Surging towards stalemate in Afghanistan
By Brian M Downing
The United States will soon double the number of its troops in Afghanistan from
about 30,000 to 60,000, and several other North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) countries will also up their troop levels.
The move comes with little surprise and considerable bipartisan support in the
US, but with little public discussion of the aims and likely outcomes.
Evocative as the move is with similar events in Iraq that are generally (though
perhaps uncritically) credited with bringing stability there, it is hoped that
a similar outcome will come about in Afghanistan, where the situation has
deteriorated badly while US attention has been focused on Iraq and Iran.
The troop surge in Afghanistan will strengthen defenses around
major cities such as Kabul, Jalalabad, Gardez and Kandahar, countering the
Taliban's infiltration and growing presence in city neighborhoods. (Though
Afghan guerrilla movements are thought rural, during the war with the Soviet
Union in the 1980s, the mujahideen were able to operate in many cities,
especially Kandahar.)
Presently, the Taliban use their infiltration of cities to gather intelligence,
send out bombing operations and make their presence otherwise felt through
intimidation of officials and establishing an alternate government. Two years
ago, Taliban bombings were remarkably ineffectual, killing only the bomber in
about half of the attacks. In recent months, however, their campaign has
demonstrated increased skill in the deadly trade. In time, they will seek to
turn Afghan cities into Fallujahs and Baghdads.
The surge will allow for more sweep operations in rural areas where the Taliban
have been spreading and consolidating. Such operations will halt and hopefully
reverse the unfavorable momentum that has been underway for several years.
Halting that momentum is critical, as many Pashtun and other tribes are
beginning to see the Taliban as a likely victor with whom they must come to
terms, sooner or later. Yet there is evidence that even a few non-Pashtun
tribes in the geographic center, including Tajiks and Hazaras, are choosing to
do so sooner rather than later.
It is crucial to stave off the drift toward reducing the US/NATO presence to a
series of enclaves surrounded by a Taliban-controlled countryside - a state of
affairs especially pronounced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand
and in several eastern provinces as well.
Anti-Taliban tribes along the supply routes from Pakistan will welcome sweeps
as removing pressure on them, though the Taliban might simply move operations
to the Pakistani side of the frontier and seek to isolate US/NATO forces from
that side of the frontier. Sweeps will also provide the opportunity for greater
village security on which counter-insurgency programs depend. This is essential
if there is any hope of detaching the populace from the Taliban and engaging
them with the Hamid Karzai government. At present, the Taliban are able to move
freely in and out of many villages to impose their own form of security and
justice, both of which are becoming acceptable to a war-weary people.
A doubling of US troop levels, however, will entail at least as many problems
as advantages. More US troops will add to the growing perception that US/NATO
forces are no longer there to help them, rather they are an occupying force
like the Persians, British and Russians before them, and as such they are to be
treated as the others were.
The same perception, regardless of Western forces' actual intentions, will
resonate in much of the Islamic world, where hostility to the US is strong and
attributing imperialist motives requires little evidence or promulgation. After
the collapse of Iraq as the central theater of operations, many Islamist
fighters now see Afghanistan as the setting for defeating the US. The various
insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have already drawn
additional international fighters including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Reports
state that a number of al-Qaeda fighters have left Iraq for the more promising
campaign to the east.
More US/NATO sweeps in contested areas may push the Taliban off balance, but
they can cause troubles as well. Many village chieftains complain that such
operations bring fighting and attendant ills to areas that had not endured
serious warfare in years. In other words, they see US/North Atlantic Treaty
Orginization (NATO) efforts to oust the Taliban - not the Taliban itself - as
the cause of fighting, destruction, stray ordnance and death.
Thousands more US troops raises the question of their suitability for the
intricate and frustrating nature of counter-insurgency warfare. Most if not all
will be regular infantry units, which are neither trained for nor suited to
counter-insurgency operations and as such are not as politically adroit as the
Taliban, who have been conducting a form of such operations for many years now.
More useful in this regard are special forces, which are trained in negotiating
with chieftains, attending to village needs and otherwise garnering local
support. Regular infantry troops rely on extensive use of massive firepower - a
way of war that has been with the US military for generations and has become a
veritable instinct in non-commissioned officers and officers. It has led to
considerable success over the years, but also to notable failures where it
alienated civilian populaces.
