Kandahar, Afghanistan – It's hardly En Route magazine, but the Canadian government's new manual on “Counter-insurgency Operations”can make for some scintillating – and sobering – in-flight reading.
Especially if you're flying to Afghanistan.
This morning, for the second time in 18 months, I touched down at Kandahar Air Field. The job is to work as an embedded reporter with the military and, to that end, I had brought along the manual, more of a "maybe read" than a a “must read."
But was surprised to find Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie's treatise on “Counter-Insurgency Operations” was a page turner. It gripped me from the takeoff, until I saw a familiar dun desert landscape come into focus through the descending plane's windows.
As the plane landed, it struck me that someone had supersized the NATO military base in my absence. Since my last visit it has gotten much bigger, and more fortified. The vehicles appear to be more heavily armoured. One of my fellow passengers quipped I was lucky to even find a bed — given the influx of soldiers, mostly American, of late.
Though larger, the base seems more an outpost than ever. The stepped-up military presence is meant to keep pace with the growing Taliban-led insurgency that now lurks just outside the gates. This, nearly nine years after Mullah Mohammed Omar and his minions beat a hasty retreat, on motorcycles, from Kandahar — and were thought to have been vanquished by U.S.-led forces for good.
So how did we – the West, NATO, the Canadian Forces contingent — all get it so wrong? How did we get back here today?
Gen. Leslie, who helped lead Canada's early forays into Afghanistan, seems to have some insights. Now the head of Land Forces for the Canadian military, he wrote the Canadian Force's manual on counterinsurgency, which became a public document earlier this year.
The General frames his treatise as a walk through history's lessons, and doesn't often cite specific live lessons from Afghanistan. He does, however, point out that Canada had to become a quick study in counterinsurgency, given it hasn't focused much on the practice since the Northwest Rebellion of 1885.
“Although much of the publication's content is generally known and practised currently,” Gen. Leslie writes, “the publication is to be formally implemented in force operations and training institutes as appropriate.”
Considering the grim reality of Afghanistan today, one wishes the 200-odd page document had been produced before December, 2008. It has been years since politicians volunteered our small army to NATO, to patrol the very large and very restive Kandahar province.
The essence of the Gen. Leslie's treatise is fundamentally simple and maybe obvious — at least today. Insurgencies are not wars. They are best viewed as “protracted contests of wills.”
That means that threatened governments need to live up to the rule of law and build public works to win back the populace, whose feelings are “the centre of gravity” in such struggles, he argues. Indigenous and occupying armies can help do this, but in order to do this they must deploy vast numbers of disciplined soldiers who use minimal force in the support of the government.
“Successful campaign may require a security-force-to-insurgent-ratio of nearly 20-to1,” Gen Leslie writes. But more boots should not equate to more bullets and bombs, he says. That's because, over time, heavy handedness is as apt as any half-measure to strengthen the insurgent cause.
“Aggressive offensive actions should be viewed as necessary, but secondary,” Gen. Leslie writes, arguing military victories can do more harm than good if civilians are caught in the crossfire. Imprecise air strikes, he points out, can be particularly damaging.
“Collateral damages and civilian casualties will do much to undermine the campaign and its public support, both indigenously and abroad,” he says. “Insurgents will exploit such incidents through propaganda and will be the first to ensure international media coverage.”
