Wanat

[Battlefront.com]

Yup... one could more easily say that the Taliban "got lucky" than to say that they've gained some sort of capability to combat Western forces effectively through conventional means. Which is not to say that the Taliban aren't damned ornery individual fighters. Clearly, they are. And they might "win" in Afghanistan and Pakistan for all I know. But I see no signs that they will "win" by medium to large scale conventional actions. If they "win" it will be because of a combination of factors, including gross incompetence by the West over the past 7 years.

I put "win" and "lose" in quotes because nobody can really do either in Afghanistan since each other's definitions of those terms are unrealizable and incompatible.

Steve

[Wengart]

theFightingSeabee, I would absolutely love to see this scenario.

[Sergei]

It's not that they don't try to achieve results like that in Wanat and now again in Nuristan province more often. But more often they don't manage to sneak up on obvervation posts with overwhelming numbers, rather they get spotted by UAV's and shelled by artillery before they get close. And that doesn't even make news because it's so common.

[Battlefront.com]

Exactly. Usually you hear about x amount of Taliban trying to overrun y location and failing. The counts of Taliban attacking and KIA are usually unverifiable, especially since the Taliban usually have the luxury of removing wounded and killed before foot patrols can get out to where they were hit. But the situation itself is rather consistent:

1. Taliban mass

2. Taliban attack

3. Taliban fail

Usually such attacks result in 0 friendly casualties, sometimes some wounded and occasionally one or two killed. They usually don't cause any material damage worth noting. Which gives every indication that Wanat type operations are generally outside of the Taliban's abilities. In Wanat they simply had highly favorable conditions and probably got a bit lucky.

As I've said before, the Taliban have far better ways of hurting the Coalition. For example, wiping out convoys of fuel trucks and hundreds of vehicles parked in Pakistan. Two attacks there did more material damage to the Coalition than several years worth of individual attacks. Those sorts of operations take cunning, organization, and patience to pull off. They also have a much better payoff than getting mowed down trying to take out an outpost. But obviously from a bravado standpoint, the two are in different leagues.

Steve

[snake_eye]

Some Taliban leaders have been trained by the british SAS when they were fighting the Russian. If these leaders, are still around, they had time to teach others on how to attack and vanish as well as how to set mortars and HMG to best effect. They were not slowed in their attack at the time by the Russsians chopters. When the weather is not so good, for air assets, the Talibans are out.

They choose a target and will move on it coming by different paths, strike and leave by others paths. Usually these paths are more suited to goats than men and they use multiple caves layouts during the nights. They know that thermals and night vision are at the best at night. They move during the days and look more like goats keepers than soldiers. They don't do as said too much damage. They are better at triggering IED along a road, shooting a bit the convoy and vanish again. They shoot, get rid of their AK in a hide place and return to their work in the fields. The kids are giving a hand, signaling a coming convoy for the trigger man and waving hands to the fututre targets. I think that, I will try to set such an ambush in CMSF. The difficulty is to set the timing. If I decide to have them shooting 5 to 10 minutes and leave, I will have to set the convoy right away in the ambush.It would have been better for play to move it around the narrow roads and think that the ambush might be at the other bend of the road.

Well, I give it a try anyway in the next days and let you know.

Cheers

[DavidFields]

Calling any force "sub-human", in my opinion, is to misunderstand warfare history. It is all very human.

My "denial" remark was a bit harsh. I guess I am just reflecting on the difficulty, or complexity, of grading the experience of the troops. I have no doubt that the US troops are suberbly trained--which makes the result all the more surprising (outlier? I would have to know the number of similar attacks which failed). But I sense a bit of double counting. US troops have great equipment (usually), and are trained on that equipment. Hence there is the firepower of the equipment. Think like that, and a CMSF scenario might be more doable/realistic.

But could one still find the US soldiers "green"--to the situation, and hence not able to get the best out of their possible firepower. And the Red troops could be veteran/elite, by knowing how to get the most out of what they have.

