Pentagon Quietly Abandoning Large-Scale Counterinsurgency Efforts

McClatchy:

WASHINGTON -- Nearly a decade after the United States began to focus its military training and equipment purchases almost exclusively on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military strategists are quietly shifting gears, saying that large-scale counterinsurgency efforts cost too much and last too long.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[Pandaforum]

01:45 AM on 05/14/2010

it's nice of the media to reveal obama's cut and run strategy to our enemies.

[nanotubz]

10:50 PM on 05/13/2010

The only practical start with the Army is to forcibly retire everyone above full colonel, and then half of those. The present system ensures an over abundance of mediocre minds at the top.

[Pandaforum]

01:47 AM on 05/14/2010

I think I'd like a second opinion. our military is far more competent than our politicians.

[danielet]

04:18 PM on 05/13/2010

DEJA VU!!! Knowing that Kennedy was going to abandon him, South Vietnam's made-in-USA president Diem, secretly negotiated with Hanoi to end war. But JFK thought that losing Vietnam (having just lost Laos) before the Nov.1964 election he won’t be re-elected; so he had Diem assassinated for suing for terms before JFK was ready to sell out South Vietnam. Days before the CIA engineered coup d'etat in November 1963, JFK was praising "our ally" Diem, just like Obama is praising Karzai today. But like JFK, Obama has had enough of all this "Counterinsurgency" BS.

Gen. Petraeus thought he could use Afghan"surge" as his 2012RepublicanPresidentialCampaign, run by his CampaignManager “B.S.” McChrystal of Pat Tillman notoriety. But sneaky old CIAowl, SecDefGates, was all the time preparing for Obama's July 2011 Afghan quitting date by reorganizing military that can’t execute COIN Warfare-- sending-in soldiers intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb to shoot at anything that stirs in the dark-- switching back to using the army to do what an army does best, not what does a police force:

It's all over, Gens. Petraeus, McChrystal and Odierno. Your PINK SLIPS are in the mail, just like for Pentagon generals after we left Vietnam.

[OleProfessor]

02:54 PM on 05/13/2010

Excuse me ( ! ) holes we learned that in Vietnam!

Obama is Bush, With a Brain!

[Countess]

02:18 PM on 05/13/2010

The pentagon is as corrupt as the congress and after every major failure they must come up with a new justification to waste billions using their corrupt procurement system spreading the money around to their favorite contractors for whom they will end up lobbying for once their military careers are over.

[ThePeacemakers]

02:12 PM on 05/13/2010

Uh-oh...the Pentagon is "thinking".

[Jeffin90019]

01:57 PM on 05/13/2010

Meaning: Military leaders have no freaking idea what they're doing, so they're flailing around and trying anything, including throwing more American bodies on a fire started by one deranged American president and perpetuated by another.

[Ascoli]

02:47 PM on 05/13/2010

Unfortunately ........you are so correct

[peowlemeow]

01:57 PM on 05/13/2010

Gonna take their ball and go home.Build some space war crap.

[xpub63]

01:54 PM on 05/13/2010

Isn't it time to just say goodbye

[1differentdrummer]

02:32 PM on 05/13/2010

Yes, can't we declare victory and bug out?

[MSaxe]

01:16 PM on 05/13/2010

And I thought George Bush was elected on a platform against "Nation Building". And his second Defense Secretary is just coming around to embracing a different military strategy now...after promoting surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

How did I get that so wrong?

And

[Roci]

12:48 PM on 05/13/2010

Malcontents like me have been saying since 2001 that Iraq and Afghanistan were not then, are not now, and will never be typical counter-insurgency situations. This is because you are dealing with a different social structure and one element that fundamentally alters the geopolitical landscape. That element is a radicalized religion rather than a radical political philosophy. But what's even more alarming than the somnambulent state of the military "leadership" on this subject is the fact that it's taken us ten years, rather than say ten months, of battlefield experience to begin to consider changes in application, strategy, and budget. We're not learning very much at the top it seems. The troops in the field shine at improvisation, and making due with what they (sometimes haven't) got after some Pentagon pinch penny decides on paper 12000 miles away that the troops don't need something. I know they would hate it, but we ought to grab some of the troops who get shot at, transfer them to the five sided administrative hellhole, and ask them how to fight better using our heads first. Then, we ought to do what they tell us, for a change. But there I go using logic again. I guess it can't ever apply to DoD as long as we print all the money they claim to need. It would be cheaper trying to drop shipping crates of $100 bills on the bad guys, and probably more effective.

[PaHairO]

12:48 PM on 05/13/2010

'Nam much ?
.

So this leaves us "over there" ... for development work ?

At gunpoint ?

[Ozarks]

12:41 PM on 05/13/2010

This was the strategy VP Joe Biden proposed a year ago. The coven class of 74-76 West Point Generals- Petraeus thru McChrystal want to keep Afghanistan as a "General's war" with heavy deployment . They sold this bag of crap to Obama but lets hope he drops it on their head.

[Ron1951]

12:41 PM on 05/13/2010

The only new policy that the U.S. military/government should be considering is getting rid of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and then getting the heck out of both countries. The only nation that we should be building at this time is our own.

[MSaxe]

01:19 PM on 05/13/2010

A couple of questions:

What to you do with their scientists that know how to duplicate them after we destroy them?
What type of force will it take to get "...rid of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal"? A couple of drone strikes?

[totaldisbelief]

11:23 AM on 05/13/2010

you mean they are actually going to stop pouring sand down the rat hole?