More on ANSF training problems/Future scale of operations

Further to Damian's post, BruceR hard at it at Flit--see UPDATE at 2):

1) Congress June report, part 2

More from the June 8 DOD report to Congress on Afghanistan:

If provided the necessary resources, the Afghan National Army (ANA) will reach its currently-authorized end-strength of 134,000 personnel by December 2011. As part of this acceleration plan, eight infantry kandaks (battalions) are being fielded in 2009 as security force kandaks. Shortages of training personnel
for the ANA persist. The United States has fielded 1,665 of the 3,313 personnel required for Embedded Training Teams for ANA. Fifty-two ISAF Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams provide the equivalent of another 799 personnel.

Canada provides something over 100 of those 799. Note that the current mentoring shortfall (849 personnel) is larger than the entire NATO/ISAF contribution. Put another way:

NATO has committed to providing 103 OMLTs by the time the ANA reaches 134,000 personnel in 2011. As of April 2009, there were a total of 53 OMLTs out of the current requirement of 65 OMLTs.

Canada currently provides ~6 of those 53 teams, which under current policy will be leaving with the rest of Canada's forces in 2011, at the same time NATO is trying to find 50 more on top of that. More on the security force kandaks in the next post.

2) Congress June report, part 3

More:

CSTC-A has requested $589 million in supplemental funds in order to build the first eight kandaks of the new force structure in FY 2009. Because of the limited amount of equipment immediately available for accelerated fielding, these kandaks will initially receive only 40 percent of the standard infantry kandak transport capabilities. The new kandaks will be used to provide security along the Ring Road.

One could be excused for wondering whether forces who only have trucks for 40% of their personnel are going to be very successful when assigned a primary task of road patrol. But, TIA.

UPDATE, July 10: The new 1230 Report (the biannual report by the U.S. Department of Defense to Congress on Afghanistan) linked in this and the two posts below was briefly pulled from the DOD site yesterday, after initially being put up on July 8, and has been now replaced with a new PDF version. No significant changes, at least to the sections I was excerpting, so after briefly pulling these posts overnight until it was clear what was going on here, they're now going back up with the correct link.

Related earlier post. More on CSTC-A from last month:

...Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan is not under ISAF, it's under Gen. McChrystal in his other hat as commander of US Forces - Afghanistan, reporting to Gen. Petraeus at US Central Command (see Update here for a Canadian angle to CSCT-A). So is the NATO training mission now effectively under CENTCOM and not NATO HQ? Still unity of command confusion though things seem to be shaking out bit by bit...

And excerpts of what BruceR has to say about the coming scale of operations in another post:

New report to Congress on Afstan

Link to the June "1230" report here. Of note:

Military deaths, including international and Afghan security forces personnel, increased by 68 percent [over last winter]. The increased level of violence outside of the usual “fighting season” was due in part to an ISAF decision to deny insurgents respite and to aggressively pursue them in their winter enclaves.
Unseasonably warm conditions also facilitated higher levels of insurgent activity during the late winter and early spring.

Interesting how the increased tempo is attributed to intent on the West's part, and exogenous factors (weather) on the insurgents' part. I'd respectfully suggest we may not be the only ones here who have intentions, plans, etc...

The good news...is that we're getting much better at neutralizing IEDs and killing the IED-layers, so while it's true one might reasonably expect to see increased attacks this summer, a reasonable forecast would be that we'll see only comparable levels of Western and ANA casualties to the year before, at least when looked at on a country-wide basis, meaning the insurgents are having to work harder to achieve the same direct military effect in some ways. That's not the only metric either side cares about, of course, but it's not nothing if you're deployed there.

"Afghanistan: armoured-up"

Conference of Defence Associations' media round-up--excerpts:

...
Sean Maloney responds to a recent National Post article criticizing Canadian troops’ withdrawal from Strongpoint Mushan. The NP article is also linked below.
http://www.rmcclub.ca/everitaswp/?p=11755
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1737628

Brian Stewart for CBC reflects on the international presence in Afghanistan and its shortcomings.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/07/09/f-vp-stewart.html ...