I also find it odd that that any effective fighting engagement must mean "Al-Qaida". I would suspect that the people who really know the terran in this place are the Taliban.

[theFightingSeabee]

theFightingSeabee, I would absolutely love to see this scenario.

Wengart, I'll release it soon. When I had it tested earlier, I got some negative response. So I'm fixing a few minor things before I let it go. I'm a pretty busy guy, so it may take a few days. But keep an eye out for it... COP Hawkeye.

I designed it with the type of combat we are talking about in this thread in mind. I've seen video after video of our guys in small outposts getting hammered from every direction. With only a few guys on any given outpost, they really don't have much ability to send foot patrols out. When they do, they are under-manned and always surrounded by the enemy. So that's how I tried to make the scenario: An understrength platoon of US Army troops, a small group of US Navy Seabees , and a small contingent of ANA (who are also severly under-manned) make up your forces. You must survive an all out attempt to overrun your outpost.

[Dietrich]

But could one still find the US soldiers "green"--to the situation, and hence not able to get the best out of their possible firepower. And the Red troops could be veteran/elite, by knowing how to get the most out of what they have.

"'Green' to the situation" is not determined by whether a unit is Green or Veteran or whatever. A better simulation of being "'green' to the situation and hence not able to get the best out of their possible firepower" would be simply an incompetent player who, for example, fails to take the terrain into account when positioning his troops in the defense and fails to assign them cover arcs so that they open fire on first spotting enemy units and thus give away their position prematurely. Likewise, while there obviously are insurgents who would qualify for Veteran or even Crack experience in CMSF, their full capability is up to the tactically cunning player to unlock by having them use the terrain to get to within grenade range of the enemy positions, that kind of thing.

I also find it odd that that any effective fighting engagement must mean "Al-Qaida". I would suspect that the people who really know the terran in this place are the Taliban.

It's not that the Taliban aren't capable of "effective fighting engagement". It's just that the Taliban (generally) don't storm-assault fortified positions; they open fire from concealment, then slip away unspotted when Coalition forces bring effective fire to bear on them, and otherwise they plant numerous IEDs.

From what I've read of Operation Anaconda, one of the key reasons the US infantry had such a hard time was that the insurgents they encountered in the Shahikot valley were not Taliban but Al Qaida. What actual evidence is there that they were Al Qaida? Well, for one thing, they stayed and fought rather than melting into the landscape when faced with two companies of US light infantry supported by Apaches and fast-movers. Secondly, a team of SEAL recon operators discovered a HMG position on a ridgeline that was manned by, not bearded, pakol hat-wearing Afghans, but by (among others) a Uighur and a clean-shaved Caucasian, whom the SEALs reckoned to be an Uzbek. Isn't clean-shavenness, like, a felony to the Taliban?

[Bigduke6]

Steve,

Long post warning.

I don't think luck had much to do with it.

To me It looks like what happened at Wanat was, the insurgents saw an fleeting opportunity and used smart tactics to grab it with both hands. Part of that was the application of solid infantry skills. These guys knew what they were doing on all sorts of levels.

Based on the reports, some Army and some independent, what happened was the 173rd Airborne Brigade command for reasons best known to itself thought for a long time about setting up some kind of base near Wanat, as the bad guys had pretty much owned the valley forever. Getting organized so they could actually put the base down took months, and a common theme in the reports is that the Americans shot themselves in the foot with the delay, as the general plan to send some kind of force to Wanat leaked to the resistance.

If it leaked, I would assume that happened the ANA got involved.

But if the plan didn't leak, then the resistance dealt with the US moving forces into the region with scary speed. The reinforced Airborne platoon drove to site, a bunch of base construction materials got unloaded, and the paratroopers started digging in. About 24 hours later, they got hit by a complex attack. The reports point out that had the Americans spent 72 hours or more digging in, their base would have been alot more defensible.

