Archive for the 'Afghanistan' Category

In Standing up the Iraqi Army I discussed the fact that Iraq would probably be a protectorate of the U.S. for a decade.  In Kurds Desire Long Term U.S. Presence, I followed this up with a discussion of the likely ‘look and feel’ of long term U.S. commitment.  Regardless of what formal agreements the Iraqi government enters into with the U.S., and what the U.N. does or doesn’t authorize the U.S. to do or for how long, the Kurds desire the long term U.S. presence and are willing to negotiate a separate agreement or arrangement with the U.S.  The administration is making a way for the Iraqis to replace the U.N. mandate with new doctrine for the protection of Iraq (and the Kurds will no doubt be at the front of the line to formulate such an agreement within the context of federalism).

In January, the U.S. will also invite the Iraqis to negotiate a new “strategic partnership agreement” to replace the existing United Nations mandate for U.S. troops, starting in 2009. David Satterfield, Rice’s special coordinator for Iraq, will ask Baghdad to appoint a negotiating team that represents all the country’s factions and ministries. This new agreement will be sensitive for both sides, since it will cover everything from imprisonment of Iraqi detainees to future U.S. basing rights to Special Forces operations against al-Qaida terrorists. Explains a senior Bush administration official: “There will be new rules of the game. There have to be. It cannot be business as usual.”

In spite of the losses that al Qaeda has suffered of late, Petraeus has made it clear that there are ongoing operations against them and their “rat lines.”  Further, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condi Rice have locked horns on the role of Iran in Iraq (with Rice asserting that Iran is exercising a restraining role in Iraq while Gates is less sanguine), there is no question that any perceived stand-down by Iran is tactical rather than a change in policy or a desire to see stable democracy in Iraq.  Iran has its forces deployed en mass throughout Iraq.

The Qods Force has some 40,000 men in Iraq. In January 2007, in a press conference in London, the Iranian Resistance revealed a detailed list of 32,000 on mullahs’ payroll with their account numbers in Iranian banks and their ranks in the IRGC’s military hierarchy.

In addition, to pursue its goal in Iraq, the Qods Force has established dozens of terrorist and intelligence networks throughout the country.

Over the past few years, millions of books, pamphlets, CDs, posters and ideological banners promoting the teachings of the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei have been pouring into Iraq by the agents of the force. 

To follow the guidelines from Tehran, the Qods Force has bought or rented more than three thousand buildings, apartments, farms, hotels, shops and other properties in Iraq. These premises have been used as safe houses, hide outs for the force’s commanders and intelligence agents of the Qods Force and rendezvous points for members of terrorist squads.

The real state purchases have been mostly made in the three Shiite strong holds of Najaf, Karbala and Basrah.  The Iranian regime’s tactics have been widly scrutinized by the media in the country. 

Qods Force front entities for fulfilling its task in Iraq

To manage its day-to-day business in the country, the force has been using front organizations. Various front organizations have made it easy for IRGC and Qods Force to conduct their covert and illegal activities; employing such networks have provided the necessary cover for the Iranian regime to keep a low profile while having a hand in most of terrorist operations in Iraq. At the same time, it is difficult for authorities to blow the covers and get the terrorists out since they are well mixed with the ordinary citizens.  

By setting up a number of charitable organizations, mostly in Shiite dominated parts of the country, the Qods Force is expanding its covert intelligence and terrorist networks.

Basra is still in the throes of sectarian strife and criminal gang warfare, and the Basra police chief has recently survived his seventh assassination attempt.  So there is much work left to be done in Iraq.  But in previous articles we have also pointed out that the Afghanistan campaign is languishing, necessitating an overall review of the campaign at the highest levels of the Pentagon.  We have advocated that the Marines be deployed to Afghanistan, and while being called a huge issue for the Marines, it appears that the Anbar Province will be home for the Marines for the foreseeable future.