Michael Yon for the Washington Times writes on the lack of development and economic opportunity in Afghanistan’s Ghor province.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/09/girl-with-no-future/

The Carnegie Endowment has released a report by Gilles Dorronsoro entitled, “The Taliban’s Winning Strategy in Afghanistan.”
http://carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=23331

The BBC reports on comments by UK defence secretary on British casualties in Afghanistan. Michael Evans for the Times reports on recent British casualties.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8139662.stm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6650770.ece

Der Spiegel reports on the German government changing the rules of engagement for its troops in Afghanistan [emphasis added, more on Germans]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,635192,00.html ...

Reuters reports on the Chinese starting work on the Aynak copper mine in Logar province.
http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idAFISL48779720090709 ...

"New Combined Air Operations Centre Up and Running"

Air Force story (via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):

Lieutenant-General Marcel Duval, Commander 1 Canadian Air Division / Canadian NORAD Region, officially opened the new Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in a small ceremony July 9th at 1 Canadian Air Division / Canadian NORAD Region Headquarters in Winnipeg.

LGen Angus Watt, Chief of the Air Staff, presided over the ceremony.

"The Combined Air Operations Centre has been an undertaking with special significance for me," said LGen Duval. "It is now a fully functioning, state-of-the-art facility that will better integrate Canada's air operations with those of our international partners and allies."

"The greatest benefit of this transformation comes with the technology and personnel incorporated in this new operations facility," said Colonel Michel Latouche, CAOC director. "It will enable the commander to monitor, communicate with and direct all aerospace forces under his command and enable the delivery of air capabilities in an efficient and effective manner."

The CAOC will provide operational-level command and control of air and space for Commander 1 Canadian Air Division / Canadian NORAD Region, who is also the Canadian Combined Forces Air Component Commander (CFACC). It is the focal point for planning, directing and assessing air and space operations. It is uniquely structured to meet Canadian Forces' requirements to deliver effects to various commanders in support of strategic, operational and tactical objectives across a full spectrum of operations including domestic and international disaster response, search and rescue, evacuation operations, air mobility operations and NORAD operations.

Brit outrage over government's handling of forces in Afstan

There's been a lot more like this recently in the British media (see Defence of the Realm):

Afghanistan: Who is going to stand up and fight for Britain's short-changed soldiers
Nick Clegg is right to break the all-party consensus on the Afghan campaign, says Con Coughlin

It says a great deal about the parlous state of political leadership in this country that it should fall to Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, to articulate the mounting anger and frustration our Armed Forces feel about the Government's disastrous handling of the military campaign in Afghanistan...

the Lib Dems are...Britain's most accomplished political opportunists. In normal circumstances, one might expect criticism of the Government's handling of a major military operation overseas to be dominated by the main political parties. But the failure of both Labour and the Conservatives to address the glaring shortcomings in our Afghan campaign has left the field wide open for Mr Clegg to take centre stage. And, for once, the Lib Dem leader's blatant act of opportunism in breaking with the cross-party consensus on Afghanistan is utterly justified. By highlighting the Government's failure to provide our troops with the equipment and force levels they require to succeed in Afghanistan, Mr Clegg is merely stating the widely held view within the military that this Government is guilty of the most shameful betrayal of the covenant between the nation and the Armed Forces.

When Tony Blair announced in 2006 that Britain would take a leading role in the Nato mission to rebuild Afghanistan, and stop it becoming a safe haven for drug barons and Islamist terrorists, he promised to give British forces everything they needed. Three years later, and with the death toll rising by the day, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Government has failed to provide the armoured vehicles and helicopters necessary to protect our forces from the Taliban's deadly roadside bombs. Even worse, it is now refusing – on cost grounds – to send the additional 2,500 troops senior commanders say are essential for the mission to succeed. As a result of Gordon Brown's parsimony, the British forces in Helmand find themselves in the humiliating position of being bailed out by the Americans.

The facts concerning the Government's abdication of its fundamental duty of care to our Servicemen and women – to give them the best possible chance of avoiding death or serious injury – are well known throughout the political establishment. And yet, until Mr Clegg's long-overdue intervention, the criticism had been muted, to say the least...

