Theo Farrell is Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London.
Frans Osinga is an Air Commodore in the Royal Netherlands Air Force and a Professor at the Royal Netherlands Defence Academy.
James Russell is an Associate Professor at the Naval Post Graduate School, Monterey.

Military Adaptation in Afghanistan

By Theo Farrell, Frans Osinga, James A. Russell

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 2013 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-8588-4

Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………viiContributors………………………………………………………ixAcronyms………………………………………………………….xi1 Introduction: Military Adaptation in War Theo Farrell……………….12 The Great Game and the Quagmire: Military Adaptation in the British and
Soviet Wars in Afghanistan, 1839–1989 Daniel Moran……………………243 Into the Great Wadi: The United States and the War in Afghanistan James
A. Russell………………………………………………………..514 ISAF and NATO: Campaign Innovation and Organizational Adaptation Sten
Rynning…………………………………………………………..835 Back from the Brink: British Military Adaptation and the Struggle for
Helmand, 2006–2011 Theo Farrell…………………………………….1086 The Military Metier: Second Order Adaptation and the Danish Experience
in Task Force Helmand Mikkel Vedby Rasmussen…………………………1367 Soft Power, the Hard Way: Adaptation by the Netherlands’ Task Force
Uruzgan Martijn Kitzen, Sebastiaan Rietjens, and Frans Osinga………….1598 Mission Command Without a Mission: German Military Adaptation in
Afghanistan Thomas Rid and Martin Zapfe……………………………..1929 Canadian Forces in Afghanistan: Minority Government and Generational
Change while under Fire Stephen M. Saideman………………………….21910 Military Adaptation by the Taliban, 2001–2011 Antonio Giustozzi……..24211 Shoulder-to-Shoulder Fighting Different Wars: NATO Advisors and
Military Adaptation in the Afghan National Army, 2001–2011 Adam Grissom…26312 Conclusion: Military Adaptation and the War in Afghanistan Frans
Osinga and James A. Russell…………………………………………288Index…………………………………………………………….329

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Military Adaptation in War

Theo Farrell

The current war in Afghanistan has been ongoing now for almost a decade.How have Western states and militaries adapted to the challenges of this war?The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took charge of the InternationalSecurity Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan in 2003, and graduallyexpanded ISAF out from Kabul to the provinces from 2004 to 2006. Most ofthe European partners in ISAF conceptualized the mission their forces wouldconduct not as war at all, nor even counterinsurgency (COIN), but as a stabilizationand reconstruction, only to find out that in Afghanistan this might actuallyrequire significant combat. How have their armed forces and the politicalleadership reacted? As ISAF expanded into the south and east of Afghanistan,it encountered a far more resistant and capable insurgency than had been anticipated.How did NATO and its member states respond? And as the campaignhas evolved, key operational imperatives have clearly emerged, including militarysupport to the civilian development effort, closer partnering with Afghansecurity forces, and greater military restraint. How have the different militariesin ISAF adapted in response to these imperatives?

History clearly shows that war forces states and their militaries to adapt. Soit has been for the NATO partners in Afghanistan. All have adapted, in variousways and to varying extents, to campaign imperatives and pressures. This bookexplores how they have done so. We explore the extent and processes of militaryadaptation. Most of the cases we examine—Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands,and the United States—have been involved in the fighting in the southand east of Afghanistan. Because of this these states and militaries have faced themost intense operational and strategic pressures to adapt. We also examine thecase of Germany, as a major troop contributing state facing the greatest politicaland cultural constraints, and whose military is deployed on a stabilization missionin the north. Afghanistan has been NATO’s first true test as a global securityorganization, and so we examine how it has adapted to the task. Two other militaryorganizations are also crucial to the story of war and adaptation in Afghanistan—namely,the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the Taliban. NATO’s exitstrategy for this war depends on the ANA’s taking over responsibility for securingAfghanistan. We look at how well the ANA has adapted to the challenges it faces.To complete our picture, we must look at “the other side of the hill,” to see howNATO’s opponents are adapting. Of course, this is not the first time that foreignpowers have intervened in Afghanistan. Thus, we also look at military adaptationin previous campaigns in Afghanistan by the British and Soviet militaries to seewhat specific lessons may be learned from history.

In this book, military adaptation is defined broadly as change to strategy,force generation, and/or military plans and operations, undertaken in response tooperational challenges and campaign pressures. Force generation includes forcelevels, equipment, training, and doctrine. Thus our definition covers adaptationat the strategic level (strategy and the mobilization of resources) and operationallevel (preparations for and conduct of operations).

