Topic: Foreign Policy
Afghanistan: Conquer and Garrison There is a way to "win" in Afghanistan, our strategic reputation is being battered by the indecision of President Obama.by James Luko
(centrist)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The US, and its NATO allies need a decision from President Obama, are we going to win or lose the war in Afghanistan. As the NATO action in Afghanistan involves our allies, it is clearly America that is the leader and needs to reset a blueprint for winning.
Too often, mainstream media compares Afghanistan with Iraq, failing to point out that the Afghan Government of the Taliban ,at the time, harbored our attackers, Al Qaeda. The major point mainstream media usually omits is that the NATO allies are "obligated" by treaty to assist the United States. This is in stark contrast to Iraq where the US invaded unilaterally and had not been, itself, attacked by Iraq, thus there were no treaty or military obligations for any of our allies to assist the US.
This, however, does not mean that the US can or should lead our allies into an endless war in Afghanistan using strategies and resources incapable of achieving a clear victory. [Victory quite simply meaning a pro-American government providing safety and stability to the majority of the population and denying its use as a major terrorist base]. It is notable that aside from our historically staunch allies, the UK and Canada, our European allies, particularly the French, Germans and Italians have once again, as in Bosnia, first Gulf War and other conflicts, display in Afghanistan what seems to be a consistent post-WWII malaise style of gutless risk-avoiding style of fighting.
So, clearly our NATO allies are obligated to support us but on the other hand, the US needs to be the driver of victory. We are clearly not driving any strategy that would lead to a possible victorious outcome (as victory is defined above) for several major reasons;
First, the MAIN strategy must be "conquer and garrison." We have no problem to accomplish the first half, - "conquer" - our forces easily defeat the enemy anywhere anytime, however, we do NOT have the number of troops to "garrison" areas which are conquered. Instead, we "garrison" and hold only a handful of major artery and C3 (control, command, communication) areas such as Kabul, just as the Soviets did over 30 years ago. We must garrison "all" areas in which we conquer to prevent the Taliban forces from jumping into the tactical and strategic vacuums we leave behind after local victories. This means large numbers of troops, not the scanty 65,000 US and 38,000 Allied soldiers deployed there now. We are talking of 400,000-500,000 troops for "clear" victory, which means the mainstay of those troop numbers would be for garrison duties, not fighting. A small lethal and mobile core (4,000-8,000) of American and reliable/capable NATO allied troops are all that are needed for the battlefield victories, and a second echelon of garrison troops would stay behind. These [garrison] troops can either be from the United States, using conscription to boost our numbers, or, more politically palatable, contract soldiers (aka mercenaries) which were used effectively and relied upon in Iraq (their numbers grew to over 130,000 at one time). Recent modern wars in Korea, Vietnam and the Second Gulf War, proves that without the garrisoning of troops in conquered areas- there is NO hope for "ANY" sort of victory. The politically pat response from the Obama administration about increasing forces dramatically is that the local population will see us as occupiers. This flies in the face of reality- whereas local population enjoy a stable life in US/Allied garrisoned areas- like Kabul, it's hardly believable that the outlying areas would also not wish stability over the current state of terror and hardship they experience everyday.
Second, for the time being, forget democracy, pluralism and other features of Western government and traditions that are simply not suited for this region- for the time being. This is a very practical and realistic assessment, as having spent six (6) years as a human rights officer for the UN during the war in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, its simply a fundamental strategic mistake to utilize Western models in non-Western environments for many obvious reasons. As I eye-witnessed and experienced, it was virtually impossible to begin "fostering" Western concepts of basic human rights during wars without the inherent economic, social and security fabric in place. The idea that developing democracy in Afghanistan will create "peaceful" modalities to settle their disputes is a pipe dream. In fact, fostering these ideas among the national and local government "creates" more instability since it encourages weak, decentralized consultative governance which is slow and ineffective in such unstable security environs. These "weakling" typologies of governance creates power vacuums which invite Al Qaeda and other radicals to provide strong leadership which the local leaders and population seek and expect.
Third; abandon any short or medium term hopes of an Afghan force to replace our forces, its not going to happen and keeping this part of our strategy is greatly contributing, by half, our continued lack of victory. It creates a "false" objective for the previous and current administration to proclaim, the Afghan force is now trained and ready, we are leaving. Leaving Afghanistan in that fashion only adds another dangerous and destabilizing reputation, after Iraq, that the U.S. is unable to accomplish its geopolitical and military objectives, akin to the post-Vietnam era. That post-Vietnam depression of America's lack of resolve took many years to overcome. President's Reagan and Bush I rebuilt America's strategic reputation with successful interventions in Grenada and Panama, the fall of the Soviet Union and the First Gulf War. Now, the second invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are once again creating the image of a weakened America, lack of resolve and inability to get the job done.
