Military Review English Edition May-June 2014 | Page 78

Limited to the tactics, techniques, and procedures within the COIN framework, our military officers did the best they could. The establishment of the combat outpost Restrepo, resulting from a sound tactical terrain analysis of the Korengal Valley, precipitated a dramatic reduction of violence in the valley. Our military leaders have not failed at the operational and tactical levels. Our national leaders who start wars from their Washington, D.C. offices do not use a rigorous framework similar to the joint operational planning process, the military decision-making process, or even “design” to keep them focused. The decision to adopt the COIN framework, pushed heavily by ideologically driven private lobbies and think tanks, resulted in the limitation of military options at the operational level. A study of Afghan and Central Asian history shows that the land of modern-day Afghanistan was repeatedly conquered and settled by successive waves of invaders. Cyrus the Persian conquered Afghanistan in fifth century B.C., settling the area with Farsi-speaking ancestors of today’s Tajiks. Alexander’s Greeks conquered Afghanistan in the third century B.C. They established Bactria, which lasted over three centuries, in an area completely isolated from their European cousins. The White Huns, or Hephthalites, followed the Kushans, who conquered and absorbed the Greeks of Bactria. The Hephthalites are today known as the Abdali tribe of the Pashtuns. The Mongols under Genghis Khan and later under Timur and Babur also conquered and settled this land. The very presence of the Tajik, Pashtun, and Hazara people in Afghanistan shows that outside groups have successfully conquered and integrated themselves into Afghan civilization. Only western armies have failed to fully subdue Afghanistan, beginning with the British and later the Soviets and now the Americans. The successful conquerors of Afghanistan understood and respected the local tribal system of governance. Requiring little more than submission, swearing of fealty, and the payment of reasonable taxes, conquerors such as Cyrus, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Timur, and Babur brought centuries of peace to Afghanistan. Only the West, which tried to dismantle the traditional Central Asian way of life and replace it with utterly foreign, and 76 ultimately dysfunctional types of governance (communism in the 1980s and liberal democracy in 2000s), has failed to provide stable and lasting governance in Afghanistan. The invasion of the Korengal and Weygal valleys represented a microcosm of the overall Afghan campaign. U.S. forces entered numerous …each tribe already has its own legitimate government, its own culture, and a nation it considers its own. areas in Afghanistan trying to displace cultures and systems of governance with a poorl