I was reading a review of Galula's renowned counterinsurgency tome and one thing Galula stipulates, that seems revealing viz Obama's dithering over what to do in Afghanistan, is that the country sponsoring the COIN action cannot look weak - if the victimized population sees weakness in their ostensible saviours or perceives a reason not to trust their commitment, the cause will be lost. You can see how the military leadership right now is probably none to happy with Obama - they thought they already had a commitment [with good reason] and now are to say the least no doubt discomfited by the knowledge that anything that makes that commitment look tentative could prove fatal, could undermine the whole strategy. They must feel they've been played and betrayed - nothing Obama has said indicates that he is going to give McChrystal what he's requested even though everything he did and said during the campaign and when he first took office suggested he was on board with the strategy - but even if he does sign on the strategy is weakened, possibly beyond salvaging, by the delay in making a decision - at the very least, if one follows the dictates of Galula, a difficult mission has been made much more difficult - it's hard to see a scenario here that doesn't end with the military feeling disappointed - yeah, I'd say Petraeus and the boys are not big fans of the Obama right now.
The other thing that struck me was a flaw in Galula's argument that the reviewer pointed out and is in line with my thinking, namely, just as with the insurgency, the counterinsurgency must be motivated by a cause - but what if the the population the COIN seeks to protect does not share the cause? If our cause is to bring to Afghanistan good governance and other advantages of a modern civil society - and as I've said many times before getting involved in a war like this only makes sense if that indeed is your cause, by definition there has to be a culture changing imperative otherwise what is the point? - but what happens if the target population prefers, as the writer of the review states it, the 7th century? Galula writes about the role fear plays in an insurgency - what if to Afghans the best way to avoid fear is to cling to their medieval tribalism and tolerate their Taliban masters - what if to them that represents the lesser of two evils?
This seems to be the weak link in COIN thinking - at the very least it suggests the need for a long involvement in the victimized society and I just don't see how America can make a commitment like that. I know that McChrystal's plan is to hand things off to a revitalised Afghan military a couple years from now - but that idea sounds pretty shaky to me - Afghanistan doesn't really inspire confidence in that regard. [is it possible Petraeus et al also see that and their whole objective here is to merely create a scenario that looks less like an American loss and more like a failure by Afghanistan to preserve the win? Seems possible to me]
