Escalation and Reappraisal in Afghanistan
Brian M Downing
The recent campaign in Helmand province, in southern Afghanistan, is the first phase of a far-reaching counterinsurgency program. Western and Afghan troops will clear Taliban fighters from villages and later whole districts, then begin a seemingly simple but actually arduous process of building local military/intelligence forces and delivering medical, construction, and veterinary services to the villages. The process is intended to be repeated in other parts of the country, mainly the South and East. Many think the difficult program will require still more troops.
Troop Requirements
Though the counterinsurgency program calls for Afghan military and government personnel to play substantial roles, especially once the Taliban are driven out, this is unlikely. The Afghan army and state are not yet coherent, reliable institutions; both are corrupt and divided along ethnic lines. Neither will be able to perform a substantial role in the counterinsurgency in the near future.
This means much of the program in Helmand to be done by US and NATO personnel, and this will present difficulty in allocating forces to expand the counterinsurgency program into other provinces. The Taliban will exacerbate personnel shortcomings in the counterinsurgency program by interdicting supplies, attacking small outposts, and assassinating locals deemed collaborators. Recent trends suggest that IEDs and suicide bombers will be the weapons of choice.
The demands of the Helmand campaign, the Taliban response, and plans to extend counterinsurgency into Kandahar, Paktia, Kunar, and other provinces in the South and East will present pressures for the Pentagon to call for more troops. Resonant as though these calls may be on American sensibilities to the dynamics of a previous guerrilla war, they will have forceful arguments behind them – perhaps strong enough to prevent a reappraisal of the strategic justifications for the war, however appropriate that might be.
First, advocates of a deepening commitment will point to events in Iraq, where counterinsurgency doctrines and a troop surge are thought to have effected the volte-face of many Sunni insurgents. Whatever the effect of counterinsurgency was there, it has attained a talismanic quality in the public and among political and military elites. The US, they believe, now has the tools to defeat insurgencies.
Second, advocates will argue that more troops will be essential to consolidate the hard-fought gains in Helmand and to build upon them in other provinces. Arguments will be phrased to convey that not sending more troops will mean that so many had died in vain and other emotional pleas that have historically found support in the public.
Finally, personnel for a surge in Afghanistan might not be as difficult to find as thought. The status of forces agreement governing American forces in Iraq calls for all US troops to be out by the end of 2011. This will allow many if not most of the 130,000 troops presently there to be sent to Afghanistan over the next two years (possibly to replace some flagging NATO commitments), without presenting the strains on manpower that the Pentagon has been facing over the last few years.
Helmand As Test Case, Not Phase One
The counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan is based on elaborate plans drawn up by hundreds of officials in Kabul, Tampa, Langley, and the Pentagon. The ongoing Helmand campaign is the first phase of that elaborate program. The military almost certainly sees the campaign as well planned and bound to succeed. Confidence is an essential part of military culture.
The Helmand Campaign might be more usefully looked upon, not as a first phase of a larger counterinsurgency program, but as a test case of the program’s likelihood of success. Militaries, governments, and publics alike might ask, Are there viable indigenous military and intelligence forces in place? Are the Afghan state and military becoming more professional and effective? Are the tribes of Helmand shifting support to the Kabul government? Are the Taliban forces losing fighters, especially from local part-timers? Are districts becoming more secure? Unless reliable, positive answers are found to these questions, troop increases might simply be raising the stakes in a losing effort.
But who will assess the success or failure of operations in Helmand? Inasmuch as the US army seems to have principal control over the counterinsurgency program, it will likely be the judge. Reports will come up from junior and field-grade officers out in the villages and districts. to be assessed by higher-ups. This presents problems as bureaucracies are not reliable judges of their own programs. Reports reaching the Pentagon on the viability of the South Vietnamese army (ARVN) were quite optimistic about the professionalization, cohesion, and efficacy of ARVN units. But anyone familiar with operations in Laos and elsewhere would know that outside a few units, the ARVN was plagued by widespread corruption, poor leadership, and dubious efficacy.
Few US officers will report to their superiors that their program is not working. If they did, even fewer colonels would send the reports upstream, unredacted. Non-military bureaus such as the CIA and State Department will play important roles in the counterinsurgency and assessing its merits, but they too are subject to institutional pressures.
There will likely be formidable pressure to stay the course and deploy more US troops into the effort. The American public is generally supportive of the war, which it sees as more worthwhile and defensible than the war in Iraq. Support for the war will likely weaken as casualties mount with the new operations, but the deep recession is focusing a great deal of attention on domestic matters and since the end of conscription, few Americans know anyone in the military.
A survey of senior figures on the administration’s foreign policy team will not reveal many with deep knowledge of world affairs, military matters, or Central Asia. Most are politicians from a political party that, fairly or not, is vulnerable to charges of being “weak on defense,” which many fear could escalate into “Who lost Afghanistan?” Few of them will have the experience or fortitude to press for disengagement.
A notable exception is Secretary of Defense Robert Gates – a holdover from the previous administration, whose views on the country’s over-reliance on the military in foreign policy and the Pentagon’s fixation on big-ticket weapon systems have been troubling to some but encouraging to others. He has recently noted that public support for the war will begin to wane in about a year and that signs of progress are essential to sustain war support – a statement that might reflect his unease with the war, and perhaps the president’s as well. Gates will be critical in assessing the war and in pressing a case within the administration for expanding or reducing the effort. Events in Helmand will be key.
©2009 Asia Times
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