The Redhunter

GEN. FORMICA: ...CSTC-A is a joint and coalition command under the operational control of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. We have servicemen and -women from all three components, active, Guard and Reserve; from all of the services, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines; and from coalition partners, all supported by a professional civilian workforce.

We have been charged with the responsibility to build the sustainable capacity and capability of the ANA and the ANP, so that they can bring stability and security to the Afghan people.

To build this sustainable capacity and capability, we're looking at three areas. First: to develop systems. We've identified three for our current focus -- personnel management, logistics and financial management.

Second, we must continue to develop the institutional base, the training base, medical, logistics, communications, and the ministries, both the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior.

And third, we want to build the corps of noncommissioned officers in both the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. Our current program builds the ANA to a size of 134,000, accelerated to December of 2011, and reforms the ANP at a size of 82,000. Our approach is to sustain the momentum that has been established with the growth and development of the ANA while we add focus to the ANP. Last year, the ANA expanded its capacity by just over 22,000 soldiers, and it's on track to achieve 134,000 in 2011....

Before I close, I'll comment briefly on the president's recent announcement concerning the strategic review in Afghanistan. With his announcement, the president has reaffirmed our commitment to accelerate the growth of the Afghan National Army to 134,000 and to accelerate the reform of the Afghan National Police force at 82,000.

The decision to send 4,000 U.S. trainers is a demonstrable and significant commitment to the development of the Afghan national security forces. And when coupled with the arrival of the additional U.S. forces, which will have embedded mentor responsibilities, and the provision of Operational Mentor Liaison Teams and police mentor teams by our coalition partners, we will be able to meet the established training requirements for the current year for the first time. And the president has clearly left the door open for potential growth of the Afghan national security forces as we move towards the eventual transfer of security responsibility to the Afghans.

The key to winning a counterinsurgency war is to establish the government as legitimate in the eyes of the people. One way this is done is to train and equip national security forces so that they can protect the people themselves while being relatively free of corruption and human rights abuses. It is generally acceptable for foreign forces to do some or most of the fighting at first, but as time goes on the people want their own military to do the job.

Note that this is not Tom the Redhunter talking, but is straight out of then-Lt. Gen Petraeus' U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24, published in December of 2006. If you're not familiar, FM 3-24 provided the theoretical basis for the change in strategy that accompanied the increase in troop levels (5 additional brigades) in Iraq.

The progress outlined by Gen. Formica is all very fine, but is the army big enough? Andrew Gray goes to the heart of the matter with the opening question:

Q General, it's Andrew Gray from Reuters.

As you know, in the runup to the announcement of the new strategy, there was discussion about higher figures, higher numbers for both the army and police. Ambassador Holbrooke said those numbers had been kicked around but not quite scrubbed yet.

What's your estimate of how much bigger the forces need to be? How quickly do you need a decision to start preparing to increase the size, beyond the current targets?

GEN. FORMICA: Yeah, thank you for the question.

First, we, as I said in my statement, we're on track to grow the Afghan national army to 134,000 by December 11th. It's important that we continue to progress towards that significant milestone, while at the same time consider the potential for further growth.

So I don't need a decision anytime soon. But obviously the sooner that you have a commitment to grow, if there is going to be one, then we can put programs in place and start allocating funding against it.

We have made an initial assessment of the requirements, to grow the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police. I know lots of numbers have been batted around, upwards of potentially doubling the size of the Afghan national security forces, with growth in both the army and police.

We have provided our initial analysis back to Washington. As you indicate in your question, these have not been fully vetted. Nor have they been scrubbed with our coalition partners. And I think that's the work that's got to continue in the weeks ahead on that point.

And again I'd bring you back to; the president has left that door open. He has acknowledged the need to continue, to grow to 134 and to reform at 82, and acknowledged that we will need to look at the size of the Afghan national security forces, as we get ready to transfer security responsibility.

Q Just to follow up, General, I mean, is that idea of a doubling, is that about right? Is that the kind of ballpark that you've looked at in your initial assessments?

