now. It is a very small country and geographically isolated from NATO. I don’t rule out it becoming a battlefield in the future. Not sure what the United States could do about it.
  7. Iran: While I don’t think that the U.S. will ever invade Iran, I would have said the same thing about Iraq in 2000. Of course, Iran is a country with a population more more than twice that of Iraq. Invading Iraq in 2003 led to lots of long-term complications. Invading Iran might get even more difficult.
  8. The mission not yet named: The last 30 years are notable in that the United States has been dragged into three major wars rather suddenly. At the beginning of 1990, I don’t recall any defense analyst saying the United States was about to enter into a war with Iraq for the sake of saving Kuwait (who we had no alliance with). Yet, less than a year later, this is exactly what we did, and it was done with a large conventional force of nine deployed U.S. divisions. In 2000, I don’t recall too many defense analysts saying that we would soon be invading Afghanistan and Iraq. These missions came rather suddenly. So, one must always assume that there is a possible conventional mission at any time in any place. It has happened twice in the last 30 years. These are hard to plan for and to structure forces for, yet there is clearly a need for a mobile conventional force just in case.

Anyhow, that list appears to cover the possible conventional warfare missions for the United States right now. The one with the highest probability of occurring is “the mission not yet named.” There are many other flash points in the world, but most of them are not ones that would attract American conventional ground forces. Still, as shown by Kuwait in 1990 and Iraq in 2003, we can end up involved in a conventional conflict with very little notice. This is a far cry from the days of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were lined up along the border of Germany. The future ain’t what it used to be, to borrow a quote.

Isolating the Guerilla

The Vietnam was significant in that it was third bloodiest war in U.S. military history (58,000 U.S. killed) and the U.S. Army choose to learn no lessons from it !!! This last point is discussed in my book America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.

In 1965 Trevor Dupuy’s HERO (Historical Evaluation Research Organization) conducted a three-volume study called “Isolating the Guerilla.” It was an interesting survey of 19 insurgencies that included on its research team 26 experts. This included General Geoffrey Lord Bourne (British Army, ret.), Andrew C. Janos, Peter Paret, among others.

These guys:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bourne,_Baron_Bourne

http://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/26/archives/col-r-ernest-dupuy-88-dead-publicist-and-military-historian.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trevor_N._Dupuy

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_C._Janos

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2793254.William_A_Nighswonger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Paret

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/northjersey/obituary.aspx?pid=163090077

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Ropp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunther_E._Rothenberg

http://www.ur.umich.edu/9495/Oct03_94/29.htm

http://www.andersonfuneralhomeltd.com/home/index.cfm/obituaries/view/fh_id/12343/id/3994242

http://www.nytimes.com/1984/08/31/obituaries/frank-n-trager-78-an-expert-on-asia-dies.html

 

The first volume of the study, although developed from historical sources, was classified after it was completed. How does one classify a study that was developed from unclassified sources?

As such, the first volume of the study was in the classified safe at DMSI when I was there. I was aware of the study, but had never taken the time to look at it. DMSI went out of business in the early 1990s and all the classified material there was destroyed. The Dupuy Institute did not have a copy of this volume of the study.

In 2004 we did our casualty and duration estimate for Iraq. It was based upon a survey of 28 insurgencies. We then expanded that work to do an analysis based upon 89 insurgencies. This was done independently of our past work back in 1965, which I had never seen. This is detailed in my book America’s Modern Wars.

As this work was being completed I was contacted by a Lt. Colonel Michael F. Trevett in 2008. It turns out he had an unclassified copy of the study. He found it in the Ft. Huachuca library. It was declassified in 2004 and was also in DTIC. So, I finally got a copy of a study after we had almost completed our work on insurgencies. In retrospect, it would have been useful to have from the start. Again, another case of disappearing studies.

In 2011, Michael F. Trevett published the study as a book called Isolating the Guerrilla. The book is the study, with many of the appendices and supporting data removed at the request of the publisher. It was a self-publishing effort that was paid by Michael out of his personal/family funds. He has since left the Army. I did write the foreword to the book.

What can I say about this case? We did a study on insurgencies in 1965 that had some relevance to the wars we entered in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. It remained classified and buried in a library in Ft. Huachuca, Arizona and at DTIC. It was de-classified in 2004 and came back to light in 2008. This was through the effort of a single motivated Lt. Colonel who was willing to take the time and his own personal money to make it happen.

TDI Friday Read: Afghanistan

[SIGAR, Quarterly Report to Congress, 30 October 2017, p. 107]

While it is too soon to tell if the Trump Administration’s revised strategy in Afghanistan will make a difference, the recent report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) to Congress documents the continued slow erosion of security in that country. Today’s edition of TDI Friday Read offers a selection of recent posts addressing some of the problems facing the U.S. counterinsurgent and stabilization missions there.

Afghanistan

Meanwhile, In Afghanistan…

We probably need to keep talking about Afghanistan

What will be our plans for Afghanistan?

Stalemate in Afghanistan

Troop Increase in Afghanistan?

Sending More Troops to Afghanistan

Mattis on Afghanistan

Deployed Troop Counts

Disappearing Statistics

 

 

Disappearing Statistics

There was a time during the Iraq insurgency when statistics on the war were readily available. As a small independent contractor, we were getting the daily feed of incidents, casualties and other such material during the Iraq War. It was one of the daily intelligence reports for Iraq. We had simply emailed someone in the field and were put on their distribution list, even though we had no presence in Iraq and no official position. This was public information so it was not a problem….until the second half of 2005…when suddenly the war was not going very well…then someone decided to restrict distribution. We received daily intelligence reports from 4 September 2004. They ended on 25 August 2005. There is more to this story, but maybe later.

This article was brought to my attention today: https://www.militarytimes.com/flashpoints/2017/10/30/report-us-officials-classify-crucial-metrics-on-afghan-casualties-readiness/

A few highlights:

  1. From January 1 to May 8 Afghan forces sustained 2,531 killed in action and 4,238 wounded (a 1.67-to-1 wounded-to-killed ratio, which seems very low).

  2. The Afghan armed forces control 56.8% of the 407 districts, a one percentage point drop over the last six months.

  3. The Afghan government controls 63.7% percent of the population.

  4. Some of these statistics will now be classified.

 

One of our older posts on wounded-to-killed ratios. I have an entire chapter on the subject in War by Numbers.

Wounded-To-Killed Ratios

Status of Books

War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat: For some reason, Amazon.com does not have a Kindle edition available at the moment (I recall that they did). I have talked to the publisher and they are looking into it. The paperback edition is for sale on Amazon.com and of course, University of Nebraska Press. I have heard that some people overseas have gotten copies, but other people are having a problem. I also have the publisher looking into that. There is one 5-star review of the book on Amazon.com. I don’t know the reviewer (meaning it is not a planted review).

Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka: The book has been selling at a consistent rate this year, and at that rate, it will be out of stock in the second half of 2018. If you are thinking about getting it, you probably don’t want to tarry too long. There are currently no plans for a re-print.

America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam: I do consider this the most significant of my three books, and of course, it is the one with the worse sales. I guess the study and analysis of insurgencies is passé, as we have done such a great job of winning these type of wars.