Defense Tech: Military Struggles How to Measure Success in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Military Struggles How to Measure Success in Afghanistan

How do we know whether we’re winning or losing a war if nobody knows how to measure success? That’s the problem we face in Afghanistan, according to Marine Lt. Gen. John Paxton, director of operations for the Joint Staff, who spoke this morning at a Brookings Institution sponsored conference.

When President Obama gave Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal his marching orders, he said McChrystal had about 12 to 18 months to prove his population centric counterinsurgency strategy was working. The “agreement” between Obama and McChrystal was that instead of a counterterrorism strategy, McChrystal would pursue a “fully resourced COIN strategy,” Paxton said, and the “first increment” of that resourcing would be 30,000 additional troops. U.S. officials are trying to negotiate additional troop contributions from the NATO allies.

While there is uncertainty as to when the clock began ticking, whether it was June when the Marines arrived in southern Afghanistan or when McChrystal’s strategic assessment was delivered in August, military commanders are keenly aware that time is running out. “We know it is a finite amount of resources in terms of people and a finite amount of time,” Paxton said.

Both military and civilian officials are struggling to come up with some way of measuring success or failure in Afghanistan. “What is a true measure of effectiveness? How do you measure stability and security on the ground?… What are those metrics, how do you state them, how do you measure them, how frequently do you look at them… That’s the exact debate the commanders on the ground are having, the PRTs and the inter-agency teams in the theater are having and that we’re going to have back here in Washington.”

He listed a number of possible metrics including: declining levels of corruption, the number of tips provided by the Afghan people on IED locations, the number of markets and bazaars opening up or the number of police chiefs turning in others on the force.


Rest of article and a very interesting discussion at: http://defensetech.org/2010/03/26/military-struggles-how-to-measure-success-in-afghanistan/?wh=wh



unhappycamper comment: You could declare Victory^TM and bring them home thereby saving us at least $100 billion dollars.

[KG]

1. well, the military isn't going to admit failure.

even tho there's nothing to be won there.

[Xipe Totec]

2. you measure success by counting how many people toss flowers at your feet nt