Afghan surge was never meant for victory.

[antikristuseke]

I'm going to third the question as to how this war can supposedly be won?

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I second this. What do you mean by winning? What will force be "used" for? Are we on our good old genocidal streak again? If so, that surely marks a fine confluence between the recent (anti-)Obama and (anti-/kill-all-)Muslims threads. Hey, the usual suspects for both are already here...

Winning a war means that you are free to dictate your terms to the loosing side.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

I'm going to third the question as to how this war can supposedly be won?

By using all the power in disposal, how can you go to war with one hand behind your back?

[antikristuseke]

Specifics, man, I want more specifics.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Winning a war means that you are free to dictate your terms to the loosing side.

What other side, there is no real homogenous other side to speak of in this case, it is not a war between nation states.

Winning a war means that you are free to dictate your terms to the loosing side.

So who are the people we are supposed to be dictating terms to?

By using all the power in disposal, how can you go to war with one hand behind your back?

You can have both hands free , you can have as many hand as you want, it won't matter, if you cannot hit the opposition it makes no difference.
Since the opposition is so diverse and ever changing its impossible to hit effectively.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Winning a war means that you are free to dictate your terms to the loosing side.

Which would necessarily mean a world war against all Islamic areas. While at the same time being dependent on their oil.

I'm just pointing it out.

Islamic terror (I forgot that I possibly can be sued in Europe over using the term "Islamic terror" over terms of committing a hate crime) has an advantage here. The idea of jihad is nothing else but the understanding of a global conflict indeed.

Becasue we are too civilised to understand this, we are fighting with our hands bound on our backs.

A recent Bundeswehr study from a thinktank of theirs has projected that Germany, and probably other states as well, in the future will reconsider their diplomatic ties with Israel, and losen them, closing ties with the Arab states instread (which already is the case if considering the Islmaophilias of the EU and the submissive behavior towards Islamic bully states like Lybia, Saudi Arabia, and others). I do not like it, but I think that projection is correct.

If Israel is clever, they will base more and more on ties with India, which also helps them against Iran, which for itself is massively supported by China. And since both China and India are rivals, and Iran and Israel are enemies, and since Israel and India have improved trade and diplomatic relations over quite some time now, I think that is the best option they have. The EU will betray them, and it already does - it fosters conditions that help and assist the terrorists, and wages a barely hidden propaganda offensive against Israel. There is a new kind of anti-semtiism rampaging thropughout Europe. Its now called anti-Zionism, but that is just an exchange of labels.

Oh, and the definition of victory. Well, it is a defensive war we need to fight, we are being attacked by violence, confronted by supremacist claims for power, and our homes get invaded both ideologically and demopgraphically - it all are just three different operations running in support of one and the same war objective. Victory in such a situation is achieved if the enemy cannot or does not dare to try that anymore, stays away, does not dare to attack you by terms of terror, and leaves you alone, leaving you to the way you want to live in in your own home countries.

This pointless talking of the often claimed diversity of Islam, is unimportant. Nobody must care wheter or not little Mustafa in that cow village behind the mountains on the other side of the planet thinks this or that way about the Quran, or a carricature in a Western newspaper, for that matter. What is relevant is that Islam speaks with one and the same political authority beyond all Islamic nations and peoples, and that barely ever you hear any complaint of the Islamic global Ummah about it'S own deeds or the deeds conducted in it's name /the name of Islam. There is only one Islam, and all this clever brainsqueezing of ours to invent all those many differences that would need us to always focus on them until we have become unable to act at all becasue our conclusioons are self-paralysing in their difference-rich diversity, is just masochistic pseudointellectual masturbation in order to make us believe in what a clever little Dick we are. In the political effect of it all, Islam is just one big, monolithic block, and that is what it is by understanding of Sharia, Quran and Hadith as well. And ideologically, it is more politics than relgion anyway, and always has been. Relgions are just a tool of motivating the streamlined masses and keep everybody in line. Islam is a political totalitarian ideology and movement before anything else.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Specifics, man, I want more specifics.