Though developments in Iraq have somewhat disabused the US of relying on
massive firepower, US forces in Afghanistan, when under heavy sustained fire,
revert to form and call in artillery and air strikes - and do so far more
readily than would British, French, Canadian and other NATO troops. The
consequences are reduced US casualties and a number of guerrilla casualties,
but often a great deal of civilian casualties and damage to villages.
Recent Taliban tactics indicate awareness of this, as guerrillas now attack a
position in a populated area, such as a police station, wait for US firepower
to rain down, then withdraw to sanctuaries, confident that the damage will turn
villagers against the US - a confidence that has not led to general
disappointment. Furthermore, US battlefield intelligence is poor, leading to
high casualties as misdirected ordnance falls on hapless civilians, not canny
guerrillas.
Despite the tightest discipline and the inculcation of respect for local
nationals among US infantry, many of whom are on their fifth or sixth combat
tour, it is likely that a small but significant percentage of soldiers have
become hostile to the people of the region - Islamist or not, pro-Taliban or
not, armed or not.
More troops will require more supplies to be delivered into the remote,
landlocked country, most of which come through Pakistan. Aside from the
increase in US troops, there are plans to vastly increase the size of the
Afghan army, which of course will be mainly supplied from outside.
The US army excels at logistics; it is their greatest strength. However,
Pakistan is deteriorating badly, endangering supply lines from the port of
Karachi. The Pakistani Taliban have recently inflicted a great deal of damage
on convoys and depots near Peshawar and moved into the Khyber Agency where
local (Afridi) tribesmen have thus far not been hostile to the West, though
perhaps because they benefit from the traffic.
To the west, in Balochistan province of Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban and Baloch
insurgents have increased their power and may soon endanger supplies from
Karachi that flow into southern Afghanistan through Quetta. (Oddly, the US is
supporting kindred Baloch insurgents a few hundred kilometers away in Iran.)
Another source of concern is the large Pashtun refugee population in Karachi,
which could strike at supplies even before they are brought to the choke points
near Peshawar and Quetta. The US is preparing alternate land routes into
Afghanistan stretching from the Caucasus across much of Central Asia. These
routes are lengthy to say the least, but secure at present.
The lines of communication from Pakistan are not yet lost. The Pakistani
military and civilian government might come to realize that if they lose
control of supply routes, their usefulness to the long-time American benefactor
becomes negligible. Pakistan will become a chaotic, isolated, failing state
offering little support and presenting great danger.
The Pakistani Taliban have recently allowed convoys to pass into Afghanistan in
exchange for tribute. So for the US/NATO to receive supplies, they must pay the
forces that the supplies are designated to be used against - a Catch-22
situation that perhaps only Joseph Heller could have foreseen or appreciated.
Iran is unlikely to feel comfortable with 30,000 more US troops to its east,
though it might be somewhat mollified by their leaving its west. Atmospherics
and confusion in Washington notwithstanding, Iran has been helpful in
stabilizing post-Saddam Hussein Iraq by restraining the fractious Shi'ite
parties and reining in the murderous militias. Iran also aided in ousting the
Taliban in 2001, supports the Karzai government and contributes to development
and security programs in western Afghanistan. Their continued help in Iraq and
Afghanistan cannot be taken for granted.
It is impossible to place the advantages and disadvantages of increasing the
number of US troops onto scales and then determine the outcome. However, a
rapid, fundamental change in the situation along the lines of the one that took
place in Iraq is unlikely. The surge, at least in the next year or so, more
likely aims to stave off defeat and bring a measure of security on which
counter-insurgency and tribal diplomacy can be pursued.
The surge in Afghanistan may set the stage for a form of conflict whose name
will never be officially uttered but which might be coming - a war of
attrition. The US and NATO will seek to inflict high casualties on the Taliban
and their allies in the expectation of bringing about greater tribal allegiance
to the US/NATO side, and eventually also bringing about a political settlement
with less ideologically driven Taliban lieutenants. Such a settlement would
likely entail autonomy in southern and parts of eastern Afghanistan, despite
the social order that would be imposed there.
Brian M Downing is the author of several works of political and military
history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and
The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to
Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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