I think it fair to say that our government has done rather a better job meeting the CF's needs in Afstan (e.g. see here, here and here--though it took the Manley panel to get helicopters and UAVs. And we simply do not have more soldiers to send (even if the government wanted to, which it manifestly does not).

Afstan: Just so you know

Further to the posts here and here, the latest:

Afghanistan revises controversial marriage law

Bits & bites

Some scattered commentary:

• We'll obviously have to wait for the final results of the flight safety investigation, but if the preliminary scuttlebutt is accurate, I'm actually reassured. As I said in a Facebook comment:
  
  

  I hope this isn't a mechanical failure, although that's entirely possible. As the army has discovered, the talcum-powder grit makes for extremely rigorous maintenance requirements - way more than we're used to. I suspect it was a pilot becoming disoriented in a dust-ball on take-off - although that's just a wild-assed guess on my part. If that's the case, though, the fix is simply about better training and situational awareness.

  
  
  That might not have been the best phrasing, but what I was getting at was that a training fix is easier to push through at this point than a major equipment purchase.


• This G&M editorial is mostly on target, but it goes too far in its praise for the Conservatives in power:
  
  

  The allotment of $5-billion for armoured vehicles now clearly demonstrates the government's commitment to rebuilding the Armed Forces.
  
  ...
  
  Canada arrived in Afghanistan without the required protection or equipment, and soldiers paid the price for that in blood. Soldiers accept unlimited liability. In turn it is the government's responsibility to give them the equipment they need. The Conservative government has done just that.

  
  
  Look, I'm as happy as the next guy - belay that, I'm far happier than the next guy - that the Family of Land Combat Vehicles (FLCV) projects are being funded. Kudos to those politicians who made that decision.
  
  But one funding announcement for the Army doesn't mean the Conservatives are committed to rebuilding the CF. They're making progress, to be sure, but there are miles to go before we rest on this one, folks.
  
  The biggest problem is personnel - not recruiting, but retention and training. And even the Conservatives have had to scale back their modest expectations on that front and accept that today's government must pay the price for bad decisions made by previous governments.
  
  Even on the equipment side, though, which is the easiest to fix (throw enough money at an equipment problem, and just about every one will quickly disappear), this government has a mixed record.
  
  Like it or not, the biggest equipment priority is the navy, not the army. We need ships built yesterday: replenishment, transport (and not both in one Frankenstein's monster of a platform, please! Yes, I'm looking at you, JSS), destroyers, subs that work (under the arctic ice, preferably), a plan to replace the frigates, a proper plan to deal with coastal patrol...the list goes on. And the longer we delay, the tougher our dilemma.
  
  The Conservatives are doing better than the Liberals did, I'll give them that. But you won't find me throwing laurel wreaths at them the way the G&M did.


• I'm all for getting a better grip on mental health issues, and especially suicide in the CF. But the spin in this TorStar story bothers me:
  
  

  The defence department is overhauling the way it tracks military suicides to give a more accurate – and likely darker – accounting of the mental toll Canadian soldiers are suffering, the Toronto Star has learned.
  
  The project, to be completed by next spring, will record the self-inflicted deaths of former soldiers and reservists going back to 1972. Up to now, only the suicides of actively serving, full-time soldiers have been registered, and the military has prided itself for having a suicide rate below that of the larger Canadian population.
  
  But adding tens of thousands of new death records into the mix will likely inflate that proportion by including soldiers deployed in the Korean War and conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and Africa, as well as Afghanistan.
  
  Many of those who have killed themselves will have been released from the military for reasons of mental health, substance abuse or misconduct, and may have gone on to a lonely end far from the view of the defence department.

  
  
  Save me the "oh, the military is intentionally downplaying its stats" slant. How many employers track the mental health of those who have left the organization?
  
  And while I'm at it, save me the "new and dangerous class of offender" crap too. Our mental health system was far, FAR less developed in WWII and Korea, and a far, FAR greater proportion of the population fought and were traumatized during those conflicts. We didn't see the societal fabric of Canada unravel during the late forties and fifties, did we?
  
  Pay attention to mental health? By all means. Blow problems out of proportion? No thank you, TorStar.

Canadian, American Wounded Warriors Fish & Heal in NW Ontario

Blatantly parochial plug warning (I'm from and live in Thunder Bay)....