In October, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway raised the idea of transferring his forces to Afghanistan to take the lead role in fighting the Taliban, leaving the U.S. Army with Iraq.

Conway argued, and Camp Pendleton Marines subsequently interviewed agreed, that Marines are better suited and equipped to serve as warfighters rather than civil affairs peacekeepers.

Afghanistan is considered a more dynamic battleground, where Marine patrols may be more effective than the work they are now performing in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates later shot down the proposal, but the issue that Conway raised is still being debated in the Pentagon and by military strategists.

In mid-December, Conway again spoke of going to Afghanistan and why he believes that makes sense for the 189,000 active-duty Marines.

“(When) it comes time for Marine units to start leaving the country … should we bring them home or should we start looking to put them where there is still an active fight, in this case Afghanistan? And we were prepared to do that. That’s why young Americans join the Marine Corps — to go fight for their country.”

Bing West, a former Marine officer, senior government official and member of the Council on Foreign Relations who maintains close ties with the service’s leadership, said the Afghanistan vs. Iraq debate will continue. The council is a nonpartisan group dedicated to researching and analyzing global trends.

“For the Marine Corps, the Afghanistan issue dwarfs anything else,” West said in a recent interview. “It makes sense, but I don’t expect it will be resolved until there is a new secretary of defense.

“It will depend on where they want to take the overall force,” he said.

The lighter-equipped and less-vehicle-dependent Marine Corps is better suited for Afghanistan than is the Army, West said.

“The Marines are more reliant on dismounted forces, and that’s what’s necessary in Afghanistan,” he said.

We have also recommended seeing Afghanistan as the primary front for the counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan.  The British have attempted to negotiate with the Taliban, and for this malfeasance have had two MI6 agents expelled from Afghanistan.  But with the need for more forces, if the Marines will not be deployed to Afghanistan, then what is the strategy for winning the campaign?  Further, how will we proceed in our approach to a nuclear armed Pakistan?  Gates has proffered the idea of an additional 7500 troops in Afghanistan (an increase that is likely to be too little), while the plan for Pakistan is breathtaking in its small-mindedness.

President Bush’s senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The debate is a response to intelligence reports that Al Qaeda and the Taliban are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government, several senior administration officials said.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a number of President Bush’s top national security advisers met Friday at the White House to discuss the proposal, which is part of a broad reassessment of American strategy after the assassination 10 days ago of the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There was also talk of how to handle the period from now to the Feb. 18 elections, and the aftermath of those elections.

Several of the participants in the meeting argued that the threat to the government of President Pervez Musharraf was now so grave that both Mr. Musharraf and Pakistan’s new military leadership were likely to give the United States more latitude, officials said. But no decisions were made, said the officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the highly delicate nature of the discussions.

Many of the specific options under discussion are unclear and highly classified. Officials said that the options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the military’s Special Operations forces.

The Bush administration has not formally presented any new proposals to Mr. Musharraf, who gave up his military role last month, or to his successor as the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who the White House thinks will be more sympathetic to the American position than Mr. Musharraf. Early in his career, General Kayani was an aide to Ms. Bhutto while she was prime minister and later led the Pakistani intelligence service.

But at the White House and the Pentagon, officials see an opportunity in the changing power structure for the Americans to advocate for the expanded authority in Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country. “After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize — creating chaos in Pakistan itself,” one senior official said.

The new options for expanded covert operations include loosening restrictions on the C.I.A. to strike selected targets in Pakistan, in some cases using intelligence provided by Pakistani sources, officials said. Most counterterrorism operations in Pakistan have been conducted by the C.I.A.; in Afghanistan, where military operations are under way, including some with NATO forces, the military can take the lead.

The legal status would not change if the administration decided to act more aggressively. However, if the C.I.A. were given broader authority, it could call for help from the military or deputize some forces of the Special Operations Command to act under the authority of the agency.