If the above is not done, it is equally honorable to negotiate a peace with the Taliban, let them have Afghanistan. Such a negotiation would require the handing over of those suspected in the bombing of the NY Trade towers, lest we forget, that "was" our original demand of the Taliban. It was never our original intention to invade Afghanistan or remove or attack the Taliban. We only did so after the Taliban, although agreeing to cooperate with us in the investigation, refused to hand over key Al Qaeda elements. This is the "only" other viable and geopolitically palatable settlement to be made if the option of military victory is not chosen.
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We tried that strategy in Viet Nam. They were called firebases. The enemy just goes where we are not. Just like the Vietnamese, the Afghanis have been fighting invaders for decades if not longer and the threat of death doesn't seem to be impressing them all that much. I wil agree with your last paragraph since it seems pretty obvious that America doesn't have the financial ability to pursue this war for another 10 years.
thanks for your comment. I would respectfully submit that firebases in Vietnam were actually more, isolated protected and compact zones which hosted indirect artillery support, and often were forward landing bases for chopper support. However, I would not say that the firebases in Vietnam was a form of garrisoning the country. I think the US, as in Afghanistan today, did not garrison much of Vietnam. In addition, we actually do have firebases set up in Afghanistan today, firebase Phoenix being one of the bigger more notable firebases in Kunar province. I think this is not the concept of garrisoning. I agree with your comment that the "taliban and Al Qaeda" fighters can operate wherever we don't operate, but the concept of garrisoning the country is that it fosters local population support because your forces are there to stay. If your forces conquer and then move on, local populations don't oppose radical forces because of fear of retaliation and this sustains the insurgency.
Posted By: Ross Williams
Date: 2009-11-20 11:32:05
I must correct a few of your falsehoods.
First: ...Iraq where the US invaded unilaterally...
"Unilaterally" means "alone". The US did not invade Iraq alone. Now I realize this has become a popular denunciation by the neophytes parroting a scripted critique of US foreign policy, but it is insanely false. It owes its continued longevity to one of a few factors:
the aura and mystique of using a Really Cool WordŽ to impress the hoi polloi, or
the mistaken inpression that it really means "high-handedly" or "hastily" or "with hubris" ... which is often the actual criticism being leveled against US foreign policy [and which is often valid].
It does not mean any of those. It means to take an action by oneself; and since the US took the action under discussion with the concommitant participation of the UK, Poland, Spain, Italy, Japan, Denmark, et cetera, any claims that it was unilateral are elementarily debunkable.
Second: ...the US ... had not been, itself, attacked by Iraq...
Also false. The US -- along with the UK -- were the primary enforcers of the 1991 Gulf War Cease Fire treaty for the UN. As such, they had responsibility for ensuring that Hussein's forces did not do the various and sundry things that the Cease Fire prohibited them from doing. As a result, both the US and UK came under periodic targetting by Iraqi weapons systems -- a beligerent act, and considered an attack itself, the same as pointing a loaded weapon. US and UK planes were also occassionally fired upon.
Because Iraq had signed a Cease Fire and mortgaged a [rather large] portion of their sovereignty in doing so, and because the military forces of the US and UK were patrolling under the auspices of the UN directives to ensure that Hussein ceased being a regional threat, the sovereignty of the US effectively extended to those locations where the US military patrolled -- similar to how an Embassy on foreign soil is sovereign territory of the Ambassador's nation. Hence an attack on those forces became an attack on the sovereignty of the United States: the US was attacked by Iraq.
Dozens of times between mid-1991 and late 2002.
...and to perhaps forestall the common rejoinder to this lesson in International Law 101: the invasion of Iraq by the multilateral force in early 2003 violated nothing. A cease fire is not a peace treaty; it does not declare a war to be over. A cease fire declares that a war is taking a time-out. It is half-time, as it were; a commercial break. "We shall resume fighting after this word from our sponsors."
The terms by which the war can be legitimately resumed are spelled out in the wording of the cease fire. And the 1991 Gulf War Cease Fire contained an awful lot of constraints ... placed entirely upon Iraq. The violation of any one of them legitimized a resumption of hostilities. Cease fire violations do not oblige a resumption of hostilities, just legitimizes them.
With regards to Iraq: The violation of terms prohibiting belligerent actions against peacekeepers legitimize a resumption of hostilities; the violation of terms prohibiting belligerent actions against neighboring countries; the violation of terms prohibiting belligerent actions against indigenous populations; the violation of terms requiring "immediate" and "unconditional" access granted to inspection sites and persons as the UN inspectors requested... et cetera.
The Cease Fire was a veritable Versaillean potpouri of extranational interference and buttinski-ing. And because the United States [among a host of others] signed and ratified it independently of anyone else doing same, the United States was not beholden to anyone else in enforcing the terms of that treaty. It was a "treaty in severality"; the signatories were "severed" from each other -- the US did not need the permission or participation of the UN or anyone else before saying "We've had enough, and we're going to kick your ass."
