The Vital Link Between Leadership and Strategy

OPERATIONAL DESIGN FOR NAD-E-ALI SOUTH, HELMAND, AFGHANISTAN 2011

INTRODUCTION

1.????????The opaque challenges of operating in Afghanistan oblige our operational design to be clear and coherent from the outset.?This document is the conceptual, strategic framework for our tour.?It is not a tactical directive, which will follow in due course, but it provides the intellectual basis for our tactical activity.?It is generic – the detail will come in baseline orders – and neither didactic nor doctrinaire.?It aims to provide a common baseline upon which ingenuity and initiative can flourish and obstacles can be overcome.?It should be read in concert with my recce report, your recce experiences and the various milestones as our thinking has developed over the last year.?I am issuing it early deliberately to give you time to consider it carefully.?

2.????????The challenge ahead of us is enormous; the associated burden of responsibility likewise.?We will carry the responsibility lightly but recognise it absolutely.?Our task is about Afghans.?We will resist our own paradigms and, in concert with Afghan people, the Afghan forces and civilian partners, deliver security that meets Afghan needs.?In order to do so, we will understand and counter the drivers of instability.?We will recognise the inherent Afghan pride, particularly derived through the Pashtunwali code, and always treat Afghans with respect, empathy and dignity.?Our every action will protect the mission, moving the campaign forward and making a difference for the better.?The single moral and logical justification for any damage we suffer is that we sustained it whilst making progress.

3.????????It is a command responsibility that the tenets of this design are understood throughout the combined force.?Its concepts must be reflected in every action on the ground where we must practice what we preach; to do otherwise will cede the initiative to the enemy and damage the campaign.?The temptation under pressure will be to revert to the conventional; we will resist this and remain sympathetic to the environment and mindful of the campaign.?

THE PEOPLE

4.????????The Afghan people come first.?This is about them more than the insurgent, our partners and us.?One characterisation of this is that we protect the people to harm the enemy rather than harm the enemy to protect the people.?The level of violence on our tour will not define its success; the appetite of the people to reject the insurgency and accept the writ of the Afghan government will.?We must convince the people that this government is the best long-term solution.

5.????????The intricacies of the people are more complex than anything with which we are familiar and we must seek fully to decipher this.?We must understand the dynamics by constantly working at our relationships with the people.?We will understand who is who, who needs what, what allegiances exist and what actions create what response.?Achieving this requires us to act in a way that earns the trust of the people.?We must truly respect their culture and custom, empathise with them, interact closely with them and always show them respect.?It will often be difficult to distinguish friend from foe as, amongst the people, it is easy to mistake one for the other.?We must have the self-discipline not to act on the basis of mistaken identity; to do otherwise will lose us the trust of the people, help the enemy and damage the campaign.?We will prevail by appealing to the will of the mass, thereby generating a schism between it and the insurgent.?This is the real opportunity and challenge.?

6.????????The people will determine the outcome.?Winning the popularity contest – for that is what this is – for the people will take consistency, measure, even-handedness, respect, nerve, sympathy and more.?We must remember that the popularity contest is not ours to win; our role is enabling the Afghan government to win it.?We must tread softly, recognising how easily our footfall can compromise the government’s chances of securing that victory.?

THE INSURGENT

7.????????The enemy is complex and covers a myriad of relative evils.?We must be quicker than him and, given his greater knowledge of the operating environment, this will not be easy.?To achieve it we must draw maximum assistance from our Afghan partners and exploit our technological superiority.?Most insurgents are not ideological and we will exploit this opportunity by attacking their strategy rather than forces piecemeal.?We will give all but the irreconcilable a way out that spares blushes; thus we will reduce the number of fighters and fights.?The elders will be central to this.?Some ‘enemy’ elements will respond to information or influence; others may need persuasion or coercion.?We will find the various groups, differentiate between them and act accordingly.?

8.????????Low level tactical engagements favour the enemy because they demonstrate instability and insecurity.?Therefore, they undermine the credibility of the Afghan government.?They further the claims of the insurgent’s perverse brand of security and deter the activities of agencies crucial to Afghanistan’s future.?And however justifiable our kinetic actions, they result in Afghan funerals which generate brothers and cousins bent on revenge.?Thus the cycle of violence continues.?The enemy also invites such engagements, as he understands that the western value placed on the lives of international soldiers outweighs that he places on his own.?Every unnecessary bullet or bomb is therefore counter-productive and we must not resort to violence unless we are certain both that the target is legitimate and that prosecuting it lies in the interests of the campaign.?

9.????????Whilst we will avoid the many playground fights on offer, we will target the real bullies; when we do so, the terms, times and places will be of our choosing.?We will be unpredictable and ingenious.?Afghans respect power, cast their lot with the owner of the biggest stick and must see their government defeating the insurgent.?We must ensure that the irreconcilable insurgent rejects our overtures in fear of his life.?We will hunt him ruthlessly and relentlessly and, once sure of the legitimacy – legally and to the campaign – of the target set, we will bring force to bear upon it.?This application of force in certainty will defeat the enemy without enhancing his cause or increasing his following.?Thus we will remove the vehicle against which he chooses to express himself and steal from him the people’s sympathy which he cannot afford to lose.?When we do use violence, we will magnify its impact on the insurgent by protecting the people above all.?

