US Defence Secretary on Counter Insurgency Skills

[rmac]

Robert Gates the US Defence Secretary has made a public statement to the effect that the rest of the NATO forces in Afghanistan lack the counter insurgency skills and experience of US forces there.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah...........:ugh::ugh::ugh ::O

[AdrianDW]

Don't COIN operations getair support then! :rolleyes:

All joking apart AIDU, you're probably right, but don't it just seem rather ironic that the country that got its nose bloodied in vietnam is criticising us for inadequacy?

I'm sure a lot of people - whatever shade of uniform they wore - who fought died in places like malaya, NI etc etc would have an opinion on how to manage counter insurgency operations properly!

Typical Yank *ank!

[brickhistory]

Perhaps, just perhaps, you want to get the story straight.........

http://iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/01/16/asia/OUKWD-UK-USA-AFGHANISTAN-GATES.php


Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Gates was concerned that his remarks were being interpreted as criticism of individual countries, like Britain, Canada and the Netherlands which have forces in Afghanistan's southern region.

Instead he was saying that NATO as a whole was not structured to handle insurgencies, Morrell said.

My emphasis for the second paragraph. Still feel that way?

[minigundiplomat]

Robert Gates the US Defence Secretary


We'll leave you to it then....

[rmac]

Brickhistory

Thats not what he originally said, that was his explanation after he realised that he had fu:mad:ed up.

AIDU

..................................., oh hell, why bother trying trying to explain to you ? if you don't have anything useful to contribute, just don't waste your time, I'm sure you have something very important that you could be doing ?

[West Coast]

Perhaps he was frustrated. Just the same way the Brits and others should be at those who have decided to let other countries shoulder the burden by not participating in combat operations.

[chevvron]

Whatever happened to the OV10A? Brazilians make a good COIN aircraft - Pucara.

[fake wafu]

Whatever happened to the OV10A


Didnt someone park it on the Ho Che Minh highway? He made a rocket pass, and then he busted his ass mm mmm mmm.

The fighters checked right in, good fighters 2 by 2, low on gas and tanker overdue etc etc etc.

[chevvron]

Anyone know what the hell wafu is talking about?

[Brian Abraham]

No, and I bet he doesn't either.

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

''Like minded'', under another nom de prat maybe ?

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

chevvron. You mean like the ones on Srl 41 of http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=306952&page=3 ?

:ok:

[fake wafu]

I cant be the only one who remembers the bar song "Dear Mom your son is d***, he bought the farm today, he parked his OV10 on the HCM highway etc etc" :}

[brickhistory]

Thats not what he originally said, that was his explanation after he realised that he had fued up.

His words (paraphrasing here) were "NATO doesn't do COIN ops because it doesn't train or equip for them."

1. He is fundamentally correct. NATO as an organization doesn't do that. It also wasn't chartered to do that.

2. He put out clarifying remarks after some individual NATO members took offense as did some here on pprune.

3. So he didn't say what you implied and he clarified afterwards just to ensure no one took offense.

And yet he's still wrong. Very conveniant position you take.....

[minigundiplomat]

Vietnam, El Salvador, Somalia, Iraq......

Yep, the yanks have plenty of experience of COIN, plenty of experience on how to F**k it up and walk away having learnt nothing.

[brickhistory]

Vietnam, El Salvador, Somalia, Iraq......

Ok, here we go. Venues for the British team:

Afghanistan (now twice), Oman/Yemen, Malaya (ok, you got that one after 13+ years), NI, Iraq......


Shall we both continue?

[Archimedes]

Actually, Brick, Malaya lasted for less than 13+ years, since the whole Emergency period only lasted for 12. And the last few years of that involved trying to track down a disease-ridden, demoralised and defeated opposition - as a certain gentleman by the name of David Petraeus would tell you.

Oman counts as a victory, unless you're into counter-factual history. Northern Ireland is too early to tell, but as there's no united socialist Ireland it doesn't count as a defeat yet, even with McGuiness and Adams involved in government.

Afghanistan is four times, and the record there is a bit more favourable than you imply. Since Amanullah Khan went from declaring jihad to sueing for an armistice in the space of 5 months in the one before today, we kind of got our way in that one, albeit undertaking an approach that might be regarded as slightly disproportionate.... (and although the Afghans got independence, we got security for India, which was what we wanted).

Now don't get me wrong - you are, IMHO, quite correct that the stereotyped view that the UK is far, far superior to the US at COIN and has 'won' all its campaigns while the US has lost and has failed to learn anything is a gross over-simplification (see Petreaus, Nagl et al) - but if you are going to point that out, might I respectfully suggest that you go for a more precise approach rather than easily-challenged general points?

Cyprus, for instance, didn't work out as well as the government hoped, and nor did Aden (not Yemen). Ireland pre-1922 went badly and there are some examples from that campaign that make the US approach to COIN in S. Vietnam look like operations conducted by the Salvation Army.

As for Secretary Gates, he perhaps should've thought a bit more about what he was going to say - someone on his staff ought to have pointed out that the chances of causing huge offence far, far outweighed the possibility that NATO members would stop, reflect and say 'Yes, we need to do more'. His clarification will be largely ignored (particularly since the view over here is that when a politician 'clarifies' remarks it means 'politician attempts to dig himself out of hole he's fallen in to') - end result, disgruntled allies and no effect against AQ and the Taleban, all of which couldve been avoided.

[brickhistory]

archimedes,

:ok: nicely done

[chevvron]

Come to think of it, didn't the soviets develop a COIN aircraft (NATO codename Frogfoot - think it was Sukhoi design bureau can't remember the number) for COIN use in Afghanistan?

[fake wafu]

chevvron - I thought the Frogfoot was designed as a conventional CAS platform a la A10 rather than specifically tailored to COIN. It is still alive and kicking - currently deployed on Kuznetsov.