In truth, the US could have [and did dozens of times in significantly less ostentatious ways] resumed hositilies at virtually any point between mid-1991 and late 2002. ...and those dozens of resumptions came without the tear-stained Sturm und Drang from the fickle principles of the Usual Suspects. ...which suggests that the fickly-principled are not so much interested in US foreign policy when it doesn't wake them from their comfortable slumbers.
But that's a subject of my own essaying on the supreme arrogance of our nation's barstool Pattons and head-shop Disraelis who believe that by virtue of owning a vote in our republic they also therefore own subject-area expertise on whatever subject they wish to pontificate upon.
I'm here, instead, to quibble with your superficial analysis on A'stan.
There are two historical models used prior to the 21st century in making A'stan a military target:
the Ghengis Khan model;
the British model.
Both failed; both were doomed to fail. You hint at why they failed in your second A'stan point by referencing what the US is doing, but you never fully get around to actually stating it.
A'stan is not a "nation" as such; it had nation-statehood thrust upon it by self-serving bureaucrats in the British Foreign Office who drew lines upon a world map and called the areas inside those lines "nations" and random tribal leaders "president" or "king" or "chief HMFWIC" or whatever.
A'stan is a collection of roughly a dozen tribes of generically Pashtun peoples, who are insanely jealous and territorial, and who -- if left to themselves -- will squabble amongst themselves with rocks or swords or AK47s ... whatever technology is available. They've done this for 5,000 years. They aren't likely to stop any time soon, and it certainly won't be because an outsider exhorts them to.
Because they sit in what, at different times of world history, has been considered "strategic land" for a variety of reasons, several groups of outsiders have attempted to control their region for themselves. But in order to do so, they first needed to control those who lived there.
1] The Ghengis Khan model of conquest: invade, declare everyone in the invaded territory to be an enemy, wreak as much havoc as you can, and leave a few decades later wondering how such a primitive and unorganized group of rubes can congeal so quickly into a swarm of mosquitos that seems to multiply the more of them you kill. Used by Mongols and Turks and Arabs to the same effect: ultimate failure to control.
2] the British model of conquest: invade, designate one tribe to act as your proxy, let that tribe be as bossy and pushy as they want and only step into the fray when the rest of the dozen or so tribes congeal into that same swarm of mosquitos which eventually drain your blood as you defend your proxy. Used by the British and the Soviets to the same effect: ultimate failure to control.
[Note: it was being used by Arabs for a second go-round with the foreign-proxy Taliban pulling strings; the Northern Alliance was the congealing "rest of the tribes"].
At the dawn of the 21st Century, the US found itself needing to kick A'stan ass and -- possibly for the first time in its history -- decided to actually learn something from the history of others. The US followed neither the Ghangis Khan model nor the British model. We did not declare all tribes to be the enemy, nor did we select one as our proxy.
We selected one as our enemy -- the one controlled by the Arab/fundamentalist muslim Talibanic yahoos -- and said the rest were our friends. And eight years in, compare the casualty rates of our invasion against the Soviet invasion for basic efficacy.
However, the longer we stay in a foreign entanglement in the Hindukush [literal Pashtun translation: "the killer of Hindus"], the more likely it is that we're going to want to see what we consider "progress" or "victory". Even -- yikes -- "stability". These words have no meaning there.
More correctly, these words do not mean there what we think they should mean ... and what they do mean to us here. There, "progress" means fighting another day in the dull din of simmering intertribal warfare; "victory" means killing an enemy and raping his wife or daughter; "stability" means continuing this war in the face of nosy foreigners who want it to stop. or be replaced by a war that serves their purposes. ...such as a "War on Terror".
Your second point approached but did not arrive at the answer: "western" notions of warfare [including standard objectives and victory conditions], cultural needs and sensibilities have no pertinence. If we are pissed at the Taliban for enabling the amateurs of al Qaida to sucker-punch us, then we go over there, kick their ass, and leave. We reserve the right to do it again and again and again if necessary. But we cannot stay there, hardened in a garrison, or hiding in a firebase, either one. The longer we stay the farther we drift into the British model of A'stan conquest ... because our concept of "stability" is a nation-state notion of central government ... which must be led by a single leader ... in a jealously tribal environment ... where our insistence on propping up the government led by that single leader is viewed as selecting a proxy to do our bidding which, by definition, fosters distrust and actual hostility from the local population. This, despite any high-minded and noble declarations you may make on your intention for doing so.
As with everything else, "high-minded" and "noble" do not mean there what we believe they should.
A'stan will descend into their historical pattern of tribal warfare regardless of what we do. They've got a 5,000 year head start and generations of practice. We can either stay there and continue to get shot at by a larger and larger share of their people while it happens, or we can simply respond to those portions of their internecinities which actually affect us, or threaten to, and do so from "over the horizon".
While it is unclear that doing the latter will be successful, the history of everyone else on the planet tells us that doing the former will not be.
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