There are obvious dangers in trying to draw any common lessons from the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. First, they are very different countries and very different wars. Second, the fighting still has years in which to evolve, and each side is constantly learning from the other and adapting every aspect of their strategy and tactics. Third, these are extraordinarily complex wars are fought in different ways in different parts of each country, and where nation building is as important as armed struggle. The US and its allies must not only win in military terms, the host government must win in terms of national political accommodation, creating effective security forces and a rule of law, establishing effective governance, and creating enough development to remove the incentive to fight to live.
It is also a reality that every observer of such complex wars tends to see them the way the blind men saw the elephant: to confuse what they can sense on the basis of limited observation with the overall reality of the struggle. This is further complicated by the fact that no one can spend half a century observing such conflicts without realizing that they follow the same maxim as politics: all counterinsurgency is ultimately local. It is not enough to have the right national solution. The "edge" goes to the side that has the right regional and local solutions over time, and what works in one area may well not work in another.
That said, the attached brief does provide a survey of both wars that does imply they have common lessons. Moreover, many of the most important lessons reinforce both what the US military has learned (relearned?) about stability operations, nation building, and counter insurgency and put in Field Manuals like the one on Operations (FM-3-0), and much of the work of various study groups.
The key lessons highlighted in this brief may be summarized as follows:
The US, its allies, and host country forces are winning the tactical battles, but it is unclear how much this matters. The late Colonel Harry Summers reported an exchange with a North Vietnamese officer after the Vietnam War in which Summers noted that the US have won virtually every clash with the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. The North Vietnamese officer replied, "Yes, but it was all irrelevant." At the same time, the brief suggests that there are important common tactical lessons and ones the US, its allies, and host country forces need to capitalize on.
No military solution or kinetic victory can be decisive. The US has done far better in Iraq than NATO/ISAF has done in Afghanistan, but the "surge" war only part of the story. These are wars of attrition in which the US, its allies, and the host country can only win by simultaneously dealing with political accommodation, security, governance, and development. Political accommodation also involved political and ideological warfare, and warfare inevitably dealing with a local struggle for the future of Islam in that country and society– a critical battle that only Muslims in the country involved can ultimate win. Moreover, while it is all too clear that the US and the host country cannot do everything at once, the population of each country will judge the course of the war by how well they succeed in every dimension at any given time. Such in any given area will always be offset by failure or lack of progress in the others.
"Victory," in terms of any meaningful form of security and stability, means dealing with both religious, Sectarian, ethnic, and tribal divisions. Different as these aspects of each society are in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is clear that fighting the Taliban and Al Qa'ida is only part of the story.
The "battle" for political and economic space – fought over time in a battle of attrition – is the real battle. These are long wars where the insurgents can win even if they lose virtually all of the tactical clashes against the US, its allies, and host country forces. If they can dominate or intimidate the country in political and economic terms, they do not need to win tactical engagements or "hearts and minds." They outlast the US and its allies, control a steadily rising part of the population, and exhaust it into accepting or supporting an insurgent victory. The US and NATO/ISAF will lose unless they face the fact that such wars take as long as they take, host countries cannot be suddenly rebuilt or reformed, and both wars will be lost unless the US and allies show strategic patience.
Insufficient resources and lack of unity are a recipe for defeat. Advances in ground combat gear and tactics, precision air power, and advances in IS&R can reduce the need for ground forces, but only within severe limits. Military resources are also only part of the issue. Aid and civilian advisors are as important as ground strength, and effective outside forces must combine military and aid efforts in the areas under threat and where combat is taking place. The US barely has the troop strength it needs in Iraq, and is still badly short of the needed aid and civilian teams it needs at the local and regional levels. Afghanistan is grossly under-resourced at every level, and national restrictions and caveats on both military and aid efforts are a dangerous to the prospects of success as the Taliban and its allies.
The "civilian" side of war is critical. Relying on the central government, without building up representative local and regional governance, means defeat. Both wars illustrate the absurdity of assuming that election of a central government provides legitimacy at the local and regional (and sectarian and ethnic) level, and that outside aid can suddenly create effective central governments in broken or failed states. Both outside and host country efforts must simultaneously build up governance, security, a rule of law, and development at the central, regional, and local levels. The "failure" of central governments to suddenly be effective bodies for the entire nation is inevitable, and the past US and outside efforts that have focused on the center to the exclusion of creating effective regional and local governance have done immense harm.
Outside -- particularly neighboring -- powers play a critical role, and negotiation and containment are critical. The Afghan War has always really been an Afghan-Pakistan War centered around the Pashtuns. The Iraq War has always had a serious Iranian, Syrian, Turkish, and Sunni Arab dimension. The US has been far too slow to recognize the scale and seriousness of this challenge in spite of the fact that North Vietnam and other outside powers effectively defeated the US in South Vietnam after the kinetic battle against the Viet Cong had largely been won.
The US, its allies, and the building of host country forces need to react fully to the lesson of both wars regarding the creation of more effective force structures. The US has learned and acted on many lessons on Iraq and Eastern Afghanistan that have not yet been properly applied to allied or host country forces.
Creating effective host country forces takes years, and depends heavily on embeds, partner units, and long, patient effort in the field after formal training is completed. Many of the problems in creating effective host country military forces are self-inflicted wounds that come from confusing formal training with creating an effective military, setting low initial force goals that constantly have to be revised upwards, under-resourcing the forces, setting hopelessly optimistic deadlines, and assuming transfers to power can come before political accommodation and governance remove the need for an outside stabilizing influence. These lessons have been largely learned in Iraq. They have not in Afghanistan.
The US needs to consolidate the lessons it has learned about creating the Iraqi Army and NATO/ISAF needs to apply them in Afghanistan. There is a wide range of practical lessons that need broader application in both wars.
The international community is pursuing a fantasy in trying to create police forces. The US and its allies lack the resources to create both national armies and paramilitary national police forces, and the political realities in both Afghanistan and Iraq ensure that police forces will be local and caught up in local factions and issues. Some elements of national police forces are feasible, but the emphasis should be on making local forces as honest and capable as possible, and ensuring that they are part of an effective local criminal justice system and governance. Outside police, operating in a regional or local political vacuum, will always become corrupt and ineffective and the US and allied support will never be there to create both regular military and large, national paramilitary police forces.
Adequate aid is as critical as adequate military force. The slogan that "dollars are bullets" is all too correct, and is critical to winning at the local level, where local employment and government services are critical to consolidating tactical success. These efforts remain far too ineffective in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Development and governance remain under-resourced, badly organized and managed, lacking in unity, and lacking in the kind of local focus that can support military victory, political accommodation, and building effective governance.
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