The Redhunter

COL. JOHNSON:...Our flagship development effort is the construction of the Khost- to-Gardez, or K-G, road, a 101-kilometer road through the mountains which will connect this province of Khost to the interior of Afghanistan, opening up market lines between centers of commerce and allowing the government of Afghanistan to bring much-needed services and security to a very important population. This USAID project will also potentially offer an alternative port of entry to the Khyber Pass, as it can reduce the travel from Kabul to Karachi by over 400 kilometers.

This ambitious road project is very much contested by the enemies of Afghanistan, who see it as a major threat as we compete for influence with the local population. It's a stated objective by the Haqqani network, our major foe here, to not let this road be built. The Haqqani family is from the Pashtun Zadran tribe, which dominates this mountainous region.

Back in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, these same tribes prevented the construction of a similar road and also stopped two Army divisions from entering Khost through these passes. Bottom line, the road is being built with the support of the tribes. We continue to work closely in support of the Afghan government to ensure all the needs of the people are addressed....

Now I'd like to provide some perspective on the enemies of Afghanistan. It is certainly a complex enemy, from a multitude of ideological Taliban groups to power-politic groups such as the Haqqani network as well as the Gulbuddin-Hekmatyar-led HIG, all the way up to and including al Qaeda. Whether you believe this is an insurgency or a guerrilla campaign, one thing is clear: The primary means this enemy uses is terrorism. It is completely inhumane, un-Islamic, barbaric, with a total disregard for innocent civilian lives....

While ISAF and Afghan national security forces go to great lengths in their planning and operations to prevent civilian injuries and the loss of innocent lives, over the past year the terrorist indifference to civilian casualties has been appalling. Even though, yes, they've increased their total effort by around 20 percent this year and have increased the sense of insecurity, the sloppiness of their efforts has created five times the civilian casualties over ours.

When we study the nature of their attacks, they have shifted from direct attacks, which are most always soundly defeated, to wanton and indiscriminate suicide, asymmetric IED and indirect-fire attacks, which recklessly endanger the civilian population....

The other key aspect of this enemy is the almost absolute reliance on foreign fighters from Pakistan and other countries to accomplish the majority of their spectacular attacks. We do not see platoons drawn from local population to conduct major attacks. To me, this reflects a lack of willingness within the population to actively support the enemy's efforts and the importance of external support for them to achieve their goals....

Corruption remains a real concern throughout Afghanistan. We've taken the zero-tolerance approach. When corruption is identified, action must be taken. We've seen this happen within some of our security forces. Afghan officials investigated the corruption and dealt with the issue, earning the public's respect and gratitude. This further encouraged the Afghan people to turn toward their government for assistance....

There is much of interest here. Discussed in the introduction was the important of finding a backup to the Khyber pass. On that note I won't add to what Col. Johnson said. Interested parties can follow the link to my other post at top.

We face a complex and evolving enemy in Afghanistan. As Frederick Kagan pointed out last month, "There is no such thing as "the Taliban" today. Many different groups with different leaders and aims call themselves "Taliban," and many more are called "Taliban" by their enemies...."

It is apparent that no only are enemy attacks increasing, they are changing tactics from direct specific attacks to indirect terror attacks. The good news is that most insurgents are not native Afghanis, the bad news is that the existence of the sanctuary in Pakistan is a serious impediment to our ability to victory. One of the primary lessons of Petraeus' US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24 was that you must avoid allowing the enemy to have a sanctuary.

As you can read, we are doing our darndest to hit the insurgents when they are in Pakistan (mainly the provinces of North and South Waziristan), but as we all know it remains a huge problem. The issues are terribly complex, and more than I can address here.

Col Johnson's admission of corruption stands in contrast to Col. Scott Spellmon's briefing last month in which he told us that "Over the past seven and a half months, I have a seen a number of allegations of corruption in the provincial governments. However, I have yet to see any evidence, as have the governors -- any evidence that would substantiate any of those claims." I was fairly critical of Col. Spellmon in my analysis, and Col. Johnson's statements seem to validate that.

On to the Q & A. First is more detail on the enemy attacks discussed above:

Q Colonel, this is David Morgan from Reuters. ...what has been the trend in attacks? Have attacks been rising over the course of the past few months or falling? And are your expectations for the next few months?

COL. JOHNSON: ...With respect to what the situation is in terms of the enemy effort, as I said, I think over this past year there's been about a -- you know, roughly a 20 percent increase in overall enemy activity, and over the last two months I would say compared to 2008, roughly about 30 percent.

So it has risen somewhat, partly, I believe, due to the really good weather that the enemy has had to be able to operate in the border regions. Normally the winters are much more severe. And quite frankly, this year has been relatively temperate. We have had snow in the upper elevations, but many of the passes that would normally be blocked just were not.

And also I think that as we look at the -- one of the things we try to measure is the quality of the enemy effort. Over this past year, even with a 20 percent increase, much of that increase has really been in ineffective attacks. There has been a slight qualitative increase, more with respect to indirect-fire attacks and IED attacks against our forces and a more targeted shift from attacks against coalition forces towards our Afghan national security force brothers.

The insurgents seem to be calculating that they can turn the population against us if they kill enough Afghanis. Given how I've seen the Afghanis' react to civilian casualties, I would say their calculation is probably right. The primary lesson of Field Manual 3-24 (and something I've said here a zillion times) is that the first priority of counterinsurgents is protecting the population. Clearly, we've got some work to do.

In the next exchange we get a direct reference to FM 3-24 and the number of troops needed in-country. Note that everyone understands the reference without further elaboration.

The bad news is that we don't have enough troops in country, the good news is that now that we've largely won Iraq we can shift resources to that theater. Unfortunately, the bad news outnumbers the good, since once again we have been betrayed by our European allies (who have said sorry, we're not sending more troops), and even though it is very good that President Obama is sending more troops he is not sending enough.

Q (David Morgan of Reuters) If I can follow up on that, how many soldiers do you have to look after this population of 1.6 million -- not just U.S., but Afghan and any others who are in the area? And how does that number compare with what would be prescribed by the counterinsurgency manual?

COL. JOHNSON: We are not quite reaching the gold standard prescribed in the manual. Right now we're at about a one to 115 ratio of security forces to population. And so we don't quite achieve the standard. But I've got roughly, you know, 5,000 coalition forces under my command to support the effort, an additional 10,000 or so Afghan National Army, another 9,000 or so police forces and then roughly 3,000 Afghan Border Police. That's essentially the security forces that we've got to conduct counterinsurgency operations to secure this population.

A very informative briefing.

It appears that Col. Johnson will soon be awarded a star. During the briefing, Jeff Schogol of Stars and Stripes started off his question with "General -- General?! -- Colonel, soon to be General...." If the progress on the K-G Pass Road is as Col. Johnson says, then I'd say it was a promotion well deserved.