So intelligence leak or just fast insurgent reaction, one conclusion is inescapable: the insurgent planners understood US forces become much harder to attack when they are fully dug in, and it seems almost as sure that the insurgent leaders made sure their own operation kicked off before that happened. That level of planning is not luck, that is just smart staffwork, on a level professional soldiers expect only from a professional military. The point I am trying to make is, professional militaries have no monopoly on military skill.

The attack itself was just before dawn, precisely at the moment the US side lost its night vision advantage. Once you have military halflight, the human eye is pretty much just as good. Maybe not as good as thermals, but see below. I don't think that kind of timing was luck, or coincidence. To me, it's more evidence some one or several some ones had thought long and hard on: OK, how do we hit the Americans and nullify as many American advantages as possible?

The way the insurgents ran the assault would have been close to textbook in US Ranger school. The very first shots, the ones that had the advantage of relative surprise, targeted and destroyed the paratroopers' mortar, and both their thermals: one in the TOW hummer, and one probably thermal-type observation device at the OP.

Right after that supressive fire, MGs and mortars, came down on the base from several directions, and then fighters assaulted the OP, using RPGs and AKs. It appears the engagement ranges in general were short, and at least some of the time the engagement ranges were grenade distance. This is of course the old Vietcong "grab your opponent by his belt" technique, it makes US use of artillery and air a whole lot more difficult. I find it extremely hard to believe the side with the initiative, the insurgents, engaged at those ranges by accident.

If you posit an insurgent force of around 250 fighters, armed with Kalashnikovs, PKMs, some light mortarts, just maybe a Dushka or two, and RPGs, and the mission is kill Americans before the air shows up, then I for one am hard put to think of a way they could have better accomplished their mission. This is not to say that every insurgent participating in the attack could beat Chuck Norris in a fair fight. But it is to say, that somehow, the insurgents pulled off a close to textbook raid by any reasonable military standard.

It is interesting to read through the official US reaction that followed. For much of it, the theme seems to be "our boys fought heroically and won," while at the same time denying the insurgents had done anything particularly successful. The problem with that seems to have been sometimes those initial claims are different from the reality.

NATO made a statement, "We remain committed to defending the region." Three days after the attack, the patrol base is shut down.

The Army press office makes out that the insurgent attack was an alliance of Al Quaeda and Taliban terrorists out to destabilize the region. Then about four months later, it becomes clear that the entire province was mad as Hell at the Americans, as some US pilot bombed a vehicle containing all the civilian doctors in Wanat region. There was, as it turned out, every reason to expect the people living in the valley (these are Pathans with their tradition of blood fueds adter all) would want to kill Americans.

The brigade commander, a Colonel Preyslar, goes on record "It wasn't supposed to be a hard defence point", and in any case "No part of it was overrun." About six months pass, the Army keeps reviewing the battle, and now Preyslar is in trouble for having ignored complaints by the LT on the scene, not delivered sufficient water and construction materials to the Wanat base, and generally adopting the attitude that an airborne infantry platoon from 173rd airborne has no need even to try to make friends with the locals, as it can defeat anything the insurgency can throw at it.

A later review finds that Preyslar was either misinformed or lying, the OP was overrun, and at one point the insurgents even broke into the main base. It might be interesting to note Colonel Preyslar now is charge of the mech warfare training center at Hohenfels, and developing skills at multinational European mech warfare training isn't the way to become a general these days.

Given that US Army record of claiming things about the Battle of Wanat that turn out later not to be so, I take the US Army assertion that 20 - 40 enemy were killed or wounded with a huge grain of salt. Really? With US forces able to observe and drop HE on pretty much every square inch of battlefield an insurgent casualty might be located? With US helicopters on scene about 45 minutes after the battle began, UAVes just a little later, and all of it able to observe and shoot down any group of men, moving anywhere in the vicinity? The insurgency puts in this raid, but they have to get away, and the US military if you believe what it says leads the world in battlefield awareness. Yet the US air pursuit of insurgents by definition leaving the region at sandal speed, produces zero results.

