Category Insurgency & Counterinsurgency

We probably need to keep talking about Afghanistan

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Shawn posted a very nice summary a couple of days ago. It is worth reading if you have not already: Meanwhile in Afghanistan

Recent article reports the same trends: Afghan-government-lost-2-percent-territory

A couple of things get my attention in all this:

  1. They are talking about control of territory. I believe control of population is a lot better metric.
    1. One notes in Shawn’s write up that control of population is 68.5% (vice 61.3% of area).
  2. The insurgent level of activity is very high:
    1. 5,523 Afghan Army and police killed (15,000 casualties)
    2. 22,733 incidents from 8/1/2015 to 8/15/2016

Based on Chapter 11 (Estimating Insurgent Force Size) of my book America’s Modern Wars, working backward from this incident data would mean that there are something like 60,000 – 80,000 full-time and part-time insurgents operating. There is a lot comparing apples to oranges to get there: for example, how are they counting incidents in Afghanistan vice how were they counting incidents in the past cases we use for this estimate, what is the mix of full-time and part-time insurgents, how active and motivated are the insurgents, and so forth; but that level of activity is similar to the level of activity in Iraq at its worse (26,033 incidents in 2005, 45,330 in 2006 and 19,125 in 2007 according to one count). We had over 180,000 U.S. and coalition troops there to deal with that. The Afghani’s have 170,000 Army and Air Force or around 320,000 if you count police (and we did not count police in our database unless there were actively involved in counterinsurgent work). The 5,500+ Afghan Army and police killed a year indicates a pretty active insurgency. We lost less than 5,500 for the entire time we were in Iraq. The low wounded-to-killed ratio in the current Afghan data may well be influenced by who they choose to report as wounded and how they address lightly wounded (as discussed in Chapter 15, Casualties, in my upcoming book War by Numbers). Don’t know what current U.S. Army estimates are of Afghan insurgent strength.

Now, in Chapter Six of my book America’s Modern Wars, we developed a force ratio model based upon 83 historical cases (see chart at top of this post). It was very dependent on the cause of the insurgency, whether it was based on a central idea (like nationalism) or was regional or factional, or whether it was based on a overarching idea (like communism). I don’t still don’t really know the nature of the Afghan insurgency, and we were never funded to study this insurgency (we were only funded for Iraq work). So, I have not done the in-depth analysis of the Afghan insurgency that I did for Iraq. But…….nothing here looks particularly positive.

We never did an analysis of stalemated insurgencies. It could be done, although there are not that many cases of these. One could certainly examine any insurgency that lasts more than 15 years for this purpose. Does a long stalemated insurgency mean that the government (or counterinsurgents) eventually win? Or does a long stalemated insurgency mean that the insurgents eventually win? I don’t know. I would have to go back through our database of 100+ cases, update the data, sort out the cases and then I could make some predictions. That takes time and effort, and right now my effort is focused elsewhere. Is anyone inside DOD doing this type of analysis? I doubt it. Apparently a stalemate means that you can now pass the problem onto the next administration. While it solves the immediate political problem, is really does not answer the question of whether we are winning or losing. Is what we are doing good enough that this will revolve in our favor in the next ten years, or do we need to do more? I think this is the question that needs to be addressed.

Meanwhile, In Afghanistan…

The latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has been released. America’s military involvement in Afghanistan passed its 15th anniversary in October.

The data presented in the SIGAR report show some disturbing trends. Through the first eight months of 2016, Afghan national defense and security forces suffered approximately 15,000 casualties, including 5,523 killed. This from a reported force of 169,229 army and air force personnel (minus civilians) and 148,480 national police, for a total of 317,709. The casualty rate undoubtedly contributed to the net loss of 2,199 personnel from the previous quarter.

sigur-02Afghan forces suffered 5,500 killed-in-action and 14,000+ wounded in 2015. They have already incurred that many combat deaths so far in 2016, though the number of wounded is significantly lower than in 2015. The approach of winter will slow combat operations, so the overall number of casualties for the year may not exceed the 2015 total.

