More Ups than Downs in Afghan Counterinsurgency Fight

WASHINGTON — A coun­terin­sur­gency cam­paign is a lot like a roller coast­er with many ups and downs, said Army Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez, com­man­der of the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force Joint Com­mand and deputy com­man­der of U.S. Forces Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, Rodriguez said, there have been more ups than downs.

In an inter­view with the “Today Show” yes­ter­day, Rodriguez said the 2014 goal for turn­ing over secu­ri­ty respon­si­bil­i­ty to the Afghan gov­ern­ment is pos­si­ble, and is a “light at the end of the tun­nel” for Amer­i­can servicemembers. 

The gen­er­al stressed that the 2014 date –- endorsed by NATO heads of state at the Lis­bon Sum­mit last week –- will be con­di­tions-based even then. “We’re going to work togeth­er with the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Afghan forces to assume that goal,” he said. 

The gen­er­al told “Today’s” Lester Holt that the Inter­na­tion­al Secu­ri­ty Assis­tance Force com­man­der in Afghanistan, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, had worked close­ly with Afghan leader Pres­i­dent Hamid Karzai and oth­ers in set­ting the date. The ques­tions come to “how we can go for­ward in this and how long it’s going to take and what their objec­tives are and what our goals are,” the gen­er­al said. 

Tac­ti­cal lead­ers –- squad, pla­toon, com­pa­ny and bat­tal­ion com­man­ders –- car­ry the brunt of the coun­terin­sur­gency strat­e­gy, and progress is uneven in an asym­met­ric con­flict like that in Afghanistan, Rodriguez said. 

“We’re hav­ing more ups than downs, and we’re mov­ing in the right direc­tion and mak­ing progress,” he said. “The advan­tage real­ly gets done over that ene­my by the great lead­ers that you have at every lev­el, inno­v­a­tive ser­vice­men and women, and just a tremen­dous think­ing orga­ni­za­tion that learns and gets bet­ter every day.” 

There are more than 130,000 NATO troops -– with about 90,000 Amer­i­cans –- in Afghanistan. U.S. lead­ers say that this is the first time the mis­sion to Afghanistan has been ade­quate­ly resourced. The end-game is to train Afghan police and sol­diers to assume secu­ri­ty respon­si­bil­i­ty. Offi­cials in the Pen­ta­gon and in Kab­ul expect that in the spring announce­ments will be made for areas or provinces that will be turned over to Afghan secu­ri­ty forces. 

At its heart, what will make the coun­terin­sur­gency strat­e­gy suc­cess­ful is that Afghans do not want the Tal­iban back. They remem­ber the repres­sion and ter­ror and do not want a repeat, Rodriguez said. 

“We just have to help them build enough capac­i­ty so that does­n’t hap­pen in the future,” he said. “The entire process that we’re work­ing on –- the tran­si­tion –- is all about irre­versibil­i­ty. And we’re going to pay atten­tion to that every step of the way.” 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →