Photo By Master Sgt. Matthew Chlosta | U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall, command sergeant major, ISAF/US...... read more read more
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The International Security Assistance Force’s top enlisted Soldier met with non-commissioned officers from more than 10 NATO nations to discuss the ISAF campaign plan, organization, counter insurgency guidance and pre-deployment training during two one-day seminars, sponsored by NATO’s Allied Joint Force Command Headquarters mobile training team, June 15 and 17.
U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Michael T. Hall, command sergeant major, ISAF/US Forces-Afghanistan, spoke to JFC HQ staff NCOs in Brunssum, the Netherlands, and at the NCO Academy in Cesis, Latvia, he briefed senior NCOs from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the United States, as part of the second annual NATO Baltic States NCO conference.
“You’re importance to the fight isn’t necessarily related to how close you are to the fight,” Hall said to the staff NCOs in Brunssum.
Hall presented the ISAF counter insurgent strategy and encouraged leaders across NATO to embrace COIN.
He also explained to the NCOs at JFC HQ, that what they do on a daily basis at is directly connected to the fight back in Afghanistan.
The NATO training document, that JFC HQ is working on, will save lives, Hall added.
“I want to thank you very much for what you do,” Hall said.
The main strategic effort is to grow the Afghan national security forces, Hall said. The other piece of the ISAF campaign that began in earnest last winter was ISAF’s focus on securing 81 key districts and 41 area of interest districts.
“We don’t plan on controlling all of the country,” Hall said. “We don’t have enough forces to control the country.
“We’re gonna do the heavy lifting,” Hall said. “We’re gonna do the the enabling, but the Afghans have to come in and secure the population.”
Hall explained while pointing at a map of Afghanistan that the key areas that ISAF needs to secure are in the South, in the East and the Helmand corridor.
It’s expensive to be an insurgent and we can choke off their main support network, by providing time and space for the ANSF to secure the population and for government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to stand up, strengthen, grow and deliver governance and services for the Afghan people, Hall added.
“It’s not gonna be a big event,” Hall said referring to the ISAF campaign plan; in particular, the current focused effort on Kandahar, which is called Hamkari. Hamkari is a combined Afghan and international civil-military effort to extend security and governance across Kandahar province and to improve the lives of the people of Kandahar.
The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan led initiative is being implemented to better connect the government with its people; to listen and respond to their needs and to deliver improved security, governance and economic opportunity to the people of Kandahar.
“Is the campaign plan working? “Absolutely…absolutely…absolutely….absolutely…,” Hall emphasized. “Violence is way up,” Hall said. “Why is it way up? [The] Taliban has to try to show their power or else they’ll lose.”
After his speech to the JFC HQ troops Hall answered tons of questions from the audience of NCOs. One was about the predominance of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.
Hall said, ISAF provides security, while counter narcotic programs are for the GIRoA to implement.
Also, Hall mentioned that 92 percent of Afghan National Police were recently drug tested and only 15 percent tested positive. The figures contradict the perception that the ANP has a drug problem. According to Hall’s stats, this is not the reality on the ground.
"Wonder how we’d do in the U.S.?" Hall commented, in reference to drug testing police back home. The ANP has a lot more drug free officers than what is perceived.
Another question centered on capturing and killing high value targets, which can be valuable but not the endgame in a counterinsurgency campaign, according to Hall.
“We’ve tripled the amount of special operation forces in the past year,” Hall said.
In the recent Marjah campaign SOF troops went in during the weeks before to take out insurgent leadership, which led to less resistance once the Afghan National Army and U.S. Marines went in, he added.
“[You] just can’t kill and capture your way to a counter insurgency victory,” Hall said. “There is no ‘killing them all’.”
That’s why implementing COIN is so important and it works, Hall added.
After the Q&A session, a few U.S. service members spoke about what they learned and the benefits of having Hall come from Afghanistan to speak with them in person.
“I learned what is going on, on the battlefield, got to see the whole overview,” U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jerry Adamson, classified carrier, Central Registry, JFC Headquarters, said. “Every day we just sit behind our screens. We don’t hear a lot about what is going on in Afghanistan. It was a great talk. It gives us more of an understanding. We see that it’s [the ISAF campaign plan] making progress. The news is not showing [the] improvement.”
U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Cindy Blackwood, who works in the operations directorate at JFC HQ, said she learned a lot from Hall’s presentation.
“[We] need to know someone who is there and can explain it in layman’s terms,” Blackwood said. “[It] helps us see how what we do here affects things in Afghanistan. [It’s] hard when we sit in a room all day in front of a computer to see how we matter.”
Hall briefed at the Latvian NCO Academy on June 17 about overall ISAF Afghanistan strategy, the ISAF campaign plan, COIN and how NATO nations can better prepare in their pre-deployment training to implement COIN techniques when they hit the ground in Afghanistan.
He fielded and answered dozens of questions from NATO partner nation’s NCOs about COIN and how effective it is.
Many of the NATO NCOs in attendance were previously in theater, about to deploy over the next year to Afghanistan or are going to train up troops from their countries to deploy to Afghanistan.
Hall really emphasized a few key areas; one was NATO units partnering with ANSF and one was how counterinsurgency wins the war by winning over the population and even some of the insurgents.
“We’re not gonna kill our way to winning the insurgency,” Hall said. “Sometimes it’s counterproductive to kill your enemy. Partnering is key. We need to get them [the insurgents] to change teams.”
Estonia Army Sgt. Maj. Hannes Vaalmets, who will deploy to Afghanistan for six months in May or June 2011, said, “It was good refreshment for us, [the] situation changes all the time.”
Vaalmets, who also briefed on the Estonian armed forces at the conference, said the last brief he received was one year ago.
“I had not met him, but I had heard about him [Hall]. I knew the name,” Vaalmets added.
Hall also gave some very powerful anecdotes about Soldiers dying in theater because of safety lapses.
“Safety has to be followed,” Hall said, “Soldiers are dying because of ammo [cans] not tied down or not wearing seatbelts or not wearing [their] gunner strap. [I believe] how we train is how we do things in combat.”
“We share it [the information] with our NCOs,” Vaalmets said. “I will give – advice to Land Force Commander. He will decide how to put it out.
“COIN policy is useful for us,” Vaalmets said, “[the] majority [of Estonian military members] is mandatory service, usually conventional warfare. [It’s] not easy to train them in COIN. It will help us to train our Soldiers in COIN.”
Latvian Army Command Sgt. Maj. Armands Loginovs, command sergeant major, Latvian NCO Academy, said, the brief was, “excellent, excellent. [The] time [was] to short, very interesting. He could talk two days. Usually I’m bored with these briefs.
“He knows what he talks about,” Loginovs said. “He knows it from the core, using simple words. He is not speaking from Washington. He is speaking from [the] theater [of operations]. We’ll spread [it] out, try to implement to our troops, the parts [to] the CSMs at our battalions, regular units--. It will help to make our forces faster, more effective and more flexible, another drop of information in predeployment training and thinking.”
| Date Taken: | 06.17.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 06.21.2010 14:00 |
| Story ID: | 51747 |
| Location: | KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: | 454 |
| Downloads: | 192 |
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