The rough killed-to-wounded ratio of 3 to 1 for Afghan forces for 2016 is lower than in 2015, and does not compare favorably to rates of 9 to 1 and 13 to 1 for U.S. Army and Marine forces in combat from 2001-2012. This likely reflects a variety of factors, including rudimentary medical care and forces operating in exposed locations. It also suggests that even though the U.S. has launched over 700 air strikes, already more than the 500 carried out in all of 2015, there is still insufficient fire support for Afghan troops in contact

Insurgents are also fighting for control of more of the countryside than in 2015. The Afghan government has lost 2.2% of its territory so far this year. It controls or influences 258 of 407 total districts (63.4%), while insurgents control or influence 33 (8.1%),  and 116 are “contested” (28.5%).

sigur-03The overall level of violence presents a mixed picture. Security incidents between 20 May 20 and 15 August 2016 represent a 4.7% increase over the same period last year, but a 3.6% decrease from the same period in 2014.

sigur-01The next U.S. president will face some difficult policy choices going forward. There are 9,800 U.S. troops slated to remain the country through the end of 2016, as part of an international training and counterterrorism force of 13,000. While the Afghan government resumed secret peace talks with the Taliban insurgents, a political resolution does not appear imminent. There appear to be no appealing strategic options or obvious ways forward for ending involvement in the longest of America’s ongoing wars against violent extremism.

Odd Nobel Awards

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It is really hard to find a more distinguished award than the Nobel awards, created by Alfed Nobel, the Swedish “merchant of death” that invented dynamite and owned Bofors. But there have been a few prizes awarded that are a little odd to say the least. Earlier this month they awarded the Nobel peace prize to Juan Manuel Santos, for negotiating a peace agreement to end the 52 year war between the government of Colombia and the rebel group Fuerza Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). But five days before the announcement of the prize, the peace deal was rejected by a referendum of Colombian voters. So, peace prize awarded, but no peace.

Just in case the Colombian War has not been on your horizon, not only is it the longest running hot conflict in the world, but it has resulted in the deaths of over 200,000 people. This makes it the second bloodiest war ever in the Western Hemisphere, behind the U.S. Civil War (1861-65) and ahead of the Chaco War (1932-1935).

The war has always operated at a fairly low level. The bloodiest year for the counterinsurgency forces was in 2002 with 1,207 deaths and an estimated 1,817 insurgent deaths. By 2005 these figures had dropped to 143 and 63 respectively. The peak U.S. involvement was in 2002 with 224 advisors. These figures are drawn from our Dupuy Insurgency Spread Sheets (DISS). We never assembled a total figure of deaths from the war so cannot confirm the often used figure of over 200,000 killed, but starting in 1988, the number of homicides in Colombia exceed 20,000 a year, and they were less than 10,000 a year only five years earlier. The war peaked in 2002 and is much, much quieter now.

There have been other strange prizes awarded over the years, like President Obama getting awarded one in 2009, when all he had done to date was get elected nine months earlier. There was a prize awarded in 1973 to Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho for the Paris agreement that brought a ceasefire in the Vietnam War. Le Duc Tho refused to accept the award. The war continued for another two years after the prize, culminating with North Vietnam overrunning South Vietnam. Certainly it was peace at that point, but hardly in the spirit of the prize.

There is one Nobel prize awarded recently that was not odd, this was the literature prize for Bob Dylan. About time! There is no question that Bob Dylan was the single most influential lyricist (and therefore poet) in world in the last 50 years. Before Bob Dylan, song lyrics were basically “she loves you, yea, yea, yea.” After Dylan, there wasn’t a whole lot of subjects not being addressed. Dylan came from a rich American folk and blues tradition very much developed by Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly and Pete Seeger. He embraced it, enhanced it, and left an indelible mark on popular music. Just as Homer originally recited his poetic narratives to music, many modern poets are singers and songwriters. This prize just recognizes that obvious, but sometimes overlooked point. People don’t read or write a lot of poetry these days, but they do listen to a lot of music and lyrics. These lyrics are often bad poetry, but not all of them. Some published authors and poets have become song writers (Leonard Cohen and Rod McKuen come to mind, for example). They did not cease to be poets when they became song writers. Even the name of this blog is drawn from a “popular song,” just to drive home the point. Modern poetry often includes a backbeat, be it NWA or Bob Dylan.

