Dutch conterinsurgency in Afghanistan

NY Times:

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Insurgency and counterinsurgency tactics have long been subjects of intensive tinkering and debate, as military and police forces from different nations, and even different units within nations, have chosen conflicting approaches.

The Dutch-led force of about 2,000 soldiers has adopted what counterinsurgency theorists call the “oil spot” approach. Under this tactic, it concentrates efforts in less hostile areas, especially a basin around Tarin Kowt, the provincial capital, which overlaps an economic development zone designated by Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president.

The central idea is that if foreign military forces show restraint and respect, and help the local government to govern, then these areas will expand, slowly but persistently, like an oil stain across a shirt. As they grow, the theory says, the Taliban’s standing will decline.

To date, the Dutch, aided by American soldiers and contractors who train Afghan police officers and soldiers, have helped Afghan units to coordinate security and build police posts. Simultaneously, they have sent teams of specialists and Australian engineers to choose development projects and plan them with village leaders. They have built or repaired schools, mosques, police garrisons, courtrooms and a hospital inside the more secure areas. A bridge and a police training center are under construction or in design. They also have opened a trade school that teaches Afghan laborers basic job skills, including carpentry and generator repair.

To encourage expansion of the government’s influence, the Dutch infantry conducts patrols around the secure zones, and reconstruction teams try to identify future projects and allies who can extend the ring of influence. “Inside the inner ring, we try to do a lot of long-lasting development projects,” said Lt. Col. Gert-Jan Kooij, the task force’s operations officer. “It’s not like it is 100 percent safe there. It never is. But it’s permissive at least. And by showing that we have projects in the permissive areas, we hope the people in other areas will see that it gets better when they work with their government.”

Such counterinsurgency tactics are not new; they are only back in vogue, with a new generation of officers drawing lessons from past military operations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, Vietnam and elsewhere.

Similar tactics have reappeared in American units in Iraq, as both the Army and the Marine Corps have been rewriting doctrine along the same lines.

But the Dutch have embraced the theory more fully than most, to the point that most Dutch units now take extraordinary steps to avoid military escalation and risks of damage to property or harm to civilians. (When armored vehicles damaged a grove of mulberry trees, a captain came by the next day to negotiate a compensation payment for the farmers.)

When Dutch units patrol, they usually avoid known hostile zones, which include expansive patches of Uruzgan Province. When a Dutch unit is attacked, it typically withdraws from enemy range. In areas where the Taliban are less prevalent, soldiers do not wear helmets, which the Dutch say makes them more approachable.

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Not everyone is convinced, and some participants openly worry that the formula is out of balance, undermined by too great a reluctance to use force. Large areas of Uruzgan remain Taliban havens. The local government, plagued by corruption, remains so weak that it does not yet have a significant program against soaring poppy production, which helps underwrite the insurgency. One Afghan interpreter who works with the Dutch said their approach was passive.

“The Dutch, if the fight starts, they run inside their vehicles every time,” said the interpreter, who asked that his name be withheld because he risked losing his job. “They say, ‘We came for peace, not to fight.’ And I say, ‘If you don’t fight, you cannot have peace in Afghanistan.’ ”

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They are getting it half right. While sweeps can disrupt the enemy they do not permanently displace them the way the Dutch operation does. But you still have to destroy the enemy, By denying him access to the people and his ability to move to contact in the area and if he attempts to move he must be destroyed. The enemy in a counter insurgency is usually contact adverse too. He will not initiate contact with superior force unless he is cornered. To corner him eventually the oil spot has to spread. You still have to deny the enemy any sanctuary, and that is probably the biggest failure of the Dutch approach.