Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

The charge made by Robert Gates

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 7:24 PM EDT 21/01/08

He could he be right - not with respect to Canada, but with regard to some of our allies ...Read the full article

This conversation is closed

  1. Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: The tougher question is how to deal with the porous border. US forces have been on Pakistan soil since day one and there have been occasional fire fights between US troops and Pakistani forces along the border (with Pakistani casualties). A cordon sanitaire is possible but it would be expensive. Dion is reflecting only what has been known for some time now and he is correct in suggesting that a diplomatic solution and a military solution will both be necessary. Pakistan projects its aggression outside in what is called the "Macedonian Syndrome." Take away Kashmir and the numerous other conflicts in S and SE Asia to which Pakistan has directly or indirectly provided support and there is little place left for that aggression to be externalized save Afghanistan. For a detailed and accurate assessment of Pakistan's potential collapse see www.carleton.ca/cifp.
  2. Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: A good way to determine who Gates is fingering is to assess the reaction from the three countries in question. The Dutch were the most incensed. The Dutch have disproportionately taken the fewest casualties in comparison to the Yanks, Canadians or Brits (14 dead). SO: 1. Gates is correct in so far as the southern part of Afghanistan is more difficult to secure (largely due to the porous border with Pakistan) and therefore success is more difficult to realize than in other parts of Afghanistan. By this reasoning one could say that the French and Germans operating in fairly safe and secure areas have been the most successful. 2. Gates is tacitly justifying the deployment of more US forces to the southern area - in effect saying that this area needs greater troop concentration. 3. Gates is correct in so far as the Canadians (apart from JTF2) have only been engaged in COIN since 2005 prior to that being deployed under ISAF in Kabul. Their learning curve is difficult and steep (with the greatest number of casualties occurring in the first six months of deployment). 4. Gates is incorrect and there is no justification for what he said. Any way you see it the Southern part of Afghanistan will remain the most difficult to secure unless NATO develops a comprehensive strategy to address the transborder security problem. Whether this will be addressed through concerted diplomatic pressure remains to be seen.
  3. Trilly B from Canada writes: Finally a writer in the media gets it right.
  4. Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: Its safe to say there is actually a Canadian way of doing this (of which I think most of you would be proud) which means directly engaged, on the street, communicative and supportive. It does not mean being hunkered down behind a bunker but actual out there in harm's way on a constant basis - hence the high risks that our troops face constantly. Now contrast that with the Dutch who appear to be more incensed than we are with Gates' comments. They stand accused of spending a good chunk of their time behind closed walls.

    COIN means winning hearts and minds - its not really about using force. In that regard there is always a risk that the locals, the soldiers think they can trust, may act against them at any point (this is why so many of our casualties are victimes of IEDs). So maybe there is more work to be done on the more important hearts and minds side of the equation and in that regard Gates may be right.
  5. Ian St. John from Canada writes: One has to ask what makes the U.S. an 'expert' anyway. All they do is bomb indiscriminantly. Their basis for criticism seems to be the fact that 'boots on the ground' seem to be in more danger than bombing a wedding party on false information that it is a 'safe house'? And what is all the crap about Canadians being too chickenshit to take casualties in a good cause? We are there doing the HARD WORK because we are almost TOO willing to take casualties. The PROBLEM is that shredding people that look just like ordinary civilians on the basis that you THINK they might be Taliban tends to be the wrong tool for the wrong job. If Afghanistan is to become a peaceful and well managed society it has to be because of Afghanistanis and their commitment to a 'new model for 'central government' that delivers benefits over the old 'village elder'/warlord model and with benefits in terms of infrastructure and options ( i.e. road, education, etc ). This means development as well as police work ( for security) NOT military operations ( except in a few occasions where insurgents group together to try to occupy government resources). P.S. Hamid Karzai doesn't seem to be up to the job. And why is there no opposition to challenge his decisions? He seems to fit the old definition of a dictator supported by a foreign government despite the 'election' camoflage. The 'new Afghanistan' is NOT a democracy yet and elections do not make a democracy. In fact, until there are widescale PUBLIC protests ( i.e. taking charge of THEIR government) it will never be a democracy.
  6. Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: Ian St. John from Canada writes: One has to ask what makes the U.S. an 'expert' anyway. All they do is bomb indiscriminantly

    The reason why the US' COIN ops in the East are deemed a success is because they have been doing less not more bombing. Yes they too have a learning curve.
  7. gordon miller from NB, Canada writes: Robert Gates should shut his mouth when it comes to any other county's war effort. It was Osama bin Laden (a Saudi Arabian based in Afghanistan) who lead al Qaeda (based in Afghanistan) with the support of the Taliban (who controled Afghanistan) that sent killers (the majority of them Saudi Arabian) to attack America and bring down the twin towers.
    So what do the Americans do... they round up 130,000 troops and invade the wrong country! (Should I mention that good ole GW just supplied the Saudi Arabians with billions of dollars in arms? No... I won't bother.)
    If those same 130,000 troops had been sent to Afghanistan instead of Iraqi, the Taliban would be nothing more than a bad memory and bin Laden would have to send his next message through a psychic.
    Nato should haul all troops out of Afghanistan until the Americans decide if they're goal is to free a country from tyranny and terrorism, (and punish those who where responsible for the attacks of 9/11.) or if the whole mess was just the excuse they needed to steal Iraqi oil.
  8. Doug - from Somewhere, Canada writes: I think Gates has got it right. How can you control the country side and show the people that you are in control if you are hidding in your base. This kind of war needs boots on the ground.

    And yes when the Canadians went over there they probably sucked ( other than J2 and the snipers). They were a peace time army what do you expect. A bit of peacekeeping does not prepare you for war. The Canadian Army will benifit from this for 20 years. Now they are pulling their weight. I remember a news story when we first got to the south. It seemed that our guys we babies in the woods compared to the 10th Mountain Div. There is no subsitute for real combat experience. Now we have it.
  9. Trilly B from Canada writes: Doug, you're quite right.

    But just as peacekeeping does not prepare you for war, war does not prepare you for counter-insurgency operations.

    Even units that are specially trained for COIN will often train for a year before being inserted. It's not about the troops, or the weapons; I have no doubt NATO's are among the best. It's about COIN-specific training. That's what Gates was getting at.
  10. Richard Roskell from Canada writes: What a quaint and amusing editorial. Oh no, it's not the Canadian Forces who lack the counter-insurgency experience. It's not the Canadian Forces who over-rely on airstrikes and artillery. It's The Other Guys.

    When it comes to counter-insurgency operations, the CF felt that a billion dollars worth of new Leopard tanks was just the ticket. Plus a new fleet of C-17 transport aircraft capable of carrying those tanks. Those items will come in handy for all sorts of counter-insurgency efforts: you just watch!

    Editorials such as this are ultimately depressing, because it points to the likelihood that Canadians- including those who should know better- believe in myths. Mr. Gates is correct: Canadian soldiers are not experienced or trained in counter-insurgency. Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan ARE over-reliant on airstrikes and artillery.
  11. Ron MacGillivray from Flatbush, ab, writes: I wouldn't read too much into this outburst by Mr. Gates. No doubt it was brought on by stress and old memories of his years spent in the jungles of Vietnam where he experienced counterinsurgency operations first hand. He was in Vietnam, wasn't he?
  12. Robert Dresser from Canada writes: Why are we taking ourselves (or the Americans) off the hook? Read Petraeus' counterinsurgency manual (FM 3-24 - available free on the net in PDF). Rule #1 - it takes an enormous number of troops to win. There's even a forumula - one counterinsurgent for every 25 civilians. We would need a combat force between 15,000 and 20,000 for Kandahar alone. You have to actually secure the villages and countryside, day and night. It's not enough to send soldiers out in convoys trolling for IEDs. We had a bigger troop force in Bosnia. What does that mean? It's obvious. Petraeus' manual reduces all the counterinsurgency knowledge going back centuries and the cardinal rule is you can't win by fighting "on the cheap." We've ignored that rule for six years. Read Lt. Gen. Barno's recent paper on how we (all of NATO) has hopelessly screwed this up. And that goes for Canada also.
  13. Leonard Ryan from Lund BC, Canada writes: "Counterinsurgency operations" seems to be a term for efforts by George Bush and his diminishing number of allies to subjugate the citizens of countries they have invaded and occupied. It hasn't worked yet for anybody, neither the Americans nor their coalition of the coerced, nor for other aggressors throughout history.
  14. Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: Small footprint:
    defn. 1. : Ratio of troops to civilians.
    600,000 peacekeepers would be needed were Afghanistan to have the sametroop -to-population ratio as existed initially in Kosovo. There are about 45,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan. Consider the troop differences between Iraq which has a population of 18.5 million and Afghanistan of 32 million.

    defn .2: Ratio of troops to geographic space: The U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan are trying to secure a country that is a third again the size of Iraq.