If addressing the issue of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Waziristan was merely an issue of removing some high value targets like a federal prosecutor targeting leaders of organized crime to shut down the organization, then this strategy might be compelling.  But the very nature of this region of the world requires counterinsurgency efforts predicated upon strength, and time spent in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan going after individuals will likely lead to the strengthening of the enemy rather than their diminution.  The campaign in Afghanistan cannot be won by special forces operators, road construction and money.  Money and roads will be co-opted by the Taliban for their own purposes if they are left in power.

In the end, there is no replacement for force projection.  Our commitment to Iraq cannot waiver, not even in the long term, but a reduction in force presence there must also be accompanied by a rapid increase at the front of the counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan, i.e., Afghanistan, as soon as possible.  A re-evaluation of global commitments such as troops presence in Germany and South Korea might also yield additional resources for CENTCOM.  Either way, time is of the essence in the Middle East.

I have previously discussed the intense disagreement between the British and the American defense departments over the strategy in Iraq and the British retreat from Basra, this disagreement spilling over to the campaign in Afghanistan.  The British desire to negotiate with mid-level Taliban officers to attempt to split the organization away from the most senior leaders, an effort aided by Hamid Karzai that has as its price a place in the new Afghan government for the Taliban.  But the U.S. is of course deeply opposed to this strategy, and this disagreement has reached an important milestone.

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that two senior diplomats were expelled from Afghanistan and the U.N. wants them back in the country.  The Brits see this all as very disturbing and some in the British government praise the attempt to talk to the Taliban, but these two individuals were no diplomats.  They were MI6 agents whose job it was to negotiate with the Taliban.

The Australian is reporting on the agents and their discussions.

KABUL: A UN official and an EU diplomat ordered out of Afghanistan on allegations of posing a national security threat left the country yesterday.

It was the first time the Government of President Hamid Karzai had expelled senior Western officials and is a sign of growing frustrations at the lack of progress in the country.

The UN employee, British national Mervyn Patterson, left on a UN flight. The EU official was identified as Irish national Michael Semple, the organisation’s second most senior representative in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Government on Tuesday gave the men 48 hours to leave, saying they had posed a security threat.

Officials said on condition of anonymity that the men had been in contact with the Taliban.

The UN says the affair was a misunderstanding that arose after the diplomats visited the southern town of Musa Qala, which was in Taliban control for 10 months until a military operation about two weeks ago. They had visited in co-ordination with the Afghan Government to assess “stabilisation” efforts after the military offensive.

The men left the country as reports claimed the British secret service had engaged in peace talks with senior Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, despite Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists.

Reports claimed MI6 agents held a number of discussions, known as jirgas, with members of the hardline Islamist group over the northern summer.

We have advocated a more robust presence in Afghanistan, in addition to seeing Afghanistan as the key to Pakistan, rather than vice versa.  Musa Qala fell to the Taliban due to inadequate force projection, and seven purple hearts had to be awarded to U.S. soldiers because of the battle to retake control of this area as a result of previous “negotiations.”  Rather than a single city, the British and U.S. strategists are locked in combat over the way to approach the counterinsurgency campaign for an entire country.  Afghanistan hangs in the balance.

With some time having elapsed since Bhutto’s assassination where we can consider the implications of Pakistani politics, it is good to rehearse where the U.S. stands in the global war on extremist militants.  Regarding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, I commented:

I have said before that ”counterinsurgency in Pakistan begins in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan / Afghanistan border. Unless and until we devote the troops and effect the force projection to let the people in these AOs know that we are serious about the campaign, there will be no success.”  I have advocated more troops in the Afghanistan campaign for the simple reason that not only must we win in Afghanistan, we have an unmitigated opportunity to kill Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan where we are not dealing with issues of sovereignty of Pakistan.  In other words, we have the best of all possible worlds in the current campaign in Afghanistan (similar to the campaign in Iraq, although this is waning somewhat due to Iraqi sovereignty).  We can fight international jihadists with the full approval of the administration and for the most part without the overhead of issues of national sovereignty.

