A new language for the Afghan conflict

[CHIMO]

President Obama is currently considering General Stanley McChrystal's report on Afghanistan, which may result in sending up to 40,000 more troops. Yet there is a more basic and vital step to be taken before any new strategy is authorised: the lexicon must change, and with it the "big army" mentality and its comfortable, quantitative metrics.

Insurgencies are political affairs. The military can hold the ring (and Britain's armed forces chief, Sir Jock Stirrup, rightly insists the mission is still "do-able") but the solutions will be political. Terminology is important because it shapes the thinking. Talk of "defeating" the Taliban implies – to quote Nato's definition of defeat – "diminish the effectiveness of the enemy to the extent that he is unable to participate further in the battle or at least cannot fulfil his intention". In reality, all that needs to happen is for the other side to stop fighting, whether that is from logistic inability, sullen acceptance of incapacity, population disaffection or active embrace of the Afghan government's offer.

A new dialectic must be introduced. Rather than "defeating" an insurgency, it must be "dispelled" – to be defined (I would suggest) as "a reduction in effective capability through multiple lines of operation such that the insurgency loses the consent of the population". That's an indefinite, qualitative standard – one reason that soldiers are uncomfortable with it. Experience from Yemen, Northern Ireland, Dhofar and Iraq has shown that the "enemy" may not go away – indeed may evolve into criminal activity – but the general population rejects its cause, and it is unable to function coherently.

This is not to say that violence plays no role: where force is the currency, that is the coin Isaf must use. But the violence must be tightly focused on the recalcitrant elements, and the innocent Afghan population must be protected and nurtured.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/11/afghan-conflict-strategy-afghanistan