I think it is worth considering, that what happened at Wanat was the insurgents did what they did in about 15 minutes of mostly one-way shooting, during which US forces were generally pinned down and unable to find targets suitable for calling air and HE on, in large part because the targets were shooting back. This was a platoon with a single LT and probably about 6 or so NCOs, and we know that during at least part of the firefight, about half of those leaders were not calling down indirect, they were doing what they could to keep the OP from being overrun; and some of them died in the attempt. It could very well be less than 10 insurgents were hit from beginning to end.

Usually, when a defensive position is unsucessfully attacked, a classic sign of the failure is broken enemy units leaving equipment and casualties as they break under the defensive fire. Here, when the US got around to policing the battlefield, they found two possible insurgent bodies. So to me it is at least arguable that a possible reason there were so few signs of a badly damaged enemy assault, is because in fact it wasn't damaged much at all. I think is is possible what happened is the insurgents set themselves the general goal of killing every one in a relatively exposed US op, and just maybe probing the US base. There is every sign that the moment US air got close to station, the insurgents had already left, and for the next hour or so the Americans were expending ordnance on empty hillsides.

As we have seen, the insurgency has the ability to repeat an action like this after a while, although of course they are nowhere near the ability to hit and knock out US bases at will. But to say this insurgent tactical sucess - that's how I see it - has few military repercussions, I think is short-sighted. As a result of Wanat, US patrol bases have to be bigger and more secure. Trust between US forces and the ANA is reduced - and these two forces must cooperate if the insurgency is to be defeated.

But perhaps the most damage to the US cause is in the very likely fact, that there are 200 - 300 Pathans walking around right now that know that given the right conditions US forces can be "defeated" in a battle. As far as they are concerned, they did it, and what they did they can teach others.

Since the point to an insurgency is sustainment, the positives a success like Wanat can bring an insurgency go far beyond simple battlefield casualty counts.

It strains my credibility to believe people who have been fighting in insurgencies for most or all of their lives, would luck into something like the results of Wanat by accident. Sure, maybe they just got lucky. But I think the odds are a whole lot greater that that battle went down the way it did, because the insurgents had their act together in ways US forces barely grasp.

As a final fun item, go here:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/75036.html

This is a report by a US reporter embedded with Marines that walked into an ambush. 4 Marines, 8 ANA, and an interpeter dead; I forget the number of wounded. It happened about a month ago, it was a foot patrol that got opened up on as they walked down mountain valley and approached a village. The insurgents timed the engagement so that when they began firing, the Marines would naturally seek cover behind a berm inbetween them and the insurgents, with about 50 meters of open ground between them and the next cover back. Then other insurgents on hill shoulders worked their way around to fire down on the Marines pinned up against the berm. As at Wanat, engagement ranges were short, at one point a Marine said a couple of insurgents got close enough to demand his surrender. Air took close to an hour to show up, all in all a bad day for the blue side.

Is this another case of the insurgents "getting lucky"? If it was luck, it was just awfully forturnate for the dirtbag insurgents with their awful fire discipline and dirty weapons accidently to open fire on the Americans so that the Americans would take cover in a potential kill zone, and futher that some of the insurgents moving randomly about the battlefield just happened to work their way around the Marines' flanks, and turn the potential kill zone into a real one?

Why is it that every time the Afghan insurgents, who come from a culture continuously engaged in mountain guerilla war since the late 1970s, are just "lucky" when they pull off a textbook ambush, and display generally excellent knowledge of infantry tactics?

How is it that US forces (in this case Marines) keep telling themselves they are terrific fighters and tremendous infantrymen, the best the world has ever seen, when one of the very first lessons of fire and movement is: "Clear the high ground first, stupid."