This campaign, once shown to be successful, can then be expanded into Pakistan with the tacit approval of the Pakistani government (i.e., small incursions and concealed operations, expanded to larger operations if the need and approval were forthcoming).  Here is where the administration of Pakistan is important.  Musharraf is likely an American ally only to the extent that he believed Richard Armitage when it was said to him that the U.S. would enjoy his cooperation or Pakistan would be “bombed back to the stone age” (the words as reported by Musharraf himself).  Bhutto, on the other hand, would have been a willing participant in the global war on religious militancy, and is said to have desired international assistance in the Pakistan counterinsurgency campaign: “If Bhutto returns to power this week, Gauhar predicts the U.S. will finally get what Musharraf has refused it: “She will allow NATO boots on the ground in our tribal areas and a chance to neuter our nuclear weapons.”

In the days following the assassination, many have weighed in on Bhutto’s financial indiscretions and other examples of malfeasance as Prime Minister.  One of the most significant critiques has come from the always interesting Ralph Peters at the New York Post.  He is even more frank and forthcoming on his feelings in a recent commentary for The Australian.

For the next several days you’re going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Her country is better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.

We don’t need to have sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognise that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.

She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and hard-headed journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness but also a thoroughbred democrat.

In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani.

Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.

Educated in expensive Western schools, she permitted Pakistan’s feeble education system to rot, opening the door to Islamists and their religious schools.

During her years as prime minister, Pakistan went backwards, not forwards. Her husband looted shamelessly and ended up fleeing the country, pursued by the courts. The Islamist threat, which she artfully played both ways, spread like cancer.

Peters ends his scathing rebuke of Bhutto and those who lament her passing by observing that “A creature of insatiable ambition, Bhutto will become a martyr. In death, she may pay back some of the enormous debt she owes her country.”

Perhaps.  But a careful reading of my analysis proves that it is entirely pragmatic.  I have long said regarding the parliamentary system in Iraq that one serious flaw in the preliminary stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom was the naive belief in the healing powers of democracy.  Democracy is itself produced by a society, and produces nothing.  It is a deliverance of people and their value system, not vice versa.  Said in another way, it cannot effect change.  It is itself an affect or product.  Given Iraqi history and culture, there might have been no good options, but democracy does not seem to have helped.

This same belief in the powers of democracy has caused the U.S. administration to support Bhutto, and Ralph Peters is correct in his diagnosis of her abilities to conjure up an image of peace and stability in Pakistan with the American elite.  However, involvement in the politics of Pakistan should not cloud the analysis, and has not entered into mine.  From the perspective of an American commentator and analyst, the primary concern should be the strategic interests of America, both short term and long term.  Democracy should be supported in Pakistan only to the extent that it is a catalyst of peace and stability and thus in the strategic interests of the U.S.  As to its benefits to long term stability, I have my doubts, but there is no short term advantage.

For my previous analysis, democracy in Pakistan and malfeasance of previous administrations didn’t fit into the equation.  Bhutto, it seems, would have allowed incursions of U.S. troops into Pakistan, and even further – NATO boots on the ground, formally and officially.  It seems difficult to fake this, as it was a major plank in her platform.  The situation in Pakistan is difficult and tenuous, and may devolve into chaos.  But assuming the restoration of stability at some point, the U.S. administration should see this as a gracious and providential warning shot over the bow.

The campaign in Afghanistan remains the first front of the counterinsurgency campaign in Pakistan.  Karachi, with a population of over 14 million people, and Lahore, with a population of over 10 million people, are larger than Fallujah by a factor 20 to 30.  Counterinsurgency in these cities would cost the U.S. armed forces on the order of tens of thousands of dead and more than one hundred thousand wounded – prohibitive to say the least.  But given that Pakistan is a nuclear state with assets that could fall into jihadist hands, the salient question is how to proceed short of such an awful campaign.