            A link to the lyrics of My Back Pages: My Back Pages

 

Last verse:

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats

Too noble to neglect

Deceived me into thinking

I had something to protect

Good and bad, I define these terms

Quite clear, no doubt, somehow

Ah, but I was so much older then

I’m younger than that now

Fifth Column in Mosul

A previous post on 29 September noted that there were 1,000 “resistance fighters” in Mosul, which if true, would create a pretty significant Fifth Column: More on Mosul Offensive

A recent article originally in Reuters claims that 58 of them were rounded up by ISIL and executed (by drowning): ISIL Crushes Mosul Rebellion

So there are either 942 “resistance fighters” left…..or……..

Anyhow, hard to really know what is going on. The Reuters article in an exclusive based upon what “residents and Iraqi security officials” said.

 

Light Tanks

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Well, we are back to looking at light tanks: Griffin light tank general dynamics

And also:  http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2016/10/m1-tank-120-mm-main-gun-placed-on-demo.html

We did do a report over a decade ago on lighter-weight armor at the request of the Deputy Undersecretary of the Army (Operations Research), Walt Hollis.

It is “MWA-2. The Historical Combat Effectiveness of Lighter-Weight Armored Forces, 6 August 2001 (CAA) – Pages: 121″ in our publication list: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/tdipub3.htm

The pdf download file for it is here: http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/mwa-2lightarmor.pdf

Note that this report, which pre-dates our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, is discussing use of armor in Small Scale Contingency Operations (SSCO) and insurgencies, in addition to conventional wars.

This effort was not discussed in my upcoming book, War by Numbers. It may be picked up in a later book.

 

A Losing Record

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Spotted an article today on the History New Network (HNN): Win, Lose, or Draw?

This got my attention because I have outlined a book I may start work on next year (2017) called Future American Wars: Understanding the Next Twenty Years. This book is intended to complete a trio of books, one on understanding insurgencies (American’s Modern Wars), one on understanding conventional combat (War by Numbers — release date still August 2017) and this one covering the situation going forward.

My opening chapter is called: A Losing Record.

What they are recording in this article is that:

  1. For conventional conflict we have 3 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie.
  2. For other conflicts (what they call the “gray zone”) there are 9 wins, 8 losses and 42 draws.

Anyhow, haven’t checked the individual cases, and in some cases it depends on how your interpret win, lose and draw; but it does bring out a fundamental problem that I was partly trying to address in America’s Modern Wars, which is our track record in these conflicts is not great. My book primarily focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, which I why I felt I needed to third book to cover all the other cases of interventions, peacekeeping operations, and so forth.

Anyhow, the SOCOM briefing chart can be blown up to large size and is definitely worth looking at.

 

Bleeding an Insurgency to Death

From Chapter 14 (Section H) of America’s Modern Wars:

H. Bleeding an Insurgency to Death

             Bleeding an insurgency to death is possible, but rare. Let’s just look at a graph from the Greek Civil War:

P145-Greek-Civil-War-Insurgent-Recruitment-and-Losses

This dramatic graph was created from a number of sources, all combined onto the same chart. The scale for monthly strength was divided by four fit them all together (meaning a figure of 25% for Monthly strength is actually 100% of strength). At the time, when I put the graph together, I intended it to illustrate the process where one could bleed an insurgency to death, by interrelating loss rates, exchange rates, recruitment, force strength, etc. When I presented this in a meeting in December 2004, I was then asked to look at tipping points.

It is difficult to bleed an insurgency to death. The problem is that only a small portion of the insurgents you are facing are active, full-time insurgents. So, mostly you are attriting the spearpoint. The part-time and casual insurgents tend to be active when they have a reason to, and tend to become inactive (and otherwise invisible) when the environment becomes too hot. As such, “search-and-destroy” missions and other such efforts tend to focus on the active people.

