FIGHTING INSURGENCY

It was during a trip to Afghanistan when we were briefed in Kandahar by a Flag Officer, who packed up with enthusiasm elaborated about the wisdom of the new strategy about to be implemented. Of course I believed him while challenging in my mind some aspects of that new strategy; well, since I didn´t want to disappoint the warfighter briefer I simply asked a short question…something like: Our nations have a long history of fighting insurgency, so what will it make this new strategy a real success? The reply came as the one of someone who had learned the new gospel by heart: “because it is people focused”.

Progress on the ground is moving forward, capacity and capability building of afghan forces are improving day by day and in particular to those nations who have already announced the withdrawal calendar. Many difficult problems are still extant and yet our governments are eager to pull out forces finishing the commitment with a new “XXI Century vietnamization”

There is something that policy and strategy makers have to bear in mind when planning for Afghanistan future: history shows that population heart and minds can take years -I would say centuries- to change, even if the strategy being implemented is people focused.

Let´s see a short example : media report that “Despite numerous statements by Philippine and U.S. authorities over the past few years highlighting progress in the fight against terrorism, recent events in the southernmost corner of the Philippines (Sulu Archipelago) show that the battle there is far from won”.

That battle there is not a new one. Reading the service record of a Lieutenant  in the Spanish Marine Corps – who, by the way was my grand grand father- I found out that he saw action in 1872 while fighting “moors” insurgents at Parang, in the Sulu Archipelago…about 140 years ago. In that action the moors insurgents were defeated, but they came back again and again and again, today under the Abu Sayyaf banner. Poverty combined with Islamism and separatism is a deadly combination that challenges traditional strategies.  

I wish we have got the right strategy, and a peaceful Afghanistan is within grasp.