I think it would be intellectually honest to face the fact that, these days, the Afghan insurgents are at least sometimes better at small unit tactics than their NATO opponents, and as a general thing on par.

The fighting in Afghanistan is, it seems, not awesome 1st World forces using superior technology and training to demolish effortlessly 4th World morons who barely know one end of an AK from the other. Just because NATO forces tell themselves they are incredibly effective soldiers, does not make it so, especially not against motivated Afghan tribesmen.

Yup... one could more easily say that the Taliban "got lucky" than to say that they've gained some sort of capability to combat Western forces effectively through conventional means. Which is not to say that the Taliban aren't damned ornery individual fighters. Clearly, they are. And they might "win" in Afghanistan and Pakistan for all I know. But I see no signs that they will "win" by medium to large scale conventional actions. If they "win" it will be because of a combination of factors, including gross incompetence by the West over the past 7 years.

I put "win" and "lose" in quotes because nobody can really do either in Afghanistan since each other's definitions of those terms are unrealizable and incompatible.

Steve

[Secondbrooks]

"'Green' to the situation" is not determined by whether a unit is Green or Veteran or whatever. A better simulation of being "'green' to the situation and hence not able to get the best out of their possible firepower" would be simply an incompetent player who, for example, fails to take the terrain into account when positioning his troops in the defense and fails to assign them cover arcs so that they open fire on first spotting enemy units and thus give away their position prematurely. Likewise, while there obviously are insurgents who would qualify for Veteran or even Crack experience in CMSF, their full capability is up to the tactically cunning player to unlock by having them use the terrain to get to within grenade range of the enemy positions, that kind of thing.

Classic example from ww2 is when some unit changes another unit from fortification line to rest. At least Soviets liked to use this moment to strike, as unit was green with that block of fortifications. With luck that fresh unit hadn't yet faced such strike which Soviets could muster.

There are records where unit with good training and experience (in CMSF terms somewhere in borderline of Regular-veteran) goes to fortification line and get's throwed away from it in panical kind conditions pretty soon, even when previous unit (tired and worn out) has been able to repel such attacks before. Partially reasons being that they don't know that line yet and that they haven't seen such level of enemy action before.

Same for attacker. If attacker would have had time for training (not meaning other than going thru than mission in general) and planning for such attack their experience level could be tweaked to be higher then it really would be. And other way hasty attack tends to go bad and individual performance goes down just because the fact that there's no much changes to adjust unit for action.

[Clavicula_Nox]

Steve,

Long post warning.

Have to agree for the most part. I think the denials being put forth by senior commanders is either a poor attempt at propaganda, simply misunderstanding the context of irregular warfare, arrogance, and I had another one but can't remember it at this time. Too many things went right for it to have simply been a stroke of luck.

There have been other times when NATO forces have been shown up in this area, and I agree completely that the enemy is not the inept simpletons "they" would like us to believe. It's been awhile since I was over, but I never once had the impression that the Pashtun were anything short of excellent light infantrymen. Makes me wonder why we bothered propping up Karzai in the first place.

[c3k]

BigDuke6,

Very well said.

Ken

[Clavicula_Nox]

I also find the assertion that such actions bear no success to the enemy to be highly irresponsible at best, or a dangerous misunderstanding of the enemy at worst. The May 2003 ambush of Blackwater employees in Fallujah led directly to 1st and 2nd Fallujah and had a massive hand in dictating policy in the region. The deaths of 4 guys, a minor, hardly worth mentioning, engagement with far-reaching operational (and now strategical) consequences. How many other minor, hardly worth mentioning, engagements have forced major policy changes?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Steve,

It could very well be less than 10 insurgents were hit from beginning to end.

I think you're completely guessing at what their casualties were. If there were several hundred Taliban involved in the attack they could easily have removed dozens of casualties. To proclaim this engagement a Taliban victory just because their loses can't be verified is as much propaganda as the US military official version.

Here's the story of another engagement where the Taliban loses could be verified. It's always interesting to me that if a handful of Taliban are killed it's a footnote, but if a handful of Americans are killed it's a front page story and a major defeat.

Turning The Tables, U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban With Swift and Lethal Results

if necessary:

login: gamers

password: gamers

[dan/california]

There are a thousand little issues with how things have been done in Afghanistan, and not a few huge ones too. Still the overwhelming problem is sending a platoon to do companies job, just so they can say they did SOMETHING. Against a properly laid out company sized position a Taliban frontal assault would be simple suicide.

[Alex]

Here is some video about this story:

I hope it's not repost.

[Frankster65]

unforgivable.

[Bigduke6]

Alex,

Outstanding video, thanks. I sure hadn't seen it.

It did make me wonder though, if the US troops were short of water, and that and the heat prevented them from digging in properly, then why didn't they just get water from the river like the Afghans did? One of the AARs speculates that "extra noise" made by Wanat villagers on the day prior to the fight, may have been a cover for insurgent approaches. Maybe, but I bet an alternative is the villagers know there's going to be a fight, so they're stockpiling water for their families and maybe insurgent wounded.

Or maybe the extra villager water use was due to the fact it was just hot.

Not armchair quarterbacking, just trying to figure out how a first rate US infantry unit managed to run dry of water in a mountain river valley. I guess the policy was to stay behind the wire at all costs.

Vanir,

Of course I'm guessing. But I can't think of a way 200 - 300 guys could walk out of that region, dragging dozens of wounded by foot, with all that US air and surveillance around. One possible explaination is, there weren't that many insurgent wounded.

[dan/california]

Everything I have read about his battle gives the feeling that the entire chain of command was exhausted and distracted. One the worst and most avoidable decisions in hindsight was trying to establish this outpost at the very end of the brigades deployment; when too many command resources were devoted to the transition.

[akd]

Alex,

Outstanding video, thanks. I sure hadn't seen it.

It did make me wonder though, if the US troops were short of water, and that and the heat prevented them from digging in properly, then why didn't they just get water from the river like the Afghans did? One of the AARs speculates that "extra noise" made by Wanat villagers on the day prior to the fight, may have been a cover for insurgent approaches. Maybe, but I bet an alternative is the villagers know there's going to be a fight, so they're stockpiling water for their families and maybe insurgent wounded.

Or maybe the extra villager water use was due to the fact it was just hot.

Not armchair quarterbacking, just trying to figure out how a first rate US infantry unit managed to run dry of water in a mountain river valley. I guess the policy was to stay behind the wire at all costs.

How much more effective would they have been incapacitated with dysentery?

The "noise" was an irrigation canal that ran through the base inexplicably flooding with running water after a sluice gate was opened somewhere outside the perimeter. There was simply speculation this could have been intentional, but nothing to substantiate that. Has nothing to do with thirsty villagers.

Also, there is no need to blame the ANA (who fought side by side with the paratroopers at Wanat) for the intelligence leak. US forces entered into extensive negotiations with the locals to purchase land for the COP way before the move. There was no reason to believe that the future location of a COP had not been compromised at that point.

[Migo441]

The water issue is specifically addressed in the AAR materials here --> http://www.battlefieldtourist.com/content/battle-of-wanat-historical-analysis-rough-draft-release/

Lack of water, which ran low as early as July 9th. It should be noted that the ANA never suffered from a lack of water, as they drank local water from the community of Wanat’s water source. Because of health concerns, the American paratroopers could not drink this water. The Chosen Few lacked the capability to sterilize the readily-available water from the Wanat community in large quantities (they possessed only “a couple” of bottles of iodine tablets to prevent the 2nd Platoon from entirely running out of water).

Of course, that may simply beg the question as to why they didn't have additional purification equipment.

