Doing More with Less
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-11-15-afghan_N.htm
It is really sad that this is still the case in Afghanistan, but at least the press and someone is admitting and recognizing it. The bottom line is this, back in February the Task Force Phoenix mission was asked to take over training, mentoring and leading the Afghan National Police and Border Police in addition to its normal mission of train, mentoring and leading the Afghan National Army. While this sounds great because we are affecting more people, however the Task Force was not increased in size. So to do that much more work without giving the Task Force any more people, means you are not going to be as effective. The formula is this; To do more with less, means you are doing less.
When they took my 13 man team training and embedded with the Afghan Army and made them a 4 man team because they put they put the rest of us with the ANP it was a serious morale buster. What little traction we gained with the ANA was essentially lost when we had to leave them. There was no way that 4 guys could effectively train and lead the ANA in missions. It takes many more people than that to conduct missions safely. At the same time, throwing soldiers at the ANP problem without a well thought out plan and resources means we spent a lot of time doing nothing. That has been almost 8 months and from what I have heard from the front it has not gotten much better. The Task Force is being forced to play the shell game and move people around but not add anyone. So reading this article is not surprising. Until they double the number of troops in the Task Force so they can effectively cover down on both forces (police and army) then they will continue to spin their wheels.
As I always say in the civilian sector, you can either give 100% to one task or 50% to two. It is time for NATO, or someone to pony up and get serious about training these guys, otherwise we will be there for 20 more years rather than the 10 I currently estimate we will be there.