In most cases, states and militaries may be expected to adapt in order to improvemilitary performance and campaign prospects. But we should recognizethat, in some cases, states may adapt in response to political pressures in waysdesigned to minimize the costs of, or national commitment to, an operation.Equally, militaries may adapt in ways intended to reduce operational risks. Inother words, military adaptation is not always for the betterment of the campaign.Such behavior has been included in our definition of adaptation becauseit reflects the reality of those states that contribute forces to a military coalitionprimarily for political reasons tangentially related to the outcome of the militarycampaign (that is, for reasons of domestic or alliance politics).

This book conceives of military adaptation as occurring at two levels. Atthe strategic level, states adapt when they change strategy, force levels, and/orresources (including acquiring new equipment) for the military campaign. Obviously,states may increase national effort to achieve strategic success, pouringmore troops and resources into the campaign. But equally, as suggested above,states may adapt to a failing campaign by reducing resources or adopting anew strategy. At the operational level, military organizations adapt when theychange how they prepare for, plan, and/or conduct operations. Thus we includeadaptation in military tactics under the broader category of operational adaptation.Under this category adaptation may also cut both ways, and involveaccepting more or less risk in operations, using more or less firepower, relaxingor tightening up rules of engagement, and so forth.

Here I introduce the common analytical framework for this book that isapplied in the case studies. Our framework interrogates the mix of drivers andfactors that has shaped military adaptation in each case. The most common andsignificant driver is operational challenges. Such challenges will be a powerfultrigger of adaptation when they significantly increase risks to friendly forces orthreaten to derail the mission. This should come as no surprise. Technologicalchange is another significant driver, especially in opening up new opportunitiesto response to operational challenges. This too is to be expected. Perhapsmore surprising is the extent to which four other factors—domestic politics, alliancepolitics, strategic culture, and civil-military relations—shape the processof military adaptation, and not always in ways that are helpful to the campaign.The case studies reveal how these factors often interact with operational challengesto shape how a state or military adapts.

At the same time, this book has sought to avoid weighing down our casestudies with theory. All case study chapters follow the analytical framework. Butour case study experts have been asked, first and foremost, to “tell the story” ofmilitary adaptation in their case. In some chapters the narrative focuses moreon strategic than operational adaptation (such as the Canadian case) and viceversa (such as the US case).

In what follows, I begin by discussing the importance of adaptation in war.I then explore the distinction between military innovation and adaptation. Finally,I flesh out the common analytical framework.

WHY MILITARY ADAPTATION MATTERS

War invariably throws up challenges that require states and their militariesto adapt. Indeed, it is virtually impossible for states and militaries to anticipateall of the problems they will face in war, however much they try to do so. Evenwhen states have good intelligence data on enemy intentions and capabilities,and on the social and geographical environment of operations, mistakes arecommonly made when it comes to analyzing this data, digesting the analysis,and devising appropriate responses. Cognitive limitations, organizational politics,military culture, and civil-military relations, may operate individually orcollectively, to pervert timely and accurate strategic assessments. Hence FieldMarshall Helmuth von Moltke’s famous principle that “no plan survives contactwith the enemy.” States may underestimate the scale of the military challengeand accordingly the level of resources that must be committed for campaignsuccess. Militaries may misunderstand the character of the conflict, or may becaught off guard by new technologies or tactics employed by opponents. Thusthe imperative for adaptation is often a product of strategic, technological, ortactical surprise. But it need not be; simple unfamiliarity with the political orbattlefield terrain, one’s allies, or one’s own new technology, may require learningand adaptation on the job.

For example, Britain faced growing pressure for strategic and operationaladaptation in World War I (WW1). Britain was slow to appreciate the needfor general mobilization of the population and economy. It was two years intothe war before the cabinet came around to the view of Field Marshall LordKitchener, the Minister for War, that Britain “must be prepared to put armiesof millions in the field and to maintain them for several years.” It also took theBritish Army about two years to learn how to combine artillery barrages andinfantry assaults effectively to breach the German defensive line.

A more recent example is the British military campaign in Iraq from 2003 to2008. Following the successful US-led invasion of Iraq, Britain was given responsibilityfor securing the country’s second largest city, Basra, and the surroundingprovinces in southeast Iraq. The British military mistook a growing Shia insurgencyfor general lawlessness, and failed to appreciate the determination andgrowing capabilities of Shia militias. Rather than increase its military effort inresponse to this growing threat, Britain continued to follow a phased drawdownof its forces from Iraq. By 2007, Shia militias had seized control of Basra fromthe British, and it was left to the Iraq Army to regain control a year later. Thiswas a clear case of failure to adapt at the operational and strategic level. In fairness,the US military was also slow to recognize and respond to the threat fromthe Shia insurgency. However, the United States did finally adapt at the strategiclevel with a surge of forces, and the US military adapted at the operational levelby developing new counterinsurgency tactics and capabilities.