AFGHANISTAN

10.?????Patience and realism are vital in Afghanistan.?In the interests of the campaign, we must accept frustration and forsake our appetite for tempo and quick solutions.?This is about Afghans and we will respect Afghan timelines and capability limits.?The shura process is crucial but lacks agility and responsiveness.?This is the Afghan way.?Equally, beware a promise undelivered: Afghans ‘hear with their ears and their eyes’ – the deed matters.?We must enable truly Afghan solutions to germinate and develop at a sustainable Afghan pace.?Forcing artificially fast progress and activity will be counter-productive.?We will pick our moments to inject energy with care or our capital will devalue fast.?We must avoid being seduced by the military bravado that flows from our western outlook.?If we succeed in this calibration we will expedite the time when Afghans can take the baton from us; push too hard and we will delay that moment.

AFGHAN FORCES

11.??????We must develop the Afghan forces and set the security conditions to transfer our activities to them.?We have our part to play and we will do so in full.?We will be neither arrogant nor complacent and we will really partner with our Afghan counterparts at all levels. ?The Afghan adage ‘if you sweat for it you protect it’ applies; we will help the Afghan forces to sweat for it, sweating alongside them when appropriate but resisting the temptation to do it all ourselves.?We will live separately (but very closely) from them but plan everything together and operate cheek by jowl.?We must always be culturally sensitive, building trust and understanding.?Inter alia: play cricket, recognise special dates, be patient and always treat the Afghan forces with respect and dignity.?As described above, we will resist the seductive appeal of an operational tempo that is unachievable and unsustainable by those who will secure Afghanistan long after we have gone. Being true to this will take courage and expectation management of our men.?

12.??????Various areas are achieving local transfer in all but name; these places find us close to being in district over watch, providing reassurance and preventing failure.?Placing Afghan forces at the front, we will prevent regression and spread this progress.?Equally, transfer will be carefully controlled and unheralded: to do otherwise risks providing the insurgent with a cause célèbre against which to express himself and also might arouse Afghan sensitivities surrounding their readiness to stand alone and, by extension, the steadfastness of our commitment to them. ??

SOLDIERING

13.??????The quality of our soldiering will define our tour.?Done well, it will win the popularity contest for the people and provide the irreconcilable insurgent with a nightmare.?We will soldier in a way that is more appealing to the people and more unpalatable to the insurgent than either has experienced before.?The quality of our soldiering will also keep us alive. The biggest single ingredient to achieving this level of soldiering is discipline. ?Every member of the force must soldier peerlessly, relentlessly pursuing and rehearsing an unachievable perfection.?We must never set patterns.?Offensive spirit is vital and, inert alia, we will use this to turn the night to our advantage, intimidating the intimidators and dislocating the insurgent by where he finds us in the morning.?We will maintain our discipline always and in every eventuality; there is no place, for example, for feral soldiering because of austere conditions.?High standards will win.

14.??????We must lead peerlessly.?We must be comfortable with change and uncertainty, resisting preciousness or myopia over our role and recognising the wider context.?Things will change and we must lead the force to remain agile and responsive to fleeting opportunities.?We must inspire, sharing risk and hardship but weighing carefully our command location.?We must judge the balance between maintaining situational awareness and inspiring our men on the ground by example.?In General Toolan’s words, ‘lead your men to be hard to kill and never grow tired of doing so’.?We must lead our men to calibrate their use of force appropriately, always operating legally and according to our ten principles and this design.?But we will also delegate through mission command and trust our people because they are superb and we cannot be everywhere; we will encourage them to innovate and be unorthodox.?Their ideas will often be the best.?Embracing risk is fundamental to success; reckless gambling is not.?We will consider, manage and offset risk and escalate its ownership where appropriate.?If you have thought about it and the end justifies the means, I am unlikely to gainsay you but I may wish to carry the risk myself.?We must also consider the combined impact of the risks we are taking which may exceed the sum of the parts.

15.??????To soldier effectively in a protracted counter-insurgency, we must campaign.?We must be humble towards and ready to learn much and quickly from our predecessors who have done a superb job.?The hand-over must be forward led with us laying down as per the existing template and resisting the temptation for sharp tweaks on the tiller.?We will find and feel first, semaphoring minimal change to the people and the insurgent.

CONCLUSION

16.??????We are well prepared and entirely ready.?Please be absolutely confident in yourself and your people.?Consider this operational design carefully and then go and drive your piece of the campaign to success.?Unless something outrageous happens, I will always support the commander or man on the ground who makes difficult decisions in good faith.?

17.??????Good luck.

{Oliver Lee – original signed}