The situation was then exacerbated by hotter conditions then expected and a higher level of manual labor than was expected due to shortages in construction/fortification supplies and construction equipment.

[Battlefront.com]

Great video Alex. That's the basic impression I've had of this battle for some time now. A series of mistakes and miscalculations, in large part the result of resources being stretched way to thin to do the mission right. Since battlefield commanders have been saying that for 7 years, and being routinely ignored by those in charge but not in theater, it's not surprising.

Often these types of situations are the result of a "perfect storm" of poor decisions/actions on one side and excellent decisions/actions on the other. If the US force had been properly positioned, properly supplied, properly backed up, properly watched over, etc. I doubt the result would have been the same. If the enemy had been poorly organized, poorly led, poorly motivated, poorly armed, etc. I doubt the results would have been the same. But the situation was not well balanced and the Taliban were given an opportunity to cause some damage that they ordinarily wouldn't have been capable of causing. Which is the point I keep coming back to...

The Taliban are still a pretty poor conventional force. They obviously are capable enough to hit a single inherently weak position pretty hard once a year, but otherwise get beaten badly without much to show for it. Their unconventional capabilities, however, are far more varied and robust. I'm sure they are well aware of that.

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

Vanir,

Of course I'm guessing. But I can't think of a way 200 - 300 guys could walk out of that region, dragging dozens of wounded by foot, with all that US air and surveillance around. One possible explaination is, there weren't that many insurgent wounded.

Maybe there were trees? I don't understand why that would be an impossible task.

[Battlefront.com]

BigDuke6,

To me It looks like what happened at Wanat was, the insurgents saw an fleeting opportunity and used smart tactics to grab it with both hands. Part of that was the application of solid infantry skills. These guys knew what they were doing on all sorts of levels.

Agreed and please reread what I wrote. I've never said anything to the contrary. What I have said is that for them to have success they appear to require certain conditions to exist prior to their attack. And those conditions are things like time to marshal and plan their attack. They also apparently need the defenders to be deficient in certain ways. Which is why I keep saying that their ability to replicate such successes as Wanat are highly dependent on what the ISAF forces do and don't do rather than the Taliban having some sort of standing ability to reach out and cause harm whenever and wherever they choose to. At least on this scale.

As I've stressed many times already, they are causing FAR more damage and FAR more problems for ISAF through other means than masses assaults. If I were in command I'd be far more concerned with Taliban ambushing supply lines and holding entire villages I don't have the resources to secure than I would worry about the off chance they might overrun an outpost. Of course I'd be concerned about the latter as well, but losing an outpost or two won't change the ultimate course of the war. Not gaining popular support will.

Clavicula_Nox,

Have to agree for the most part. I think the denials being put forth by senior commanders is either a poor attempt at propaganda, simply misunderstanding the context of irregular warfare, arrogance, and I had another one but can't remember it at this time. Too many things went right for it to have simply been a stroke of luck.

To be clear, I was not saying that the attack on Wanat was luck. It clearly wasn't. What I was saying, and just repeated, was that it was a "perfect storm" in which the Taliban forces succeeded in part because of failures on the American side. To claim that their success was all skill and not a large part luck is just as wrong, IMHO, as saying that it was almost all luck and little skill.

There have been other times when NATO forces have been shown up in this area, and I agree completely that the enemy is not the inept simpletons "they" would like us to believe. It's been awhile since I was over, but I never once had the impression that the Pashtun were anything short of excellent light infantrymen.

Yes, but that alone doesn't ensure success. If it were then the Germans wouldn't have lost WW2 In fact, the Israelis are on the record of thinking that many of their adversaries in their various conflicts, even the ones they won outright, were excellent small unit fighters. Brave, determined, and often damned sneaky. But in any one given engagement they often didn't come up with anything to show for their actions other than their own deaths.

Over time, though, things are quite different than on the tactical battlefield. The Israelis have "beaten" their hostile neighbors countless times, yet Israel is still in a perpetual state of threat and has to squander much of its national capital to simply exist. But that's at a different level of warfare.

