Posted by: zanshin, 2009-02-22 11:43

Story

Boots on the ground -- Afghanistan and Pakistan
2009-02-19 (Thursday), Economist
America is sending more troops and helping build a bigger Afghan army, but will still struggle to defeat the Taliban

THE big Antonov aircraft lumbered over the snow-clad mountains, landed at Kabul airport and, like a mythological whale, opened its great jaws to disgorge a consignment of Russian-designed attack helicopters. It might have been a scene from the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, except that nowadays it is America that is providing the refurbished Mi-35 Hind helicopters that once terrorised the Afghan countryside, and training (or retraining) their Afghan crews. Many are veterans of the Soviet-backed forces; the commander of Afghanistan’s air corps is a former MiG-21 pilot.

Such ironies will give ammunition to the many doubters who say that America is repeating the errors of the Soviet Union. Like the Soviet empire (and the British one before it), it has failed to understand that controlling Afghanistan is much harder than invading it. And like Soviet leaders, critics say, President Barack Obama is now reinforcing failure by sending thousands more troops to confront an insurgency organised from across the border in Pakistan. The White House on February 17th announced that 17,000 more troops would join the existing 65,000 Western troops “to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”

Despite the weight of history and the yearly deterioration in security, American commanders remain convinced that the war is “winnable”. Unlike the anti-Soviet mujahideen, they argue, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies do not have the support of a superpower. America has broad international backing for its actions, and still enjoys a good measure of support among ordinary Afghans. So for now American pilots and their Afghan charges dominate the air, with little fear of being shot at with anti-aircraft missiles of the kind America once gave the mujahideen.

Helicopters are the workhorses of the Afghan campaign, allowing troops to move with less risk of ambush or bombs; insurgents tend to scatter at the sight of attack helicopters. Under American tutelage the Afghan air corps has grown from four aircraft that had somehow survived the civil war of the 1990s and American air strikes in 2001 into a modest fleet of 32 aircraft—propeller-driven Antonov transport planes, Mi-17 transport helicopters and, more recently, the Mi-35 attack helicopters. Afghan pilots cannot yet fly by instruments at night or in bad weather; a helicopter crash in January killed one Afghan army commander and several others. But the air corps has been busy moving Afghan troops into battle zones. By 2016 it is expected to grow to more than 120 aircraft, perhaps including some light attack jets, at a total cost of about $5 billion. “Building an air corps in the middle of a war is like building an aircraft in mid-flight,” says Brigadier-General Walter Givhan, commander of the American training team.

The Afghan army is also being built in mid-battle, expanding from the current 80,000 troops to 134,000 (plus embedded Western troops) by 2011. Afghan soldiers are respected by Western commanders as tough fighters, and are well-liked by most Afghans as members of one of the few functioning national institutions.

A wholesale review of America’s policy in Afghanistan, and across the border in Pakistan, is due to be completed in the coming weeks. In the short term, NATO hopes that with more Afghan units and extra American troops, perhaps helped by the possible short-term deployment of up to 10,000 more European forces, it will be able to secure enough of the populated areas in the restive Pushtun belt to ensure a credible presidential election in August. Commanders say the American reinforcements will be used to improve security in provinces surrounding Kabul, protect the ring road that connects Afghanistan’s cities and, above all, to reinforce NATO’s faltering effort in the south of the country. British and Canadian forces in Helmand and Kandahar provinces respectively have been hard-pressed since 2006. The extra troops will also establish greater control of the open desert border with Pakistan in the south; they will seek to interdict fighters and weapons being smuggled into Afghanistan and drugs being taken out of it.

This may lead to a rise in violence, at least in the short term. But commanders argue that, with more boots on the ground, they will have less reason to use the air power which has contributed to a sharp rise in civilian casualties (see chart) and has raised tensions with the Afghan government. The United Nations recorded the deaths of 2,118 civilians in the conflict last year, 39% higher than in 2007 and the highest yearly toll since the fall of the Taliban. Of these, 55% were attributed to the Taliban and other “anti-government elements”, and 39% to Western and Afghan forces.

Few are predicting an Iraq-style improvement in security. The sanctuary enjoyed by insurgents in Pakistan gives them the ability to fight more or less indefinitely. Indeed, there is much debate over the extent of Pakistan’s co-operation with NATO (or, in the view of sceptics, of its double game). Senior Americans say cross-border communication has improved, particularly in the east (eg, along the border with Kunar province), but some senior Afghans think this is a sham. They note that the most important havens—in Waziristan and in Baluchistan—are untroubled by Pakistani forces; Taliban leaders allegedly meet freely in Karachi. For one well-placed Afghan, “Pakistan is the political wing of the Taliban.”

Fighting Afghan with Afghan
As insurgents come under pressure from NATO in the south, they may shift their attacks to areas that are less defended; the Dutch in Uruzgan, a relative success story of late, worry that the Taliban will move into their area as the Americans push into Helmand and Kandahar. Counter-insurgency requires large numbers of troops and policemen (which in Afghanistan are weak, corrupt and often drug-addled). Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s defence minister, says his army needs to be much bigger than the planned 134,000. Almost everybody would agree with him. Iraq, smaller than Afghanistan in terms of land area and population, has over 267,000 troops.

