The Homa Files

Here’s a blog reply that I didn’t want to go unnoticed.

Last week – as an add-on to my remarks on Obama’s Afghan speech, I paraphrased Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

“The U.S. has 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, NATO has about 50,000, and there are supposed to be 300,000 in the Afghan security forces. It’s estimated that there are fewer than 25,000 Talban and Al–Qaeda fighters in the country. With a manpower advantage of almost 20 to 1, shouldn’t we be able to snuff these maggots out?”

A HomaFiles reader provided a very informative answer to the question:

Commenting as an ex-Army officer, you have to be careful with Blitzer’s glib analysis.

First, not all the NATO troops are warfighters – only a small portion are combat effective. The rest are “support” or allied nations providing non-combatants. The tooth-to-tail ratio in modern armies is a lot lower than one might think.

Second, 25,000 enemy fighters is just a “tooth” number- it doesn’t count the undoubtedly numerous locals and Pakistani nationals who provide supply, succor, intelligence, etc. If you want to do a true apples-to-apples comparison of effective numbers, you need to include the “on-demand” support. It is part of fighting an insurgency. The farmer hiding guns or providing water is as an important combat asset as an Army quartermaster.

Third, Blitzer can throw around any overall ratio you want- but in an insurgent fight, a tactical combat, numbers ONLY matter in that specific kill zone. NATO may control the air, communications and supply- but insurgents hold the initiative as to when to give battle. And a shrewd insurgent only gives battle at singular points where he can control the various tactical support ratios. Like crime, insurgency is a tactical problem; war is a strategic one.

There are many more police in Manhattan per violent criminal on any given night. The police have better guns, communication and supplies. But the criminal determines the engagement.

The criminal  finds the place where the police are not. That is why you need more police per active criminal- to achieve parity, provide deterrence, and provide superior back-up forces in case of trouble.

Thanks for the informative reply … very compelling case.

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This entry was posted on June 27, 2011 at 6:26 am and is filed under Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.