Battle of the Bilge

“بدبختها ها سرخود یاد ميگيرند، خوش بختها سر دیگران میبینند”
“Unfortunates learn from their own mistakes, and the lucky ones learn from others’ mistakes.” – Afghan Proverb

As referenced in last week’s article, the Afghanistan war is at an extremely critical stage, especially on the political front. This article intends to lay the framework of this debate by providing essential history, political analysis and observations on the current state of the war and its regional and global implications. It is not meant to imply a formal MOAA recommendation to the administration on the way forward, only to provide background on the road that lies behind and in front of us. While this will not be an article for fans of brevity, it will strive to be as comprehensive as possible.

The Importance of Afghanistan

The first question that comes to mind when discussing Afghanistan is why the war is worth continuing. We attacked in response to the 9/11 attacks and routed al-Qaida (or some would say let them escape) and have significantly reduced their effectiveness as a terrorist organization to launch attacks on US interests. We have helped the nation form a working central government with a constitution and democratic processes. Eight years after Osama bin Laden used the Taliban government to coordinate his war on America, there’s no evidence that the leader is still in the country.

Given these advances, the question of a troop surge or re-investment in aggressive action seems to point towards a draw down of forces and departure. But it is not that simple. Taliban forces have shown resilience year after year, drawing on Pakistani and Arab troops for summer offensives that have only increased annually. Without the presence of the international coalition led by NATO, they would most likely have already retaken control of the heartland of the nation and established a new safe haven for global extremists. And this is exactly what we have to avoid. Additionally, since it is a nation so central to the future, given its geo-political position and connections to vital pipelines, the reason Afghanistan is still so important and must be mollified is clear. Just like Vietnam, the most pressing danger to the success of military action is politics, both home and abroad.

The Goal of the Mission

The mission in Afghanistan has changed considerably since October 7th, 2001. Al-Qaida is no longer a significant force in the country. In its place, despite being overthrown and initially routed to the lawless borderlands of Pakistan’s tribal areas, the Taliban has led a strong insurgency that has spilled over into Pakistan itself. Recent high profile attacks in both Kabul and major Pakistani cities highlight this reality, and troop casualties on all sides have reached a zenith this year.

The mission today is to defeat the Taliban and ensure that they do not regain control of Afghanistan. This is being pursued by ground offensives into the most dangerous of the valleys in Afghanistan and by precision unmanned aerial vehicle attacks on key leadership locations in Pakistan. But both of these tactics are troublesome in their own ways, with unreliable information often provided to our forces on the basis of personal, historical grudges, and Pakistani objections to missile strikes on their territory. The strikes are of considerable importance because there is little chance of getting NATO troops to the site to confirm results, leading to Taliban and extremist target groups to manipulate the scenes and spin the propaganda to make it appear that civilians were the only ones harmed (although in some cases civilian casualties are as reported, the majority of these can not be confirmed by anyone other than the enemy).

The Election and Legitimacy

Elections are supposed to be the hallmarks of democracy and freedom. Yet just as we saw in Iran this summer, Afghanistan’s recent presidential election was ripe with controversy and claims of fraud. This weakens our position as a champion of the Karzai presidency, and although a run off election will be held to confirm the results after a recount dropped the president’s tally to less than the constitutionally mandated percentage of 50, that weak link will remain. If President Karzai and his government are seen as illegitimate to the citizens of the nation, the occupation force that supports it inherits this illegitimacy.

The decision that the White House is considering right now depends greatly on the outcome of the election. Even if we can make it through the process and restore some credulity to President Karzai, the Taliban pressure put on potential voters and civilian institutions to stop cooperation with the foreign workers and military will continue. They have been successful in breeding an atmosphere of fear, especially in the restless southern provinces, that can not be defeated militarily. They will always run to the mountains or safe havens in Pakistan during the winter months, and citizens know it is just a matter of time before they return and reprisals commence. The question of legitimacy has taken on a new urgency due to the fact that no ‘final decision’ will be made by the Obama administration on Afghanistan until the matter is resolved. While this buys the White House a little more time, it does not help the growing political pressure to act.

The Demographics & Geography of Afghanistan

Confounding any efforts to pacify the south of Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban are the geographical realities of the region. It has been said that the war is ‘A War In Every Valley’, and this is an accurate assessment. Not only does the region serve the needs of a guerrilla war by providing ample hiding places and harsh mountain terrain, the needs and historical background of each location is not necessarily the same as the ones just across the ridge in the next valley. Each must be handled in a specific manner by both military and civilian forces, a task made that much more difficult by the international nature of NATO. Not all NATO forces follow the same COIN based strategy to counter insurgency, so progress made in one year in one region can be eliminated by a heavy Taliban focus the next year.