    Under-resourced
    definition: capability matched to objectives ie fighting a three block war in a failed state situation: Bosnia was stabilized by the deployment of 60,000 foreign troops ... $1390 per citizen in international aid, while Afghanistan gets only $42 per capita. On a per capita basis the US has spent 25 times less than that spent in Bosnia, and deployed one-fiftieth as many troops
  15. Robert Dresser from Canada writes: Consider this. Kandahar province, our beat, is 54,022 sq. kms. in area. We have a combat force of 1,000 rifles, the rest being garrison support. That's one rifle for every 54 sq. kms. if, and this is a huge "if", they were all on duty at any given time of the day. What I've read is that we're likely to have a maximum of 500 rifles "outside the wire" at any given time. That's one rifle for every 100 sq. kms. When you're stretched that thin, how can you hope to give the villagers security? How can you protect them when the Taliban come calling in the middle of the night? The Afghan police won't stop them and we can't. That leaves the insurgents with control of the populace and the initiative operationally. They seem to be able to plant their IEDs with impunity. Kandahar has 890,000 people, only 300,000 of which are in Kandahar city. The math alone is astonishing, but apply Petraeus' formula of one counterinsurgent (good guy) for every 25 civilians. Then compare that to 500 rifles on the ground.
  16. VHJM van Neerven, from VNCCC from Amsterdam, Netherlands writes: J. L. Granatstein may easily "quote" anonymous "Canadian officers."
    But anonymous sources are not worthy of a good newspaper.
    Grumbling amongst allies is as old as allied forces. In WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Afica, Serbia and on and on: each and every armed force is convinced that they can do the job best and the others are, well, fill in every negative epithet you want. That's no news.
    News is that Mr. Gates retracted his remarks real fast and that the Australians, who moaned as well, have now gained respect for the Dutch general Approach and for the individual soldiers of our nation. But then again, they fight right alongside and with the Dutch in combined operations. Do the Canadian officers in question, whoever they may be?
    Other news is that the maligned "Dutch Approach" with its stress on local contact, not under armor, out of vehicles, weapons down, helmets stowed, has been adopted for the US troops in Iraq - by orders of that same Mr. Gates !
    Other news is that the Dutch have been involved in some of the heaviest fighting against the taliban, who are resurfacing in Uruzgan province. Take a look at the map and guess where the renewed enemy force comes from. That's right, from the east, so "well" protected by US forces.
    If anyone wants to contest these remarks, we have the sources to substantiate it all, that's our job. But it would take a lots of space to name and link to them all in this comment.
    Anyone interested can write us or go to the Dutch MOD site at http://www.mindef.nl/en/
  17. Ian St. John from Canada writes: "Birdy Num, Num from Canada writes: Small footprint:
    defn. 1. : Ratio of troops to civilians.
    600,000 peacekeepers would be needed were Afghanistan to have the sametroop -to-population ratio as existed initially in Kosovo. There are about 45,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan. Consider the troop differences between Iraq which has a population of 18.5 million and Afghanistan of 32 million. "

    If you want to ensure a 'totalitarian state' in which nobody dares to complain, of course. OTOH, subjugation is not supposed to be the objective, is it?

    Military force: The wrong tool and the wrong job. It is only useful as a last ditch protection against organised invasion forces, not police operations and so it is useless in trying to organise a 'democratic state' anywhere. The 'bright lights' in charge will spend a LOT of lives figuring this out.
  18. Wankers Away from Canada writes: Ian St. John from Canada writes:
    If you want to ensure a 'totalitarian state' in which nobody dares to complain, of course. OTOH, subjugation is not supposed to be the objective, is it?

    absolute drivel

    what on earth is your point?

Comments are closed

Thanks for your interest in commenting on this article, however we are no longer accepting submissions. If you would like, you may send a letter to the editor.

Report an abusive comment to our editorial staff

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Top World Stories

World Columnists

Top Stories by Section