What Failure Looks Like in Afghanistan

We may not know success until we see it in Afghanistan, to borrow Richard Holbrooke’s comment yesterday, but Brian Glyn Williams writes at the Af-Pak Channel that defeat in Afghanistan has a very definable profile, and it looks like risk-aversion.

For the vast majority of troops at ISAF headquarters, Afghanistan remains an enigma, a threatening land lying beyond the concertina wire of the base. The only Afghan most ever meet is the Hazara carpet seller on base who serves authentic Afghan food once a month. And the only coalition soldiers most Afghans meet are encased in armor-plated vehicles or flak jackets.

The troops at ISAF HQ are hardly the exception. Only a small percentage of “fobbits” (those who live in forward operating bases or FOBs) actually interact with average Afghans due to hyper-protective S.O.P. (standard operating procedures) meant to lessen their risks from interaction with Afghans. It was precisely this siege mentality that led the United States to come dangerously close to losing the war in Iraq in 2005 and 2006. U.S. forces in Iraq were more concerned with force protection that protecting the center of gravity in Iraq, the Iraqi people.

OK, but that’s in Kabul. Troops I met last year in Paktia and Khost Provinces prided themselves very much on their interactions with the populace, and disdained Fobbits with an intensity that outshines Williams’s. Williams goes on to credit the Marines in Helmand, and his perspective on risk-aversion is well taken — you can’t fight a war if you don’t fight a war — but the war is out in the provinces more than it is in the capital city.