To drive home the geographic challenge of the south of Afghanistan, let’s take a look at a satellite image of the region (provided by the use of Google Earth):

This image is of the border region just east of Kandahar. It is just a small snapshot of the hills and valleys from an elevation of just under 7,000 feet and represents only about 2 percent of the total landmass of just the border region. The logistical issues at hand are obviously significant, and you can understand the ease of undetected movement by small numbers of insurgent fighters going back and forth between the nations.

The Taliban

While coalition forces are attempting to clear the region of extremists and establish Afghanistan as a self sufficient governing entity, the Taliban have the opposite intentions. Not only do they want to restore their governing status in Kabul, they wish to drive out the foreign troops and end the reconstruction. They intimidate, attack and destroy without regard to civilian vs. military targets. Their primary strategy is the use of time. Knowing their own history well and the fact that invading forces have had a tendency to get bogged down in a quagmire, they hope that the longer they can keep up the attacks the better the chance that public opinion will stop supporting the war.

To ‘run out the clock’, the Taliban need to maintain a certain degree of local popular support in Afghanistan. With the combined efforts of thwarting international aid work, providing pay to local workers and being an integral part of the narco-traffic business that is only increasing in intensity in recent years. If ever the old adage of ‘hearts and minds’ were more applicable, it would be within this area. Coalition and Afghan government entities must out class the Taliban in creating opportunities for economic development and convincing the locals just how destructive and anti-progressive the Taliban ideals are. In a land that lacks any form of trust of outsiders, the task of countering this strategy is incredibly daunting.

The Pakistani Front

The Taliban can not be thought of as just an Afghanistan problem. Their base of operations, as well as their genesis and continued support, comes from elements within Pakistan. This spring and summer, Pakistani forces loyal to their president launched a series of major offensives in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a lawless and sprawling region that has seen the brunt of what amounts to a Pakistani civil war. The effect has been a bloody displacement of the local population and pitched battles that has done a moderately good job of keeping extremists from focusing their full attention on cross border attacks into Afghanistan.

But the offensive has caused Pakistan a considerable amount of loss and anguish. While many question the benefit of calming the restless area, Pakistan based militants have taken the war to major cities with suicide bombings, attacks on recruiting stations and assaults on military outposts. In fact, more Pakistan military forces have been killed this year than coalition forces in Afghanistan have in the whole of the eight year war. The government of Pakistan is weak, and frequent attacks on civilian targets have only weakened their power. Significant tribal leaders and terrorist groups that had previously shown allegiance to the central Pakistan authority have now switched sides and are supporting the Taliban, an ominous sign for the future of the Pakistan effort.

The Other Pakistan Front

Beyond the government’s efforts in the tribal regions, Pakistan has a strong anti-American element within its ranks. Two recent attacks in Afghanistan on Indian interests have been tied directly to support from Pakistan’s intelligence service, which has always had the Taliban in its thoughts and actions. This has inflamed relations with India, and coming off of the Mumbai attacks of last year, which had finally started to show signs of reconciliation, the row is made that much worse.

The implications for the NATO effort in Afghanistan can hardly be more serious. If Pakistan falls back into its usual defensive position against India, troops currently engaged in the frontier regions will be sent to the India/Kashmir front, allowing the Taliban to restock and rearm. This is nothing compared to the prospect of armed conflict between Pakistan and India, which would signal the end of the border effort immediately.

Regional Brinkmanship and Iran

NATO has contributed a large number of troops to the Afghanistan effort and that has caused considerable and understandable consternation in the region due to the importance of the country in terms of energy access (although landlocked, there has always been a need to get oil from the Caspian Sea and other regions through pipelines that would need to go through Afghanistan. Russia, China, India and the other nations of the region have a stake in the outcome of the war and the stability of the region. With NATO increasing its presence in or near former Soviet states, Russia has been quick to criticize operations and warn the US that they are not happy with permanent bases in central Asia. Last year’s Georgian war demonstrated Russia’s capability of exerting force in the region and was seen widely as a shot across the bow of not only Georgia, but NATO in general.

