The Redhunter

1) Afghanistan is in misery. 68% of the population has never known peace. Life expectancy is 44 years. It has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world: One of six pregnant Afghan women dies for each live birth. Terrorist incidents and main force insurgent violence is rising (34% increase this year in kinetic events.) Battle action and casualties are now much higher in Afghanistan for US forces than they are in Iraq. The Afghan government at provincial and district level is largely dysfunctional and corrupt. The security situation (2.8 million refugees); the economy (unemployment 40% and rising, extreme poverty 41%, acute food shortages, inflation 12% and rising, agriculture broken); the giant heroin/opium criminal enterprise ($4 billion and 800 metric tons of heroin); and Afghan governance are all likely to get worse in the coming 24 months.

Liberals and Democrats will not want to hear this, but the truth is that between Iraq and Afghanistan the latter is the tougher nut to crack. Iraq was always more winnable as long as we had the willpower, correct strategy, and number of troops. In other words, if you think Iraq is a mess wait until you read McCaffrey's entire report on Afghanistan. And by "mess", I'm not talking about our forces or those of our allies, but about the indigenous situation.

If we hadn't invaded Iraq but rather concentrated on Afghanistan as we're told we should have done, we'd most likely have a similar situation in Afghanistan to what we have today, and an Iraq mostly free of sanctions, causing trouble in the region, and on the way to rebuilding it's stockpile of WMD.

2) The magnificent, resilient Afghan people absolutely reject the ideology and violence of the Taliban (90% or greater) but have little faith in the ability of the government to provide security, justice, clean water, electricity, or jobs. Much of Afghanistan has great faith in US military forces, but enormous suspicion of the commitment and staying power of our NATO allies.

Suspicious of the "commitment and staying power of our NATO allies?" I thought this was the war we were all supposed to be in favor of? You mean that they're not committed?

3) The courageous and determined NATO Forces (the employable forces are principally US, Canadian, British, Polish, and Dutch) and the Afghan National Army (the ANA is a splendid success story) cannot be defeated in battle. They will continue to slaughter the Pashtun insurgents, criminals, and international terrorist syndicates who directly confront them. (7000+ killed during 2007 alone.) The Taliban will increasingly turn to terrorism directed against the people and the Afghan National Police. However, the atmosphere of terror cannot be countered by relying mainly on military means. We cannot win through a war of attrition. The economic and political support provided by the international community is currently inadequate to deal with the situation.

Sounds like the people running the Afghan campaign need to read Gen. Petraeus' U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual 3-24. The "international community" also needs to be whacked over the head.

4) 2009 will be the year of decision. The Taliban and a greatly enhanced foreign fighter presence will: strike decisive blows against selected NATO units; will try to erase the FATA and Baluchi borders with Afghanistan; will try to sever the road networks and stop the construction of new roads (Route # 1 -- the Ring Road from Kabul to Kandahar is frequently now interdicted); and will try to strangle and isolate the capital. Without more effective and non-corrupt Afghan political leadership at province and district level, Afghanistan may become a failed state hosting foreign terrorist communities with global ambitions. Afghan political elites are focused more on the struggle for power than governance.

This doesn't portend well for the future.

5) US unilateral reinforcements driven by US Defense Secretary Bob Gates have provided additional Army and Marine combat forces and significant enhanced training and equipment support for Afghan security forces. This has combined with greatly increased US nation-building support (PRT's, road building, support for the Pakistani Armed Forces, etc.) to temporarily halt the slide into total warfare. The total US outlay in Afghanistan this year will be in excess of $34 billion: a burn rate of more than $2.8 billion per month. However, there has been no corresponding significant effort by the international community. The skillful employment of US Air Force, Army, and Naval air power (to include greatly expanded use of armed and reconnaissance UAV's : Predator, Reaper, Global hawk, and Shadow) has narrowly prevented the Taliban from massing and achieving local tactical victories over isolated and outnumbered US and coalition forces in the East and South.

"No corresponding significant effort by the international community." That Gen. McCaffrey hammers at this in each of his points is significant. The question is, why haven't they stepped up?