A group of wounded Canadian and American servicemen will be visiting northwestern Ontario (again) this summer to do some fishing, enjoy some beautiful scenery and, perhaps, heal a bit by just being able to hang out with others who've been where they've been and who are going where they're going.

Kudos to all involved in pulling this together.

Inadvertent disclosure?

You'll note Mark's post entitled "More on ANSF training problems/Future scale of operations" is no longer up. I'll let BruceR at Flit explain why:

UPDATE: The new 1230 report to Congress linked in this and the two posts below has been pulled from the DOD site today, after being put up yesterday. MTF, I'm sure, but until I know it's been made public (as it's supposed to be, in some form) I'll have to pull all the excerpts. The previous report, from January, is here, in case you're curious, and says many of the same things about security, current ANSF weakness, and shortages of Western mentor teams.

Better safe than sorry.

Fatal Griffon crash in Zabul province

It looks, sadly, as if this may have been an "ordinary" accident in the field in difficult circumstances (such things happen on, say, exercises too):

Death in an Afghanistan dust cloud
Blinded pilots veered into wall during liftoff, killing 2 Canadian soldiers, British officer


CPL. PATRICIA PRÉVOST, DND HO/THE CANADIAN PRESS PHOTOS

A helicopter crash possibly caused by mechanical failure claimed Master Cpl. Patrice Audet, left, and Cpl. Martin Joannette July 6, 2009, raising the country's death toll from the Afghan mission to 124. Three other Canadians were hurt.

A helicopter crash in Afghanistan that killed three soldiers, two of them Canadian, apparently occurred when the chopper clipped a security wall while trying to manoeuvre in a blinding cloud of dust, The Canadian Press has learned.

Sources familiar with the tragedy said the Griffon C-146 smashed to the ground and burst into flames.

The crash Monday killed Master Cpl. Pat Audet, 38, of Montreal, a flight engineer, and Cpl. Martin Joannette, 25, a gunner from St-Calixte, Que. A British soldier, Capt. Ben Babington-Browne, 27, of the Royal Engineers, was also killed.

Three other Canadians aboard were hurt, one seriously.

It is common in parched southern Afghanistan for helicopters landing or departing at operating bases to become engulfed in the dust whipped up by their rotors.

With a second Griffon in the air nearby, the pilot lifted off and struggled to orient the helicopter in the whirled-up dust storm compounded by gusty conditions that cut visibility essentially to zero, the sources said.

The helicopter veered too close to the reinforced security perimeter, which is designed to ward off suicide bombers and direct fire from insurgents.

Military authorities have declined to talk officially about the circumstances of the crash as an Air Wing investigation has been launched. They will only say publicly that enemy action had been ruled out, despite Taliban claims of having shot down the craft.

The sources said the chopper that was already aloft may have contributed to the adverse conditions surrounding the crash, and that the formal probe may yet uncover other factors.

The two pilots in the downed chopper survived. Canadian military rules bar publication of the names of deployed flight crew.

The two choppers, part of Canadian Helicopter Force Afghanistan based at Kandahar Airfield [more here and here], had flown to a remote American forward operating base in the Tarnak va Jaldak district of southwest Zabul province, about 80 kilometres northeast of Kandahar city.

The flight ranging just outside Canada's normal area of operations in Kandahar province was to pick up the British engineer.

Under normal operating protocols – essentially for reasons of security – the Griffons fly in pairs, allowing them to keep an eye on each other. The crews depend heavily on sight to know where the other is at any given moment, and the flying itself also relies on visual orientation...

Cpl. Joannette of the Army is an example of the jointness in CF operations in Afstan--more here and here. Meanwhile a typical CBC effort:

Military/Afghanistan

Griffon Chopper Questions

July 7, 2009 (Runs 2:11)

Lynne Robson reports on questions surrounding the use of CH-146 Griffon helicopters in Afghanistan, after one crashed July 6, killing two Canadian soldiers.

play video

Not that I'd call the Griffon "a superior helicopter" for the mission as MND MacKay does near the end of the clip (see this April 2008 post of Babbling's and this post on the upgrades done on the aircraft). Here's a post by Babbling after a flight on a Griffon in Afstan this January.

