Inside the Pentagon
Instead of sending more troops to Afghanistan, the administration should adopt a policy that allows the military to use small outposts across the country to coordinate attacks against Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with the help of local tribes, a counterterrorism scholar argues in a new study sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The report, titled “Aspects of Netwar and the Conflict with al Qaeda” and delivered to OSD last month, was penned by Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla. His “Netwar” concept posits that terrorist networks cannot be defeated by traditional military might.
News of the study comes as the debate in Washington about America’s course in Afghanistan grows more heated. Some Republican lawmakers have urged President Obama to immediately approve a request for tens of thousands of troops from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
In a confidential assessment for Defense Secretary Robert Gates that was made public last month, McChrystal argued a manpower-intensive counterinsurgency strategy was needed to quell the resurgence of violent extremists.
But Arquilla disagrees.
“Whether the principal focus is al Qaeda terrorists or Taliban insurgents, there is no need for more troops,” he told InsideDefense.com in an e-mail. While the fight against al Qaeda cells worldwide has gone “reasonably well,” he argued, the situation in Afghanistan has worsened because DOD has abandoned the “Netwar” tactics -- the use of small, highly mobile groups of special operations forces, connected through information sharing platforms and with access to air support -- that helped topple the Taliban government eight years ago.
“We have done less well in countering the Taliban insurgent networks -- largely because of the increasing focus on and preference for waging a ‘big unit war,’” Arquilla wrote in the e-mail. “This has been our principal error in Afghanistan, a mistake that will only be compounded by sending more troops.”
DOD has about 65,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan.
“We have always had enough troops to move away from big, Bagram-sized basing to outposts,” Arquilla said, referring to the air field north of Kabul where some 20,000 troops are based.
In his study, Arquilla argues the 2007 surge of troops to Iraq is ill-suited to serve as a model for Afghanistan. The move was credited with bringing about marked security improvements in that country. But according to Arquilla, it was a focus on platoon-sized outposts, combined with the formation of local militias who began fighting insurgents, that brought down the level of violence.
The idea of “Netwar” leans heavily on the use of small, mobile units because they can “swarm” their targets with multiple attacks on multiple fronts. These units also are better suited to forge “social networks” with local populations -- even those that are initially hostile, Arquilla’s report states.
The document also calls for a change in the war’s “narrative.”
“[A]t the narrative and social levels, the implication is that Afghanistan is probably not a country where much effort should be given to trying to form and sustain a strong central government,” the report reads. “Instead, something looser -- cantonal, like Switzerland, or confederated, like [then-Sen.] Joseph Biden’s early (and misplaced) plan for Iraq -- seems far more appropriate in Afghanistan,” it adds. -- Sebastian Sprenger
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