Again, the answer is in Afghanistan, where the campaign there is inextricably tied to counterinsurgency in Pakistan.

President Bush held an emergency meeting of his top foreign policy aides yesterday to discuss the deepening crisis in Pakistan, as administration officials and others explored whether Thursday’s assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto marks the beginning of a new Islamic extremist offensive that could spread beyond Pakistan and undermine the U.S. war effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old war in Afghanistan with Pakistan’s growing turbulence.

“The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied,” said J. Alexander Thier, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan who is now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.

U.S. military officers and other defense experts do not anticipate an immediate impact on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But they are concerned that continued instability eventually will spill over and intensify the fighting in Afghanistan, which has spiked in recent months as the Taliban has strengthened and expanded its operations.

Unrest in Pakistan and increasing fuel prices have already boosted the cost of food in Afghanistan, making it more likely that hungry Afghans will be lured by payments from the Taliban to participate in attacks, a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.

In a secure videoconference yesterday linking officials in Washington, Islamabad and Crawford, Tex., Bush received briefings from CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Bush then discussed Bhutto’s assassination and U.S. efforts to stabilize Pakistan with his top foreign policy advisers, including Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, as well as Adm. William J. Fallon of Central Command and Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. intelligence and Defense Department sources said there is increasing evidence that the assassination of Bhutto, a former Pakistani prime minister, was carried out by al-Qaeda or its allies inside Pakistan. The intelligence officials said that in recent weeks their colleagues had passed along warnings to the Pakistani government that al-Qaeda-related groups were planning suicide attacks on Pakistani politicians.

The U.S. and Pakistani governments are focusing on Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, as a possible suspect. A senior U.S. official said that the Bush administration is paying attention to a list provided by Pakistan’s interior ministry indicating that Mehsud’s targets include former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former interior minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, and several other cabinet officials and moderate Islamist leaders. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a hit list, but we take it very seriously,” the official said. “All moderates [in Pakistan] are now under threat from this terrorism.”

Mehsud told the BBC earlier this month that the Pakistani government’s actions forced him to react with a “defensive jihad.”

After signing a condolence book for Bhutto at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, Rice said the United States is in contact with “all” of the parties in Pakistan and stressed that the Jan. 8 elections should not be postponed. “Obviously, it’s just very important that the democratic process go forward,” she told reporters.

The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan warned U.S. citizens Thursday to keep a low profile and avoid public gatherings. A Pentagon official said plans to evacuate Americans from the country are being reviewed.

“We’ve really got a new situation here in western Pakistan,” said Army Col. Thomas F. Lynch III, who has served in Afghanistan and with Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for Pakistan and the Middle East. He said the assassination marks a “critical new phase” in jihadist operations in Pakistan and predicted that the coming months would bring concentrated attacks on other prominent Pakistanis.

“The Taliban . . . are indeed a growing element of the domestic political stew” in Pakistan, said John Blackton, who served as a U.S. official in Afghanistan in the 1970s and again 20 years later. He noted that Pakistani military intelligence created the Taliban in Afghanistan.

How the United States responds will hinge largely on the actions of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, in whom U.S. officials have mixed confidence. If there is indeed a new challenge by Islamic militants emerging in Pakistan, then the United States will have to do whatever it can to support Musharraf, the U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.

“Pakistan must take drastic action against the Taliban in its midst or we will face the prospect of a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of al-Qaeda — a threat far more dangerous and real than Hussein’s arsenal ever was,” he said, referring to the deposed Saddam Hussein.

