ied brief
TRANSCRIPT
Mitigating the IED Threat In Afghanistan
MAJ Stu Farris
August 2009
• Effective adaptation to a situation or problem-set should result in the situation or problem being improved. Unfortunately…
- IEDs cause 75% of casualties to coalition forces in AFG, up from 50% two years ago. - IEDs killed more than 40 American and coalition troops in AFG in October 2009 alone, up from 5 two years ago.
• The statistics imply that to date, our adaptation to the IED threat in AFG has not been effective- the situation has not improved, it has only gotten worse!!
Counterinsurgency itself can best be described as “a battle for adapation…against an enemy who is evolving.”
- David Kilcullen
To date, our response to the IED has been to build a bigger, more expensive, more heavily armored, more recognizable, and more culturally alienating vehicle…the enemy has adapted by simply
building a bigger IED.
Why do we continue to play into the enemy’s strength??
Would you wear this in combat? Of course not. Our uniforms are designed to blend-in with the surrounding
terrain in order to avoid detection by the enemy!!
Can you guess which vehicle is transporting the ODA members?? Which vehicle fuels the perception of a
foreign occupation force? If you were the enemy, who would you target?
Remember the EIB task “Camouflage yourself and individual Equipment?” We must adapt our
camouflage to blend-in with 21st Century battlefield environment!!
A few “low-tech, high-effect” ideas for mitigating the IED threat in AFG
Walk!! Long range, dismounted patrols (Getting back to basics…remember Ranger School, the Q-Course, & fieldcraft??)
ATV’s: Stay off of roads/trails Lo-vis, indig vehicles
Horses/mules Motorcycles (the enemy’s vehicle of choice for moving about the battlefield).
Night-time Abn infils: via CASA, MH-60/47, or MC-130 (imagine the enemy waking up in the morning and saying, “How did these guys get here?? Our early warning didn’t see/hear any vehicles?”)
In Closing…• “The American Way of War” is to solve military problems through the
application of additional resources ($$$) & technology- w/out first taking the time to accurately identify the problem. This often results in our solving the wrong problem better…evident when the problem only gets worse!- In order to make a situation better, you must first accurately identify the nature of the problem. The problem WRT IEDs is not that our vehicles are under-armored/under-protected. The problem is that we have become a road-bound military that additionally travels in vehicles that are easily identifiable & targeted by the enemy. We need to get off of the roads to the greatest extent possible; and when we must move on roads,move in a manner that minimizes signature. We must stop making this easy for the enemy!!
• We are not being out-fought by the enemy in AFG; we are being out-thought by the enemy in AFG…
• CDRUSSOCOM* recently stated that SOF in AFG have, “…become overly-conventional,” and are being employed as, “varsity-level GPF.”
We must answer ADM Olson’s call to re-embrace our unconventional roots. SF should be employing “non-standard TTPs” as a matter of
SOP, not as an exception to policy.