text: Planning and Operational Considerations
  at all levels avoid complacency and are at least as adaptive as their enemies. There is no single prescribed
  set of counterinsurgency procedures. Commanders and staffs must constantly develop new practices.
  7-11. The environment of an insurgency is not static and different factors may influence various areas. An
  operation or a tactic that works well in one area may not work well in another because of different factors
  in the environment. Village stability operations in Afghanistan demonstrate this. Soldiers had success in
  one area but did not have success in another. The reason was that the operational environments and the
  population’s responses to these environments were vastly different. Commanders and staffs must
  understand the local area and not assume that the same methods will work in other areas, even in an
  adjacent town.
  If a Tactic Works in This Province, it Might Not Work in The Next:
  The Case of the Dan Aw Patan District, Afghanistan, 2010
  In the fall of 2010, U.S. Army units comprised of special forces teams and
  infantry squads from the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment introduced village
  stability operations in the Dan Aw Patan district of Paktia Province in southeastern
  Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border. Village stability operations were an effort
  to empower Afghan villagers to defend themselves from insurgents. The primary U.S.
  Army mission was to recruit Afghan men in each village to serve in the local police
  that would provide physical security for their community and thereby decrease the
  power of the Taliban. In the course of the next year Soldiers regularly visited the
  villages of the district, meeting with local leaders and equipping and training
  members of the local police.
  Village stability operations in Dan Aw Patan enjoyed only partial success. In
  the north and central areas of the district, U.S. units were able to form and train
  squads of local police. The villagers generally supported these efforts, participated in
  sustainment training, and provided useful intelligence. More importantly, the Soldiers
  never felt they might be in imminent danger while working with the local Afghans. In
  the southern part of the district, however, village stability operations failed. U.S.
  Soldiers in this region never enjoyed the security their counterparts enjoyed further
  north. Moreover, the police units that were established in these villages were far less
  interested in conducting patrols than in receiving pay. Despite lengthy negotiations
  with village leaders in which the Soldiers offered incentives such as medical
  assistance and funds for new schools, bridges, and other infrastructure, these local
  police squads never became the means of countering insurgent influence in the
  district.
  Why did village stability operations work in the northern and central villages
  but not in those to the south? The answer was not obvious. The distances between
  the central and southern villages were minimal, less than 10 miles in most cases. The
  demographics in each region were essentially identical in terms of size, economics,
  Pashtun ethnicity, religion, and culture. The U.S. approach was consistent in its
  methods and leadership. In fact, the same Soldiers who led the successful efforts in
  the north and central regions also worked with the southern villages.
  The lack of full success in the southern villages resulted from less visible
  factors. The southern area saw much more fighting during the Soviet occupation, and
  the local people viewed any foreign troops as “Soviets.” More important was the
  existence of insurgent “rat lines” in this part of the district. From the Teri Mangel arms
  bazaar, located just across the border in Pakistan, historic smuggling routes crossed
  the Afghan border into Paktia Province toward the provincial capital of Gardez.
  Because of the routes’ importance to the insurgent campaign, the Taliban exerted
  pressure on the southern villages to resist American efforts to deny freedom of
  movement to the insurgents and keep the routes open. Village stability operations
  were designed to counter exactly this type of influence. Yet because of Taliban
  pressure that succeeded despite the U.S. presence, the southern villages never
  accepted the program fully. U.S. units were not resourced to collect sufficient
  intelligence to discover the extent of Taliban influence, and the newly-hired local