The above cases, and others from history, underline the importance of militaryadaptation. Simply put, states and militaries that fail to adapt risk defeat inwar, as the British discovered in Basra in 2007–8. In contrast, the United Statesdid adapt its strategy and approach to operations, and turned around a failingcampaign, in 2007–8. Other prominent examples are the fall of France in 1940and Soviet failure in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. In each case, defeat was sufferedat the hands of a less powerful opponent (in material terms). The Frenchlost to a less well equipped German army in 1940 because they were unableto adapt to German blitzkrieg tactics. Similarly, the Soviet Army that invadedAfghanistan was trained and equipped for conventional warfare. As Chapter 2shows, the Soviets were slow in adapting to a far more dynamic guerrilla enemy,and remained wedded to firepower in their approach to counterinsurgency operations.

The above cases also point to the difficulty that states and militaries canhave in adapting when required. The point is that there is nothing natural oreasy about military adaptation, be it at the strategic or operational level. A warstrategy is often underpinned by considerable political and material investment,making it difficult for a state to contemplate changing it. Often, stayingthe course and “doubling-down” make better politics. Furthermore, changingstrategy can send the wrong signal to allies, enemies, and home publics (that ofa failing campaign). In any case, it takes time for strategy to produce militaryand political effects, good or otherwise. This gives states added reason to delay,in order to give war strategy time to work.

Operational level adaptation should be easier because it usually involvessmaller scale change. But the fact is that militaries find change difficult. Organizationsare not designed to change, bound as they are by operating routines,bureaucratic interests, and cultural preferences. Organizations are understandablyreluctant to abandon that which they have invested in and become good at:the concept of the “competency trap” nicely captures this problem. Militaryorganizations are especially disinclined to change, as closed and socially conservativecommunities that, especially in the West, exist apart from the rest ofsociety. Military routines, interests, and culture mutually reinforce an organization’spreferred ways of war. Moreover, when at war, a military has strongincentives to stick with those ways of operating that have been tried and tested,and for which the organization has trained and is equipped: the opportunitycosts of introducing new ways of operating in the midst of war are high, especiallyif the new way does turn out to be not so effective. Where militariesdeploy units on a rotation cycle through operations for a limited duration (as iscommon in Western forces), this can adversely impact operational adaptationinsofar as it hinders the institutionalization of lessons learned.

This explains why learning is so difficult for militaries. And yet, states andmilitaries do adapt in war, raising questions of when and how. Our analyticalframework is designed to address these questions.

MILITARY INNOVATION AND ADAPTATION

In the 1980s and 1990s a rich stream of scholarship by social scientistsemerged on military change. Most of these studies focused on explaining militaryinnovation. As Adam Grissom notes in his review of this literature, whilethere is no agreed upon definition in the field, a tacit definition may be discernedthat encompasses three elements: military innovation involves majororganizational change, “is significant in scope and impact,” and is “equated withgreater military effectiveness.” Basically, almost all works in the field look athistorical cases of military change that have had a major impact on the conductof warfare, and seek to unpack how that innovation came about.

This scholarly focus on military innovation is understandable for three reasons.First, it involves the puzzle of major organizational change by conservativemilitaries. If militaries are disinclined to change, this will be doubly truefor innovation. Change on this scale is especially disruptive for organizations,often requiring “forceful abandonment of the old.” For the military undertakinginnovation, this process of “creative destruction” is often painful. Second,military innovation involves change that by definition is important, and hasconsequences for national policy and international politics. Military innovationoften involves major expenditure of national resources, and can have consequencesfor regional balances of power. Finally, military innovation studiesgot caught up with the growing scholarly and policy interest in the 1990s inunderstanding revolutions in military affairs. In contrast, military adaptationheld little interest for social scientists. It remained a topic for military historiansin the context of studies of specific battles and campaigns.

Those few studies that have explicitly considered military adaptation havetaken it to mean less significant change with little or no impact on strategy andorganizational structures. In an earlier study, Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff offeredthe following definitions: “Innovation involves developing new militarytechnologies, tactics, strategies, and structures. Adaptation involves adjustingexisting military means and methods.” Farrell and Terriff suggested that adaptationcan accumulate to innovation: “Adaptation can, and often does, lead toinnovation when multiple adjustments over time gradually lead to the evolutionof new means and methods.” Similarly, in his study of the US Army andUS Marine Corps in Iraq in 2005–7, James Russell shows how “tactical adaptationcan serve as a way station along the route toward more comprehensiveinnovation.”

However, there is a problem with the assumption that military adaptation isabout less significant change. As this book will show, adaptation may occur atthe strategic level. Indeed, the imperative for strategic adaptability is officiallyrecognized in UK defense policy. The point is that any change at this level issignificant. Even adaptation at the lowest operational level, such as adaptingtactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), can add up to significant changein a military’s capabilities or approach to operations. Tighter TTPs to producemore restraint and great discrimination in the use of lethal force were centralto improving the US approach to COIN in Iraq. Conversely, failure to adaptat the tactical level may over time result in strategic failure.
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