On 2 July, Gen McChrystal released a revised Tactical Directive for the ISAF. There is a somewhat meager press release containing some cuttings here. Abu Muqawama did what ISAF should have done and posted the whole thing on Scribd. Given the fact that population-centric warfare is not just about their population, but also about the domestic population of the COIN force keeping its commitment to the Long War, the walls should have been neatly plastered with this guidance. But oh well, I digress.

So. The guidance.

At 7 pages, it’s short but rather concise and to the point. It kicks off by stating that

ISAF’s mission is to help the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) defeat the insurgency threatening their country. The Afghan people will decide who wins this fight, and we (GIRoA and ISAF) are in a struggle for their support.

Good start, that. The idea of ISAF helping Afghanistan to ‘compete’ against the Taliban to the uncommitted is straight John Boyd, and a very good idea in my opinion.

It identifies attrition math as being erroneous: 10-2=20 - kill two insurgents out of ten, and you get not eight, but twenty or more new ones. This, too, gets the point right. It notes that ISAF will have to change its mindset to be successful, and see the will of the people as its objective. Disrupting militants’ operations will be less effective than pulling the land from under their feet by gaining the support of the uncommitted (that is, the population). It also encourages ownership and commitment to property which ISAF and RoA forces are protecting, which is something I’ve always missed from the rhetoric.

All in all, the priorities of the document are clear - security of the population before shooting insurgents. Population-centric COIN is, in general, a good idea. I’ve got only a few critical observations:

• Too much is going on about tribes/clans, which have been eroded and are archaic, and far too little about families, which of course are intact and far more important. There’s a loose tradition of tribal vendettas, but it’s the family that creates the primary value system people live in. You wouldn’t go shoot up an ISAF base because someone killed a tribesman of yours - but you would if he’d be your brother.
• There’s a lot of talk about legitimacy, and at times it feels like it’s put before function. Legitimacy comes through Stuff Working, and as long as the British have to play air ambulance in Helmand because there is no equivalent service in Afghanistan, the incentives of statehood are far too abstract. What I’d wish ISAF would do is this: make a list of where your government affects you. Strike out taxes &c. that are burdens. You’ll be left with stuff like ambulances, fire service, roads &c. Concentrate on these. That’s where you can compete for the uncommitted, and that’s where the Taliban can’t, ever.
• It’s ignoring counter-force too much for my taste. Sure, not all the bullets in the world will let ISAF shoot its way out of this debacle, but what does that exactly prove? It leaves the ambit of ‘kinetic operations’ (I hate that term with a religious fervor) unclear. Kinetics is not an alternative to population-centric COIN.

But all in all, this is pretty good stuff, and while the merits of the underlying theory on population-centric COIN are at least a matter of some doubt, it deserves a try.