One problem, though, is that the Afghan army cannot grow any faster because of a shortage of literate recruits for the officer corps. Another problem is money; Afghanistan is too poor to afford even the forces it now has. But Mr Wardak says that is the wrong way to look at the problem. As thousands more Western soldiers prepare to move into his country, he says: “Building, equipping and training the Afghan army is much more economical than the deployment of foreign troops.”

Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2009

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Tags

Afghanistan,   Al-Qaeda,   Baluchistan,   Corruption,   Counterinsurgency,   Drugs,   empire,   Geopolitics,   Iraq,   military,   NATO,   Obama,   Open-Ended Issues,   Pakistan,   Taliban,   United Nations,   USA,   War On Terror,   Waziristan,  

Related statements

Date  
2009-02-17 In the USA, the White House announced that 17,000 more troops would join the existing 65,000 Western troops in Afghanistan “to stabilise a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires.”
2009 Afghanistan´s army needs to be much bigger than the planned 134,000.
-- According to Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan’s defence minister
2009 The insurgents in Afghanistan profit from the ´sanctuary´ in Pakistan.
2009 The USA is helping Afghanistan to build a bigger army.
2009 The USA is sending more troops to Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the police forces are weak, corrupt and often drug-addled).
Counter-insurgency requires large numbers of troops and policemen.
Taliban leaders allegedly meet freely in Karachi, Pakistan.
The most important havens—in Waziristan and in Baluchistan —are untroubled by Pakistani forces.
Cross-border communication between USA and Pakistan has not improved, it is a sham.
-- According to Senior Afghans
Cross-border communication between USA and Pakistan has improved, particularly in the east (eg, along the border with Kunar province).
-- According to Senior Americans
The sanctuary enjoyed by insurgents in Pakistan gives them the ability to fight more or less indefinitely.
USA pilots and their Afghan charges dominate the air in Afghanistan.
The USA still enjoys a good measure of support among ordinary Afghans.
The USA has broad international backing for its actions in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies do not have the support of a superpower.
The USA has failed to understand that controlling Afghanistan is much harder than invading it.
NO: The war in Afghanistan is NOT "winnable" for the USA and NATO
YES: The war in Afghanistan is "winnable" for the USA and NATO
Issue: Is the war in Afghanistan "winnable" for the USA and NATO
-

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2009-10-15Op-ed Contributorto Beat The Taliban, Fight From Afar
2006-09-21Defense Contractors Gone Wild
2006-09-12The Bubble of American Supremacy
2006-09-23Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons
2006-09-26We Are Not Going to Evacuate. We Are Not Going Anywhere
2006-09-06NATO takes the field
2006-09-09President Bush Delivers Remarks on Terrorism
2006-08-29Nation Faltering, Afghans’ Leader Draws Criticism
2006-04-20The Next Iraqi War? Sectarianism and Civil Conflict
2006-05-01Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?
2006-05-01Bush Affirms Confidence in Pakistan as 'War on Terror' Ally
2006-05-01Bush Rules Out a Nuclear Deal With Pakistanis
2006-12-03Baghdad Year Zero - Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia
2006-12-03The Way Out of War - A blueprint for leaving Iraq now
2006-12-04Afghanistan: No blood for oil - this time
2006-12-04NATO summit throws up a surprise
2006-12-09Backgrounder: The Implications of 'Civil War' in Iraq
2006-11-26Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age
2006-10-26President Bush on Iraq
2006-10-18The Clash of Cultures and American Hegemony
2006-11-08Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up' -- Former Top Commander Condemns Pentagon Officials Over Iraq War
2007-04-12A Conversation With Vladimir Bukovsky
2007-04-04The Next World Order
2007-03-31India-Pakistan: Troubled Relations
2007-05-05WHY IRAN WILL HAVE THE BOMB
2007-05-07The battle for Turkey's soul
2007-04-25Gravy Train: Feeding The Pentagon By Feeding Somalia
2007-04-25Economic Hit Men -- An interview with John Perkins
2007-04-30U.S. sees sharp rise in global terrorism deaths
2007-05-10A Reporter At Large: In The Party Of God (Part II)
2007-05-14Timeline: Nato
2007-05-17Rehabilitating US Imperialism
2006-05-01‘The Enemy at Home’ - First Chapter
2007-01-16Guantanamo stirs protests
2007-01-16What Would War Look Like?
2007-01-14Natural Resources are Fuelling a New Cold War
2007-01-03Tomgram: On the Imperial Path in 2007
2007-01-08Adm. William J. Fallon: An Experienced Naval Officer, and a Diplomat
2007-01-09Despite their shoddy track record on Iraq analysis, O'Reilly trusts only "my military analysts
2007-01-11Transcript of President Bush’s Address to Nation on U.S. Policy in Iraq
2007-01-27My Worst Moment As a Lawyer
2007-02-10Al-Qaeda Suspects Color White House Debate Over Iran
2007-02-18After Neoconservatism
2007-02-20Misplaying North Korea and Losing Friends and Influence in Northeast Asia
2007-02-26Military Commissions Act of 2006 – Turning bad policy into bad law
2007-03-18Between Europe And The Middle East: The Transformation Of Turkish Policy
2007-03-21Chris Hedges: The Christian Right’s War on America