Edit:

What other side, there is no real homogenous other side to speak of in this case, it is not a war between nation states.

Taking control of the territory they live, move and operate from.
Control the economy of the area, food production and possible imports.
Isolate the area from outside supply of material and men,
isolate the insurgents from the civilian population.
After that you have tipped the balance on who can take more attrition in your favor.

This has not been done in Afganistan because you have to do it in Pakistan also.
You can win an local insurgency but it will be a limited victory if you dont follow where the cause ideology retreats next.


There really is an other side that is easy to point out.
It is because they are an tribal culture, everything is controlled by tribes and clans and their governing bodies.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Which would necessarily mean a world war against all Islamic areas. While at the same time being dependent on their oil.

I'm just pointing it out.

That would be the stage when all the despots have been replaced by theocrats and conventional war can be sold to the public, hope the west is still standing at that point.


I would like to hear how those not believing in these scenarios see things unfolding?
How will this negative development turn for the postive in the future?

I forgot that I possibly can be sued in Europe over using the term "Islamic terror" over terms of committing a hate crime

Yes Sky, its part of that secret EU plot run by the worlwide conspiracy from the protocols of the elders of mecca with the secret legislation written in invisible ink within the Lisbon treaty.

Taking control of the territory they live, move and operate from.
Control the economy of the area, food production and possible imports.
Isolate the area from outside supply of material and men,
isolate the insurgents from the civilian population.
After that you have tipped the balance on who can take more attrition in your favor.

The coilition can't even take control of the territory of their own bases.
Isolate the area??????Israel cannot even isolate one very small section of heavily defended and reinforced border on flat terrain

This has not been done in Afganistan because you have to do it in Pakistan also.

And all the other neighbouring countries.
Basicly you are suggesting taking over fully a huge area of asia with a massive population and controlling by force every aspect of their lives.
Not to forget that you mention all the other fronts so you are talking about taking over the entire middle east and just about all of africa.
So in essence your idea is for the western world to unite and run the rest of the world as a dictatorial police state in the aim of gaining some increasingly elusive notion of "victory"

[Happy Times]

The area that works as their supply and staging ground can be denied from them, its a political decision to do it.
It isnt every square mile or every border, its a specific area.

And Israel has chosen a strategy of containment, they could eliminate the threat completly if they wanted to.
If Hamas was in the same position they would have "wiped the Jews to the sea".

A local victory in Afganistan is possible in a sense that it can be pacified.

The global ideological struggle is a different story that needs long term strategies, we can discuss containment, intelligence operations, proxy wars and counterinsurgency in case to case basis.

I would like to hear your solutions?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

The area that works as their supply and staging ground can be denied from them, its a political decision to do it.
It isnt every square mile or every border, its a specific area.

Really? Islamic terror is globally networked now, with many states, even thjose considered to be "moderate" and "tourist-friendly" supporting them onely or in the hidden, with money, weapons, intel. Their support basis ranges from Marocco to Indonesia. Som esupporters are more prominent than others, namely Pakistan, but that does not mean the supporting role is limited to Pakistan. Also, the nature of the enemy in Afghanistan is not that one-sided as oyu think. There are the Taliban, yes, but there are also plenty of internal local tribal warbands, clans, etc. Some get supported by Pakistan, others by Iran, and third parties by completely other sides. Do not get mislead by the general impression that the enemy is acting united. Alliances change quickly in Afghanistan, as we know since a very long time.

And Israel has chosen a strategy of containment, they could eliminate the threat completly if they wanted to.

That staement is in total opposition to what even high ranking Israeli military officers and intel commanders are saying. They neither can deal with the Iranian program all by themselves, nor with the diversity of threats they are encircled by. Plus the increasing number of Palestians living in their middle, insaide Israel. The last two wars they fought, they got defeated in, with their enem ies then today being stronger than ever before. The next military clash is just a question of time. I fear that then once again they will fail to acchieve the objectives.