Russian concerns about our intentions in the region are also manifesting themselves in the form of their support of Iran’s nuclear program. With American forces on two sides of their border and Israel threatening war on a near weekly basis, Iran is getting increasingly nervous. Russian re-assurances that there will be no attack on Iran and that they have their full support is a major concern. If Israel or the US attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities, the reaction could be in the form of Russian and its supporters taking on NATO in the Middle East. Although far fetched, the possibility is there, and is just one of the outlying factors that are being taken into consideration when thinking about Afghanistan policy.

Possible Options and the Trap

There are several options that President Obama can choose, but they are all fraught with peril. In reality, there is no good option. Pakistan is truly a political trap.

Option 1 – Military Surge – While a good amount of time has been spent in the media commenting on the troop recommendation and field report from General Stanly McChrystal and the perceived disagreements between the White House and the commanding officer in Afghanistan, most serious analysts have not given it much thought. The reality is that the report was, for the most part, in line with the Af-Pak strategy announced in March by President Obama. The story has grown legs because of some bad politics and loose lips, but the recommendations are not that different than the current policy. The problem with adding 40,000 more troops is obvious. Strain on our forces, already stretched to the limit in terms of troop rotation and home deployment and increases in casualty rates will dominate the news. Also, given the geographic realities of the border regions, it may take many more than 40k additional boots on the ground to take and, more importantly, hold, regions that the Taliban operate. Ideally the troop level increase would be matched by other NATO members, but with France and England both showing signs of rejecting sending more of their forces, this would be improbable.

Option 2 – Draw Down – If the president decided to draw down forces and effectively abandon Afghanistan, nothing will have been accomplished and more than likely the Afghan government would fall. This would lead to the Taliban once again taking control of the nation and the safe haven for Muslim extremist groups would shift back from Pakistan to Afghanistan. While it is tempting to call this a slippery slope and make comparisons to unfulfilled predictions of what would happen if Vietnam fell to the communists, the situations are not comparable. In the case of Vietnam, the problem was the expansion of communism and the fall of democracy around the world. In Afghanistan, the result would be a return to antebellum status, with the cultural war still blazing and extremism and suppression of Afghan citizens once again the norm. Therefore, departure is not an option.

Option 3 – An International Military and Civilian Surge – The most talked about option would combine increases in forces from NATO nations as well as a major increase in humanitarian group activity in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. USAID (United States Agency for International Development) is the leading civilian group in the region, highly funded and capable as an organization to create an environment that would stand as the best chance of restarting the rural economy and defraying the allure of the insurgency. However, USAID is currently without a permanent director and changes recently put in to place by Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke have made their job much harder recently. By requiring personal approval of project funding, Holbrooke has delayed action on the ground in many situations, and the recent trend to shift contracts from American to Pakistani businesses has also hampered efforts. For a civilian surge to work, it would require a level of participation and support from the international community that has little chance of being there. Few nations are willing to put their groups in harms way in a war started by someone else for a purpose that they do not see as vital to their interests. As we have seen in Madrid, London, Bali, Jakarta and multiple other targets of Muslim extremist groups, the view that they hold about the vitality of the outcome of the war is hard to comprehend, but their unwillingness to provide forces speaks for itself.

The New Forgotten War

Also weighing on the minds of the policy makers in Washington is the fact that we are still heavily engaged in Iraq. While Afghanistan used to be referred to as ‘The Forgotten War’, that title has now been given to the efforts in Iraq. Although there is less violence lately and fewer troop casualties, the danger that the political situation will suffer setbacks or fall apart completely is always present. Making the mistake of ignoring the war in Iraq would be a considerable blunder. Especially if the Israel/Iran tensions turn into a hot war.

Conclusions and Summary

As we can see, there is no simple solution to the Afghanistan question. While the media spins the delay in action for political purposes, the administration is faced with a decision that will have a profound impact on the region and the world in general. Time is not a crucial element to this decision, except in the fact that the longer we wait, the greater the domestic political pressure becomes. No matter what the final decision is, there will be positive and negative results. But we must stop the cycle of Taliban offensives and give the people of Afghanistan the unwavering confidence that we will not depart until their safety is ensured. Because in the final analysis, their safety is our safety. This war can not be won by arms alone, but any moves must be thought of in terms of an international effort. Support may not be easy to come by, but it must come. The great game of chess that is Central Asia must be played with deliberate and thoughtful actions, or the ripple effect will be disastrous. It is a game that we must win, and the stakes could not be greater.


Tell us what you think the administration should do in the comments section. With all the expertise of MOAA members, a lively debate would be appreciated.

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