Afghanistan: Need To Soldier On

War on Terror

20 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

Afghanistan: Need To Soldier On

Vice-president Joe Biden has reportedly proposed an alternative strategy focusing more on al-Qaeda and less on Taliban. That means reducing troops and relying more on airpower and precision strikes by Predator UAVs. In purely military terms, there could not be a more surefire prescription for disaster.   As in Vietnam, ultimately the war in Afghanistan would be won or lost in opinion polls back home. Political sensitivity to casualties will be the key factor moulding American will to stay the course. CI operations are manpower-intensive and the Afghan campaign has been drastically under-resourced for far too long. If the Americans are serious about pacifying the region, they will need to commit enhanced resources and stay the course for at least one to two decades. Anything less will lead to a regional disaster with grave security implications for India. Curtailment of ammunition resupply is the key component of the defeat mechanism. Effective border fencing helps achieve this effect; it had drastically curtailed terrorism in Punjab and later J&K. The money the US is throwing at Pakistan could be better spent by constructing a fence on the Durand Line. -- G D Bakshi URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1950 ---------   Need To Soldier On G D Bakshi 20 Oct 2009   A second attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in just over a year recently highlighted the security disaster looming over hapless Afghanistan.   The situation there is the result of two extreme episodes of hubris. In 2001, the Taliban decided most foolishly to fight like a regular army and defend cities and towns. The 12,000 Pakistani Pathan troops in mufti, manning its tanks, artillery and aircraft, had been withdrawn under US pressure. The Taliban presented concentrated targets and was decimated by the US air force. The Northern Alliance simply mopped up in the wake of devastating US air strikes and captured Kabul.   Easy victory led to hubris in the Pentagon. The new gurus of "effect based operations" jettisoned years of classical military theory. Lt Gen Tommy Franks decided to keep the US footprint in Afghanistan very small (10,000 men), supported by massive airpower. This was ostensibly to obviate local hostility against US troops as occupiers. Over time, indiscriminate use of airpower to protect this handful of troops caused significant collateral damage, alienating the population. Occupation and pacification of a country need boots on the ground. The tiny US military footprint bred a long-term disaster. There was no Afghan army to secure the country post-Taliban. The US had to rely on unpopular warlords, undercutting the legitimacy of Hamid Karzai's government.   The Taliban, meanwhile, had learnt its lessons. It initially fled to sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP) in Pakistan. America now diverted attention and resources to Iraq. Underfunded and under-resourced, Afghanistan was left to its own devices. The Taliban simply seeped right back in. The Quetta shura led by Mullah Omar was ensconced by the ISI in Quetta. It targeted Kandahar. The Haqqani shura based in Waziristan targeted the Khost, Paktia and Paktika provinces. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami made NWFP its base for targeting the Afghan provinces of Nangrahar, Nuristan and Kunar.   The ISI revived the golden crescent's narcotics empire to pay for this insurgency. Nine per cent of the Afghan population had been killed, 33 per cent had fled abroad and 11 per cent were internally displaced. Most of the cultivable areas were strewn with mines. The labour-intensive traditional system of Afghan agriculture had broken down and the Afghans had reverted to poppy cultivation. This opium economy has fuelled the Taliban war since.   International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops have proved surprisingly effete. They focused primarily on force protection through indiscriminate airpower that distanced them from the Afghan people. The Taliban has been relying on large-scale use of improvised explosive devices and stand-off fire to inflict casualties. The 68,000 US troops and 32,000 ISAF/North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops are far too thin on the ground for a proper counter-insurgency (CI) campaign. The best answer to the Taliban is a strong Afghan army. Yet the Americans are planning an Afghan army of just 134,000 and a police force of 82,000, far too small for a country of Afghanistan's size and ruggedness. The pre-Soviet era Afghan army was 350,000-strong. The Soviets rebuilt the strength to 550,000. This is the optimal size. Anything less means imminent collapse after a US withdrawal.   The US troop surge in Afghanistan has seen an induction of 17,000 additional combat troops and 4,000 trainers. The US 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade (over 130 helicopters), the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force (8,000 troops) and the 5th Stryker Brigade have commenced heavy fighting in Helmand province, the key opium growing belt. British troops in particular have taken fairly heavy casualties. Is the surge too little too late? Proper CI operations require a far higher committal of American troops. The US commanding general in Afghanistan, Lt Gen McChrystal, has asked for 40,000 additional troops and a doubling of the envisaged size of the Afghan army and police.   Reportedly there is considerable debate and scepticism in Washington concerning these militarily sound, common sense recommendations. Vice-president Joe Biden has reportedly proposed an alternative strategy focusing more on al-Qaeda and less on Taliban. That means reducing troops and relying more on airpower and precision strikes by Predator UAVs. In purely military terms, there could not be a more surefire prescription for disaster.   As in Vietnam, ultimately the war in Afghanistan would be won or lost in opinion polls back home. Political sensitivity to casualties will be the key factor moulding American will to stay the course. CI operations are manpower-intensive and the Afghan campaign has been drastically under-resourced for far too long. If the Americans are serious about pacifying the region, they will need to commit enhanced resources and stay the course for at least one to two decades. Anything less will lead to a regional disaster with grave security implications for India. Curtailment of ammunition resupply is the key component of the defeat mechanism. Effective border fencing helps achieve this effect; it had drastically curtailed terrorism in Punjab and later J&K. The money the US is throwing at Pakistan could be better spent by constructing a fence on the Durand Line. The writer is a retired major-general. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Need-To-Soldier-On/articleshow/5139484.cms URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1950