Liberals and Democrats usually point to Iraq and claim that we squandered post-9/11 goodwill through an ill-considered invasion. No doubt that it did not make us popular, and indeed earned us a good deal of enmity. But what would it say about our "allies" if indeed they were holding back in Afghanistan because of Iraq? It would say that they're a bunch of petulant children too immature to act in their own best interests because they did not get their way elsewhere. Tempting though it may be for me to say this is the reason for their behavior, I think it really lies elsewhere.

My take is that our "allies" do not support our efforts in Afghanistan for several interrelated reasons. The biggest problem is that they do not see the reality of the Jihadist threat. Most of them believe that the terrorists will leave them alone if they do not stir the hornets nest. After all, most do not even see the threat from within their own borders from their restless Muslim populations. Related to this is the effect of cradle-to-grave socialism on the psyche. It's what Mark Steyn called the "softening and feminization of the Western world" in his best-seller America Alone. In Europe, he says, "the soft culture is so pervasive - state pensions, protected jobs, six weeks of paid vacation, lavish unemployment benefits if the thirty-five-hour work week sounds too grueling - that the citizen is little more than a junkie on the state narcotic." Add to this the moral confusion of multiculturalism and you get a society in which the people don't care about anything but their own health care and pensions.

I'm not at all saying that the Bush Administration couldn't have done a better job. I've stated many times on this blog that they've done a miserable job at getting our message out and tapping our vast reservoirs of "soft power." What I am saying is that if you think that the reason NATO isn't stepping up is because of the Bush Administration and Iraq you're wrong.

6) There is no unity of command in Afghanistan. A sensible coordination of all political and military elements of the Afghan theater of operations does not exist. There is no single military headquarters tactically commanding all US forces. All NATO military forces do not fully respond to the NATO ISAF Commander because of extensive national operational restrictions and caveats. In theory, NATO ISAF Forces respond to the (US) SACEUR...but US Forces in ISAF (half the total ISAF forces are US) respond to the US CENTCOM commander. However, US Special Operations Forces respond to US SOCOM.....not (US) SACEUR or US CENTCOM. There is no accepted Combined NATO-Afghan military headquarters. There is no clear political governance relationship organizing the government of Afghanistan, the United Nations and its many Agencies, NATO and its political and military presence, the 26 Afghan deployed allied nations, the hundreds of NGO's, and private entities and contractors. There is little formal dialog between the government and military of Pakistan and Afghanistan, except that cobbled together by the US Forces in Regional Command East along the Pakistan frontier.

Part of the problem with establishing unity of command is that too many of our European "partners" simply do not want to fight. They're willing to contribute troops; as long as they're kept in safe locations where there is little chance they'll incur casualties. In other words, they're there so that they can say they are "doing something." The only countries really fighting are us, Canada, the UK, and The Netherlands.

This said, "without NATO we are lost in Afghanistan." We cannot do it alone unless we drastically increase our spending, and this is not going to happen. The next president has got to whack some sense into the Europeans.

How do we win? McCaffrey tells us that

The battle will be won in Afghanistan when there is an operational Afghan police presence in the nation's 34 provinces and 398 Districts. The battle will be won when the current Afghan National Army expands from 80,000 troops to 200,000 troops with appropriate equipment, training, and leadership and embedded NATO LNO teams. (Afghanistan is 50% larger than Iraq and has a larger population.) The battle will be won when we deploy a five battalion US Army engineer brigade with attached Stryker security elements to lead a five year road building effort employing Afghan contractors and training and mentoring Afghan engineers. The war will be won when we fix the Afghan agricultural system which employs 82% of the population. The war will be won when the international community demands the eradication of the opium and cannabis crops and robustly supports the development of alternative economic activity.

Elsewhere McCaffrey praises the "superb" U.S. troops but also that "much of our ground and air equipment is falling apart."

We need more troops, and more money for equipment. But we can get them both without taking them from the required fight in Iraq. I've said for a long time that we should spend more on our military. One thing we can do is eliminate wasteful things like the U.S. Department of Education and spend the savings building the five battalion US Army engineer brigade that McCaffrey talks about.

So we've got our work cut out for us in Afghanistan. Whoever is elected president will have the luxury of inheriting an Iraq that is mostly won (thank you to President Bush who finally saw the light). They'd better step up to the plate.

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The December General Barry McCaffrey Report on Iraq
Barry McCaffrey on Iraq II
"The Most Brilliantly Led Military We Have Ever Fielded" (Iraq)
Barry McCaffrey on Afghanistan