Defeating Criminal Networks in Afghanistan

During my last year in the military I was involved in an organization whose purpose was to attack enemy roadside bomb (IED) networks, defeat the IED devices, and train the force to prepare them for the IED environment.

Recently, we have seen Marines training with the Los Angeles Police Department on how to engage the population. Also, for a few years we have recruited and deployed former large city police officers to Iraq and Afghanistan to advise commanders on how criminal networks operate. These programs help to teach warriors how criminal networks operate. As the enemy in combat has morphed, so to must our training methods.

For example, the Army’s Law Enforcement Program (LEP) embeds successful police officers and detectives into commanders’ personal advisory teams in combat. At one graduation of LEP students, I shook every hand of the deploying patriots and they ranged from New York City Police Department detectives, to Las Vegas police officers, to LAPD detectives and most places in between. Several had experience dealing with mob networks. Commanders on the ground in combat have come to rely on the picture that the LEP participants paint, providing them and their staff a better understanding of the enemy and the human “terrain” in a particular area of responsibility.

Defeating enemy networks during counterinsurgency operations requires a full range of skills sets from squad fire and maneuver to intelligence preparation of the battlefield at the lowest levels. Throughout the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan one of the immutable truths that Soldiers and Marines on the ground have discovered is that the more you interact with the population the better your intelligence. Likewise, there are additional benefits of close interaction with the population. The indigenous population gets to see first hand, not through some propaganda filter, how caring and compassionate our warriors can be. At the end of the day our men and women in uniform need to be, and are, ruthless combatants, but their belief in the mission and values as Americans also makes them incredibly compassionate toward the population.

Similarly, interaction with the populace tends to transform the “combat zone” into “their country,” a not unimportant distinction. To successfully conduct counterinsurgency operations we must continually respect the traditions and customs of the people, while forever striving to separate the enemy from them so that holding and building operations can commence and succeed.

This is as much art as it is science. Training with police forces or having police advisers is one component of helping warriors develop that intuitive, tactile feel for the population. It gives them street cred and also provides them an additional lens through which to view the population and the country. There are other valuable programs such as the Human Terrain System that trains cultural anthropologists to advise commanders on the ways and means of the citizens within their zones of operation.

While there is no “silver bullet” when it comes to defeating IED networks and winning the counterinsurgency fight, the more creative we can be in training and operating the better our chances of winning the tactical battles of clearing, holding, and building.

If we win those fights, then the strategic issues begin to fall into place.