The problem is, as long as the rate of casualties among them is moderate, they can recruit and pull in new people. There is a base of support for insurgencies, and that base is a source of recruits. Unless one has shut down the recruiting source, then they can quickly replace the losses.

For example, let us say you have 10,000 insurgents, of which 2,000 are “full-time.” They are operating in a country with a population of one million. So we have the insurgency making up 1% of the population of the country. That is not out of line with historical cases. Let us say that 30% of the population favors the insurgency or are in areas under control of the insurgency.

Now, out of a population base of 300,000 civilians, one would expect to see about 3,000 new insurgents to come of age each year.[1] This means that the insurgents potentially have a new population of 3,000 coming-of-age boys each year to draw upon. Therefore, the counterinsurgents must grind through probably around 2,000 or more insurgents a year to actually be able to reduce insurgent strength from year to year. Otherwise, they get replaced as fast as they are being lost.

Expand this example to a country with 30,000 insurgents and 24 million population, like is potentially the case for Afghanistan and Iraq, and it is clear that bleeding the insurgency to death becomes almost an impossible proposition, no matter how long you stay.

Still, it was done in the case of the Greek Civil War. This was caused in part by a decision by the insurgents to increase the tempo of operations and go almost conventional. The result is that the insurgents conveniently choose to help the counterinsurgents bleed the insurgency to death. As can be seen, this quickly broke the back of the insurgency, and this occurred before Yugoslavia cut off support and bases for the insurgents. Basically, the insurgency was losing by fighting a traditional insurgency, so they changed their approach to increase the tempo of operations, and this simply sped up their eventual and inevitable defeat.

To some extent, the same thing happened in Vietnam with the Tet Offensive. Military, the offensive gutted the Viet Cong, and left them permanently weakened and less effective for the rest of the war. If the only force the U.S. was facing in Vietnam was the VC (Viet Cong), then this would have potentially led to a U.S. victory. The presence of a continued flow of forces from North Vietnam, including fully-armed combat regiments, compensated for the heavy losses the VC suffered.

Beyond those two cases, we do not have examples of insurgencies being bleed to death. The mathematics does not favor such an approach, although people invariably try it. One could describe General Westmoreland’s strategy in as Vietnam heavily oriented towards an attrition approach.

NOTES

[1] 300,000 divided by an average 50-year life span, divided by two to account for only males.

Some back-of-the-envelope calculations

Keying off Shawn’s previous post…if the DOD figures are accurate this means:

  1. In about two years, we have killed 45,000 insurgents from a force of around 25,000.
    1. This is around 100% losses a year
    2. This means the insurgents had to completely recruit an entire new force every year for the last two years
      1. Or maybe we just shot everyone twice.
    3. It is clear the claimed kills are way too high, or the claimed strength is too low, or a little bit of both
  2. We are getting three kills per sortie.
    1. Now, I have not done an analysis of kills per sorties in other insurgencies (and this would be useful to do), but I am pretty certain that this is unusually high.
  3. We are killing almost a 1,000 insurgents (not in uniform) for every civilian we are killing.
    1. Even if I use the Airwars figure of 1,568 civilians killed, this is 29 insurgents for every civilian killed.
    2. Again, I have not an analysis of insurgents killed per civilian killed in air operations (and this would be useful to do), but these rates seem unusually low.

It appears that there are some bad estimates being made here. Nothing wrong with doing an estimate, but something is very wrong if you are doing estimates that are significantly off. Some of these appear to be off.

This is, of course, a problem we encountered with Iraq and Afghanistan and is discussed to some extent in my book America’s Modern Wars. It was also a problem with the Soviet Army in World War II, and is something I discuss in some depth in my Kursk book.

It would be useful to develop a set of benchmarks from past wars looking at insurgents killed per sorties, insurgents killed per civilian killed in air operations (an other types of operations), insurgents killed compared to force strength, and so forth.