Update: CP video of choppers in Afstan and dust.

US Marine realities in Helmand

Further to this post, more from BruceR at Flit:

Tomorrow's essential Afghan reading, early

Didn't want to wait until tomorrow. This is spot-on analysis, by Australian MGen (retd.) Jim Molan. I think it goes a long way toward explaining the odd remarks on the lack of ANSF in the NYT (post below):

There is unlikely to be anything like a decisive result out of this operation, even in the local area in the short term. Marine commanders will talk up the operation because that is what you do, and the media, Congress and commentators will project their own hopes and desires onto the operation, and then castigate the Marines for not meeting them.

Molan, Chief of Operations (ChOps) for Multinational Force-Iraq in 2004-05, has some more good stuff below the fold.

With 4000 deployed troops from this 11,000-strong Marine force, relatively few small outposts can be established because each outpost must be big enough to protect itself against initial attack, and must be backed up by quick reaction forces held in reserve. So even if this operation goes perfectly it will merely establish small groups of Marines in a number of local areas. This is the right first step. It then requires the re-establishment of local governance, which will take years, and the replacement of the Marines with Afghan troops and police...

The other side of locating Marines in many local villages to help establish governance, control and protection is that this Marine force is now tied down in that area for (probably) some years to come. If there were adequate coalition troops in Afghanistan this would not be a problem. Given there is only one-third to one-half the number of capable troops needed in Afghanistan, this is a big problem indeed. And the area in which they are tied down is relatively close to the Pakistan border and (it is assumed) to larger numbers of Taliban forces. An even greater reliance on air power may be the result.

Once again, non-military agencies have failed to support the US military’s actions. Talk in the Obama strategy about diplomacy, aid, governance, policing, agriculture and local infrastructure has come to nought because none of the people have been made available by their agencies. The US military might be at war, but the rest of the US and the US government certainly is not. The troops will have to do it all, probably until at least the end of this year. The two constants of modern military operations (Australia included) are the failure of our societies to ever provide enough troops initially, and the failure of our governments to provide non-military (interagency) personnel.

The pitiful lack of Afghan troops involved in KHANJAR (4000 Marines deployed but only about 650 Afghan troops) indicates that the hope of producing an Afghan force numerous and capable enough to take over counterinsurgency from the coalition is five to ten years away. Most of the Marines won't have nearby Afghan troops to provide them with local knowledge.

The nature of this operation indicates that regardless of what Obama’s strategy might say, the US is still in a holding strategy. Petraeus knows this better than anyone and as much said so at recent House Armed Services Committee hearings...

Update: From The Economist (nice map-- note the Danes, see 2) here):

...

The operations have two main aims: to enlarge and merge the patches of territory controlled by NATO along the “green zone” (the ribbon of irrigated land alongside the Helmand river and its tributaries) and to interdict the flow of Taliban fighters and weapons through the desert from Pakistan. The marines are pushing into insurgent-held areas in the districts of Nawa and Garmser (see map). They have also struck deep in the south to build a new base in the town of Khanishin, from where marines will try to disrupt Taliban supply routes. On July 8th the Afghan flag was raised over the town’s 18th-century fort.

General Stanley McChrystal, the overall American commander, said his force may soon assault Marja, a well defended stronghold of the Taliban and drug smugglers. The Taliban said their own response, Operation Foladi Jal (Iron Net), would avoid frontal battles but would teach the marines “a lesson” through roadside bombs and ambushes...

The biggest change under General McChrystal is the instruction to reduce civilian casualties. A “tactical directive”, issued at the start of Thrust of the Sword, says that winning the support of the Afghans overrides all else. “We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories—but suffering strategic defeats—by causing civilian casualties or excessive damage and thus alienating the people,” he says. This may increase the danger to troops; but the greater risk is to push Afghans into the arms of the Taliban.

A classified passage sets out how air strikes will be curtailed. But on the ground, his officials say, the share of firefights involving close air support has already fallen from 35% to 17% in the past month [emphasis added]. During the summer of 2007 an average of 22 tonnes of ordnance was dropped on Helmand every month...