GEN. FORMICA: There's all sorts of numbers floating around out there. We've looked at numbers that come close to nearly doubling, not quite doubling, both the army and the police. But again that was based on our initial assessment. It's not been vetted by the -- in Washington, nor by our coalition partners. It's something that we'll want to completely scrub, with all of those with a stake in this, and to include with the Afghan -- with the MOD and the MOI.

Q (Off mike) -- that would be -- and I understand that this is not a final figure, but it'd be a doubling of the current targets, roughly, the 134 and the 82

GEN. FORMICA: You -- you're -- first you asked me what the rough order was in our analysis, and I agreed that it -- that one of the things we'd -- we had considered in our analysis was nearly doubling. And now you're trying to pin me down to a number, and I won't get pinned.

While I don't blame Gray for asking, I hope he didn't really expect a direct answer. having watched dozens of these briefings from Afghanistan and Iraq, I've learned that commanders never answer questions based on future needs, as the situation are just too fluid. If decisions have not already been taken, they don't comment. Further, such an answer would be above his level of authority, probably only one that could be answered by Secretary of Defense Gates. Andrew Gray being a veteran of many briefings, my guess is he knew this but decided he had nothing to lose by asking anyway.

Later in the briefing another reporter tried:

Q (Ann Tyson with The Washington Post) It's just a clarification on Andrew's question about the doubling issue, because we don't want to get the wrong impression that you somehow could be talking about doubling from the current size, such as 90,000 for the ANA, versus doubling from the 134,000 size. Now, the phraseology was "further growth," so, you know, you don't want us to walk out of here with that big of a misunderstanding.

GEN. FORMICA: Actually, I'd like you to walk out of there without a number at all. You asked the question. What I -- the first answer is, the president has reasserted and reaffirmed the decision to go forward with 134,000 in the Afghan national army, accelerated to 2011, and the reform of the police at 82,000. The question that was posed to me suggested that Ambassador Holbrooke and others had bantered around numbers upwards of doubling. We have, in fact, done some initial analysis. We have looked at the size of the ANA and the ANP. Doubling from the current program is one of the considerations.

But again, that's not been -- as I said before, it's not a vetted number, it's not an improved number, and it may or may not turn out to be the direction we go. But it's been our assessment, and we have provided that analysis back to Washington.

One thing I've noticed is that our commanders are well trained themselves on how to handle these questions and in all the briefings I've watched I've never seen one give up information after being pressed. They all seem to know exactly what they can and cannot say.

There was much of interest, and I encourage everyone to watch the video and read the transcript, as it is important to understand the situation in Afghanistan. But so this doesn't run on too long we'll only cover one more issue

Q And just the quick follow-up was on ethnic breakdown of the security forces. How much is that something you're concerned about? And if you can, talk about what the breakdown is. Are units one particular ethnic group? Are there units that are mixed? And how does that look, going forward?

GEN. FORMICA: Yeah, specific to the Afghan national army, they are recruited nationally and employed nationally, and the units in the Afghan national army are in fact ethnically diverse and representative of about the ethnic population of the country. And so you'll find in any unit, down to battalion and company level, the ethnic mix that's representative of the ethnic population here in Afghanistan. And that's something that's worked very, very hard, even at the ministerial level, to maintain that ethnic diversity.

This is not political correctness at work. Common sense says that your law enforcement has to somewhat at least be representative of the populations they serve. It is not different in Afghanistan than anywhere else. Counterinsurgents straddle the line between law enforcement and traditional military warfare. National forces must be accepted by the populace.

Further, integration, or diversity, in military units I would think would go a long ways towards breaking down barriers. While I'm not expecting overnight miracles, it's all part of a long term effort. It would also seem to me that while organizing units by ethnic breakdown might have short-term benefits it would be counterproductive towards instilling a sense of nationhood in the long run.

As for the how large the Afghan National Army ultimately needs to be, we're just going to have to wait.