Why does it take our military years to finally discover that force alone won't defeat an insurgency?

Question

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070830/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan_taliban;_ylt=Akt2eruJ1Xf7rJS6CksU_vus0NUE

Answer 1

Poor leadership.

Answer 2

I don't think the military planners predicted a large long lasting insurgency. It's been know since practically the dawn of ancient warfare that an insurgency can almost never be defeated unless you wipe out or enslave the insurgent population. If you give the insurgent population blanket freedoms, some will take up arms, some won't and then you don't know who to protect or attack.

Answer 3

There are a lot of great answers here. Put them together, and we would have a real solution.
1. Let the military run the war, not the politicians. Everything since WW II proves this.
2. Keep the darn media out of it. They print half truths and are always looking for someone to burn.

These two things would bring success to this war, and would have brought us better outcomes with the war in Nam, Korea, and all of the little "police actions."

If you want to win the "War on Terror," then I will tell you how to do it. I'll probably get a lot of thumbs down for it, but here it is.
First, have congress declare war on terrorist.
Second, have the President of the United States explain that we will use whatever means to hunt down and destroy terrorists. If the world does not like our method of doing things, then those countries need to remove their terrorist training camps from their backyard.
Third, Everytime we have reason to believe there is a terrorist, a training/recruiting camp, or a warehouse with military supplies destined to delivery to the terrorist, we take it/them out. If innnocent civilians die, so be it. War is hell for more then one reason. 50 million people died in WW II. Most of these people were not soldiers.

Understand, I believe in peace. But, terrorists are nothing but coldblooded cowardly murderers who kill for whatever reason they can create. They are not freedom fighters fighting for a cause. They kill innocent civilians and disrupt the government so they can progress they own agenda.

After declaring war, I would give the world 48 hours to reduce the terrorist activities. At this point, we would sit down and talk about how to bring peace to the world. If they don't want to sit and talk, then they have chosen war.

But, this is all a dream. There is any politicians with the courage or brains to do what is right. They are too worried about their own pocket books, I mean agendas.

Answer 4

You should watch a National Geographic channel special called inside the Green Berets. Its absolutely wonderful. I think they are truely the best fighting force around. Their whole goal in Afg. is to win hearts and minds and they do it the right way. No shock and awe. They engage Taliban forces the destruction occurs and the village leaders realize who the bad guy is. Most of them had beards, it shows they respect the culture there, they actively sought out dialogue with the people.
In one instance they captured a guy that was clearly a spotter who was relaying their movements to the Taliban. Did they torture the guy or send him to Gitmo. No they cuffed him and released him. No torture no beatings etc. Now you know for a fact if the Taliban were the ones capturing he was in for a beating at minimum. He knows it as well. So unless hes a hardened ahole he knows also who the good guys are.
They experience few casualties. If we had enough of these guys and actually stayed in Afg. we would win I feel certain. Unlike Iraq I support the actions in Afg. Not so much because the Taliban are a bunch of fanatics but there were actual terrorists there and training camps.

Answer 5

Insergencies can be defeated by force. It's been 170 years since the Barbary pirates sailed the seas after 30 years of fighting rather than appeasing over 100s of years.

Answer 6

Not sure, how long did it take England to discover they could not defeat our insurgency with force alone?

If the politicians would take their noses out of military buisness this would blow over so much faster, there is too much red tape....Let the people who studied war time stratagies do thier job, and keep the damn media out of real time missions giving the ememy our solider's positions.

Answer 7

Insurgency has been beaten militarily - Malaya in the 50s is a good example

Answer 8

I think we highly underestimated the mentality of these middle eastern countries. They live and breathe death and destruction- they have been warring amongst themselves for centuries and do not really seem to have a real yearning for freedom. They have been beaten down, and there is a definite testosterone issue there. No wonder they used to have eunichs. We are just too civilized to deal with these Dark Ages morons.

Answer 9

It isn't the military's job to figure out what to do.

That is up to the people in Washington. It has taken Dubya years to finally discover that when he spits in the fan it hits him in the face.

Answer 10

Remember, it isn't the military discovering this, it is the politicians. The ones that like to run the war state side.