In the long run, Israel to me appears as being undefendable. Their problem is: they have no alternative to just sit there and cling on their land as long as they can.

[quote]A local victory in Afganistan is possible in a sense that it can be pacified.[{quote]

Afghanistan is getting pacified since over 30 years. That may have something to do with that it is a classical warrior clture you try to "pacify".

Don't use Western categories and schemes on non-Wetsern places. In most cases it does not work, and when it does, then it is by random chance only.

The global ideological struggle is a different story that needs long term strategies, we can discuss containment, intelligence operations, proxy wars and counterinsurgency in case to case basis.

No, you are making THE classiv mistake of the West here: to assume that it is a "different story". It is not, but is most vitally linked to every aspect of jihad, and that includes the single act of terrorism as well as migration movements and ideology - it is all diferent featzres of one and the same basic conflict.

This misunderstanding by the West is what gives Islam much of it'S advantages at the current stage of the struggle.

Too much Clausewitz, too much traditonal strategic thinking I read in your thoughts. But this is no symmateric conflict basing on Clausewitz' strategic ideas. Clausewitz does not work with asymmetric wars and clashing civilisations. The old concepts of politic and military conflict strategy are obsolete in this kind of conflict the world sees now.

The area that works as their supply and staging ground can be denied from them, its a political decision to do it.
It isnt every square mile or every border, its a specific area.

Really? and when you deny them one small area they move into the next and then the next then the next then back to the first.

A local victory in Afganistan is possible in a sense that it can be pacified.

I would like to hear your solutions?

I go with the Pentagons solution, the one that was thrown out the window by the US when they decided to play silly buggers instead.
Since the whole basis of a solution depended on a very very short deployment coupled with massive rapid investmement and that small oppertunity was wasted nearly 10 years ago then there is no real solution.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Too much Clausewitz, too much traditonal strategic thinking I read in your thoughts. But this is no symmateric conflict basing on Clausewitz' strategic ideas. Clausewitz does not work with asymmetric wars and clashing civilisations. The old concepts of politic and military conflict strategy are obsolete in this kind of conflict the world sees now.

Well i have read a lot of Clausewitz and Sun Tzu but in asymmetric wars i study a lot of modern studies, Vietnam and especially Israeli experiences.
And not all Israelis see themselfs in the light you portrayed btw.

And when talking only the Afganistan, the denial of the Pahstu tribal area as an sanctruary on both sides of the border is not an impossible mission.
The routes of supply are not that plentiful, they are few in this terrain.
But we can agree to disagree because in the bigger picture it is irrelavant, it has only political and ideological value.
But people need also symbolic acts to keep their morale.

I understand that the local military operations can only deliver local results and that in the long term its about how to tackle the global ideological conflict.
You have to go to the root of the problem but nothing is done because of economical and political reasons.

The worrying point is that we have no factions in the muslim world to ally with, every muslim country is going towards the wrong direction for us and the minimal opposition is dying out.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

I go with the Pentagons solution, the one that was thrown out the window by the US when they decided to play silly buggers instead.
Since the whole basis of a solution depended on a very very short deployment coupled with massive rapid investmement and that small oppertunity was wasted nearly 10 years ago then there is no real solution.

A short deployment and leave behind a big bag of money to fight over?
Ok.
I dont see that working either.

What is your solution to the global rise of Islam?

A short deployment and leave behind a big bag of money to fight over?
Ok.
I dont see that working either.

The plan was to speed the Taliban in their ongoing decline and prevent al-qaida stepping into the gap made by their fall by using the tribes and not upsetting too many locals.

What is your solution to the global rise of Islam?

What global rise?
You swallow too much hype, its basicly the same small groups of pricks scattered round the world shouting nonsense very loudly like they have for hundreds of years while the vast majority of muslims just get on with their lives.