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Afghanistan Strategy -- Would Over-the-Horizon work Better for USA?

• Over the past two weeks I have proposed the Over-the-Horizon strategy as a possible alternative to Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan. I have gotten back several comments that are abusive and borderline moronic, so it's time to clear the air. Most recently the response has been "Air power does not win wars and that's a military fact". I can't tell if the speaker is too stupid to know what I'm suggesting, or if he's just refusing to address my suggestion for reasons of his own. I am not suggesting winning a war by air power alone. Winning a war, for the last 6000 years of recorded history, has always involved clearing and holding ground. There is no such thing as winning a war without occupying and conquering territory on the ground. Air power in Afghanistan will not cause USA to occupy or conquer or hold territory on the ground there. What it can do is make it impossible for any activity in Afghansitan to constitute a threat that could affect US citizens living in USA. This would include but not be limited to: Development of an explosive device Development of a poison device Development of an EMP device What about box cutters? Could person A and person B have a conversation in a cave in Afghanistan about using box cutters to highjack planes and crash them into buildings? Yes they could, but they could do that just as easily in an apartment in Germany (which is where they did it before 9/11). If there were a massive conspiracy involving several dozen people, it would cause some traces above ground, and be subject to vaporization by Predator strike. But just person A whispering to person B in a cave would not be visible to an Over-the-Horizon strategy. But Afghanistan would be an extremely inconvenient place to hold such a conversation, given the many alternatives, where food, water, power, roads, and sewer facilities are available. Some people just cannot imagine a military activity that does not amount to a war of ground conquest doing any good at all. But their imaginations have been shrivelled. They are suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome. They have been in the hands of senior military leaders for so long that now they can only see things as the leaders see them. So if the leaders want Counter-Insurgency and a war of ground conquest, then no other alternative is even imaginable. (It's like Patty Hearst -- Stockholm Syndrome -- the imagination has been truncated, sawed off, Munchkinized). There's a rice bowl issue that affects the whole chain of command from Gates, down through Petraeus, and down through McChrystal, and of course down to the grunts in the field. If we go to Over-the-Horizon, then Afghanistan becomes an Air Force show, and the 70,000 soldiers and marines over there can just come home, with their arms, legs, eyes and minds intact. We can cut our expenditure from $300 billion per year down to about $50 billion per year. If we operate exclusively from behind the wire at Bagram and from the Fleet, we only need 5000 people at Bagram and 15,000 people in the fleet to do the job in the theatre. Another 20,000 would be needed at NRO, Space Command, NSA, and Battle Mountain, but they would all be statestide out of harm's way. Whack-a-Mole over the horizon strategy puts fire and steel on the target. It does not conquer territory. It does not dig wells, build schools, hospitals, roads, sewers, or offices. It does not win hearts and minds, It does not build nations. It does not protect Ali from Baba or Baba from Ali. That's how we save 5/6ths of the cash we are stuffing down the Afghanistan Rathole. It does deliver surgical dis-able-ment of any military activity that could possibly affect US citizens living in USA. It adds a lot to the American authentic genuine national security interest of Americans living in America. It's not very cosmopolitan, or politically correct, or internationalist, or globalist. It's lean, it's mean, and it gets the crux of the job done with no frills. The Pentagon of course is allergic to this idea. I just want to clear the air from the abusive comments posted by misguided Munchkins with Stockhom Syndrome who have posted here in response to my suggestion. I am a retired Naval Officer, decorated, with service overseas. I am not a liberal, or a naive person who fails to comprehend the limits of air power. I've been a strategist since 1969, working in various Agencies in DC and for the Pentagon.

• Answer:

  Good thinking, but it misunderstands the enemy's game plan and our own weaknesses. We are great at the actual whacking of the mole. Putting lead (or a JDAM) on target is easy stuff, tactically. But running sources, cracking cells, developing targeting lists and raid packages...these are the hard parts. And without men on the ground, occupying an area, you cannot do these tasks. Without these tasks, we don't know which 'mole' to 'whack.' OTH cannot work because without an occupying ground force, intelligence collection is severely hamstrung. Aerial and signals intelligence gets you little without men on the ground. Again, potent analysis. You are asking the right question: how to we achieve our policy in a place where there is no nation to build? Keep at it!