Makes me wonder why we bothered propping up Karzai in the first place.

Which is a very good question for a bunch of big reasons. One should also wonder how Karzai was chosen in the first place and why he, and not others, were put into that position.

I also find the assertion that such actions bear no success to the enemy to be highly irresponsible at best, or a dangerous misunderstanding of the enemy at worst.

It is also irresponsible to overrate your adversary There's a difference of perspectives which needs to be carefully considered IN CONTEXT with whatever is being specifically discussed. One must separate the different levels of effect from each other.

As far as I see it the Taliban has very little ability to harm the ISAF forces, tactically speaking, through massed assaults. The Taliban DO have the ability to harm the resolve of ISAF to be there in the first place. This may or may not be furthered effectively by such massed attacks. Many European nations' resolve is almost zero and they've suffered practically no casualties, for example.

To be clear, my point is TACTICALLY speaking the Taliban have not demonstrated the ability to regularly, and at their choosing, cause significant harm to ISAF forces. Compare the Taliban to the Viet Cong or NVA in Vietnam to see what I mean. There has been no Tet Offensive, there has been no Dien Bien Phu.

In 8 years of combat the Taliban have managed to inflict a few hundred casualties on their occupiers and probably a few thousand ANA. For an even smaller period in Vietnam the Western forces lost over 60,000 killed and the ARVN lost about 180,000 killed. The population size of both countries was roughly in the same ballpark.

Yes, yes, yes... I know these two wars are very different in a lot of ways. But it's a fact that the two worst ambushes in Afghanistan were daily occurrences in Vietnam, not statistical outliers. The Taliban's predecessors also did MUCH better against Soviet and DRA forces, killing more per year of 9 year Soviet occupation than the Taliban has been able to do for the entire 8 year period.

Now, the West might lose Afghanistan just as it did Vietnam. I'm not arguing that body counts matter any more now than they did 40 years ago. What I'm arguing is that the Taliban scores pretty low in terms of their conventional capabilities compared to other insurgent groups.

Now, why is all of this important? Because it's clear that if the West wants to "win" in Afghanistan it needs to be more concerned about a host of factors OTHER than the occasional overrunning of one of its outposts. At least when making strategic and operational decisions. Tactically, there should be lessons learned from mistakes made and improvements implemented as soon as they are identified. But obsessing over them means not focusing on the stuff that really matters.

The May 2003 ambush of Blackwater employees in Fallujah led directly to 1st and 2nd Fallujah and had a massive hand in dictating policy in the region. The deaths of 4 guys, a minor, hardly worth mentioning, engagement with far-reaching operational (and now strategical) consequences. How many other minor, hardly worth mentioning, engagements have forced major policy changes?

Sure, there is always that chance. So far the current admin hasn't seemed intent on overruling its battlefield commanders and playing politics with the lives of its service members. Having said that, Fallujah laid the groundwork for the Sunni Awakening. So it could be argued that the insurgents made a big error antagonizing the Americans because, despite an arguable overreaction, it appears that the Americans in the end wound up doing better for it. Was there a better way to have dealt with the Blackwater ambush? That's definitely something that can be argued for a very long time.

Steve

[dan/california]

This discussion is wandering ever further afield here, but it certainly interesting.

The best thing the Sunni insurgency in Iraq could have done for itself is lay absolutely flat until the Americans had come an gone. We would have happily declared victory and gone home right after catching Saddam if the place hadn't been coming apart at the seams. Instead they basically forced the full weight of the U.S. military to fight on the Shiite side, and then so irritated their own population that many of the foot soldiers switched sides in the awakening. And Yes I realize the U.S. post conflict planning was beyond abysmal. It would be more accurate to say that there wasn't any.

What we really want from the Iraqis external to their own borders would have been tolerable for who ever wound up in charge.