Afghanistan is “under-resourced”
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When the Manley Report on Afghanistan was released I was flabbergasted that it suggested that 1,000 troops could make a difference to, well, anything. It was a policy without a principle. And that suggestion seemed to me a completely dishonest or ill-informed representation of the mission. More from Fred Kaplan on the misconception of the mission, and a quote that demonstrates the scale of the fallacy:
Gen. Dan K. McNeill, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday that the military mission is “under-resourced.” However, he also said that a counterinsurgency campaign, along the lines of U.S. doctrine, would require more than 400,000 NATO and Afghan troops. NATO troops currently total about 40,000 (including those that won’t fight). The Afghan national army has roughly another 60,000, of mixed effectiveness.
Meanwhile, the Tory strategy is extortion: putting a gun in our mouths and threatening an election unless we make a “simple decision”. The Government is framing this as a confidence motion for a very simple reason: it doesn’t have the moral courage to debate the issue on its merits - all it has left is the threat of an unwelcome election. Loan’s comment - “Either you support the military mission in Afghanistan or you don’t” - is perhaps the single stupidest utterance I’ve heard from a Canadian politican on Afghanistan, exactly the kind of Rumsfeldian bloviation that entrenched the US in a closed-minded, virtually endless cycle of poor policy, strategy and tactics in Iraq, and couched in exactly the kind of schoolyard-bullying language that betrays the essential moral cowardice of the policy.
Pearson’s tears - we need and deserve far, far better than this.
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IMO, the Tory position on Afghanistan has nothing to do with the issues of Afghanistan, and everything to do with the fact that they are champing at the bit to call an election over anything. If you don’t agree with Manley, we’ll call an election. If the Senate doesn’t pass the crime legislation within the next two weeks, we’ll call an election. Budget? Don’t get me started. What’s next?
Today, a spokesman for Prime Minister Harper stated that if the Parliamentary Cafeteria does not serve Sloppy Joes on Tuesday, they will consider that Parliament no longer enjoys the confidence of the cafeteria staff, and they will take the menu issue to the people in a general election. “Although we never considered him sloppy, we see the elimination of this dish named for a great Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, Joe Clark, as an affront to all Canadians, to our history and heritage, and to the parliamentary process itself,” said the spokesman. “The Prime Minster considers this a matter of confidence, and we are prepared to go the people.” The Communications Director for the PMO, Sandra Buckler, was unavailable to provide further comment from the Prime Minister as she is still recovering from minor surgery to extricate her foot from her mouth. In other news, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, Michael Fortier, terminated the supply contract for hamburger for the Parliamentary Cafeteria, claiming that he no longer has confidence in the supplier, and that the cafeteria should elect to seek a new mandate for their menu.
Good point. It seems to me that there should be a debate about whether the mission in Afghanistan is “too little, too late” or was “the wrong stuff” from the beginning.
William S Lind argues that the counterinsurgency should really be undertaken by police forces doing something like community policing, which has nearly disappeared from our own streets. That is one version of the “wrong stuff” position. More of a political or diplomatic option with police support.
“Too little, too late” is a position described by Col Chet Richards, USAF (ret), in his monograph, Neither Shall The Sword. He presents the position that Fourth Generation Warfare (sort of like counterinsurgency - hearts and minds, etc) must follow “on the shadow” of the the maneuver warfare operation (Third Generation War, military option, initial attack.)
That opportunity was blown during the period following the rout of the Taliban (and bin Laden’s escape) in November 2001 and the summer of 2006 when it became clear that the Taliban was “back.” That’s the too late part. That shadow had long past; now we are living under another one. Your piece adds to that interpretation.
Musharraf made it clear in 06 when he visited Canada that there were too few troops, that the Soviets had lost with nearly three times as many including a large contingent of neighboring Islamic troops, and that it was time to step up the diplomacy. He and the British made some deals with village leaders in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The US and NATO chose to violate the terms of those agreements, paving the way for the current instability in Pakistan and some of the worst fighting the British have encountered since WWII (according to a British General in charge of operations in Helemand).
I fear Canada is in for a long, ugly ride that will make VietNam look relatively innocent and brief and easy. Canadians will probably not have an opportunity to debate whether or not the incoherent NATO mission will be extended into Pakistan or Iran. That’s a lot worse than too bad.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks, Mark - I had a great laugh over that.
I agree with you completely, Jim. And now with an effective ceasefire between the Pakistan government and Taliban forces in Waziristan, there will be safe haven for these forces to intensify their operations in Afghanistan. I fear the worst.
Thanks for your reply to my comment.
Actually, the ceasefire works for both sides. Both want breathing space. Mehsud probably does want to regroup for a spring offensive. On the government side, troops were reported to be demoralized by winter weather and rougher terrain than they are used to. Also, the government is hoping to have elections on the 18th.
On the plus side, the ceasefire means that the two sides are talking. According to Asia Times Online, tribal elders persuaded Mehsud to withdraw rather than suffer aerial attacks. Several Taliban commanders brokered the deal. When Peter Mackay throws up his hands and says, “Who shall we talk to,” mention Sirajuddin Haqqani and Maulvi Bakhta. If he can’t get their contact information, he should resign.
Between here and a lasting settlement, only one thing is certain–there will be talks with the enemy. Meanwhile, there may be a lot of deaths or very few. We (Canada) may spend vastly more than we are spending now–or not much. A long time may pass or not. And the talks themselves may take a long time or not.
The coalition holds many decisive cards. The main card that we do not hold is the one that would give us the Absolute Faerie Tale Victory with liberal democracy and human rights as good as white people get here.
The ceasefires of 2006 failed for several different reasons. On the Pakistani side of the border, the Waziristan ceasefire of September 2006 (there were partial ceasefires that began in April) finally collapsed on October 30 after an attack on a madrassa that killed 80 or so students in Bajaur Agency (FATA). The government of Pakistan took responsibility for the strike, but locals blamed it on the US. The ceasefire wasn’t in Bajaur, but the air strike carried a potent message. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bajaur_airstrike_2006.jpg
In Musa Qala, Helemand province, tribal elders promised the British they would keep the Taliban out if the British would leave. The deal, which lasted from October 06 to February 07, ended when NATO forces killed Mullah Ibrahim in an airstrike. Shortly after, his brother, the Taliban leader in the Musa Qala district led his men back into the town.
There is always an ambiguity about these things that each side uses to serve its own purposes–both militarily and in their propaganda. A British commander has expressed predictable frustration with the lack of a coherent strategy at this late date. It is conceivable that this mish mosh of commands and expectations will simply prove incapable of delivering and maintaining the conditions for a peace.
On the Pakistan side of the border, casualty levels have been reported to average about 50 a day on the government side.
Dion and Obama have both said they would be willing to invade Pakistan.
I don’t normally compare this conflict to Vietnam. But in that war, the US precipitated one of the worst genocides in the modern era by deluding itself about its role in local politics once it had decided to expand the war into Cambodia and Laos. What could such incompetent management of diplomatic resources accomplish in Pakistan?
If Musharraf is right, the military achievements are now several years past their best-before date. It’s all over but the bleeding. When we reckon we’ve bled enough, then we’ll talk.
An interesting detail that jumps out at me as I re-read this. The border, which is so important to this whole business, has never been recognized by the Afghan government, and the Pashtuns (Pathans) from which most Taliban come have their tribal lands in Pakistan, Afghanistan right across to Iran. It is, if anything, even more meaningless to them than to the Afghan government.