U.S. officials are concerned about the affect of Pakistan on the campaign in Afghanistan, but seeing things clearly requires looking in the opposite direction.  Settling scores with al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan is much easier than it will be in Pakistan.  The stakes are huge, and the notion of incorporating the Taliban into the government in Afghanistan (as the British advocate in order to create ‘peace’) seems so far removed from realistic regional needs that it is incredible that the idea was ever proffered.  The British want to make peace with the jihadists, but when reality strikes an ugly chord with the assassination of an opponent of jihad in Pakistan, we are reminded of the specter of nuclear weapons in major American cities, and the smoke clears and the room of mirrors is broken – along with our illusions of peace with the jihadists.

I wanted to put out some preliminary thoughts on current news – the assassination of former (and likely future) Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto – but to do this, I will neglect the sweeping, link-laden and highly sourced analyses that I try to provide.  Instead, my thoughts will be in the ‘stream of consciousness’ style.

It is a sad day for the global war on terror, and the American left, always anxious to lay blame, hasn’t yet solidified its talking points.  Peter Beinart believes that the U.S. administration is somehow to blame because we didn’t push President Pervez Musharraf far and fast enough towards democracy.  Alan Colmes believes that the U.S. administration is somehow to blame because we pushed democracy on a country not ready for it.  Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee inexplicably apologized for the incident, expressing “our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.”  Inexplicably, that is, unless along with the American left he also feels that the U.S. is somehow to blame for Islamic militancy in Pakistan.

I won’t engage in the omniscient blame game.  But Ambassador Bolton’s concerns are salient when he takes the position that in encouraging Bhutto’s re-emergence on the political scene in Pakistan we “helped to precipitate” the unfortunate events of today, and further remarks that of utmost strategic interest is the safety of the nuclear weapons under Pakistan’s care.  Bolton fails to see how any of this helps the strategic interests of the U.S.

Bolton is not part of the political left, and while I usually agree with him, I take issue with his characterization of these events.  I too, am concerned about the strategic interests of the U.S., and more could have been done after the first assassination attempt on Bhutto’s life (the first day that she returned to Pakistan) to protect her and provide more security.  Bhutto is said to have desired and requested this additional security (and in fact from the U.S. FBI and other assets), and Pakistan is said to have denied this request.  If this fact had been known, then the U.S. administration shares a little of the blame for not pushing hard enough on Musharraf for this protection (and of course, Musharraf is primarily to blame).

However, Bolton is ignoring the long term strategic interests in having Bhutto involved in Pakistani politics.  I have said before that “counterinsurgency in Pakistan begins in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan / Afghanistan border. Unless and until we devote the troops and effect the force projection to let the people in these AOs know that we are serious about the campaign, there will be no success.”  I have advocated more troops in the Afghanistan campaign for the simple reason that not only must we win in Afghanistan, we have an unmitigated opportunity to kill Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan where we are not dealing with issues of sovereignty of Pakistan.  In other words, we have the best of all possible worlds in the current campaign in Afghanistan (similar to the campaign in Iraq, although this is waning somewhat due to Iraqi sovereignty).  We can fight international jihadists with the full approval of the administration and for the most part without the overhead of issues of national sovereignty.

This campaign, once shown to be successful, can then be expanded into Pakistan with the tacit approval of the Pakistani government (i.e., small incursions and concealed operations, expanded to larger operations if the need and approval were forthcoming).  Here is where the administration of Pakistan is important.  Musharraf is likely an American ally only to the extent that he believed Richard Armitage when it was said to him that the U.S. would enjoy his cooperation or Pakistan would be “bombed back to the stone age” (the words as reported by Musharraf himself).  Bhutto, on the other hand, would have been a willing participant in the global war on religious militancy, and is said to have desired international assistance in the Pakistan counterinsurgency campaign: “If Bhutto returns to power this week, Gauhar predicts the U.S. will finally get what Musharraf has refused it: “She will allow NATO boots on the ground in our tribal areas and a chance to neuter our nuclear weapons.”

While Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is said to favor an addition of only 7500 troops to the Afghanistan campaign, hope springs eternal that strategic interests would be seriously evaluated around the globe (e.g., Germany and South Korea) and troop realignments would occur to support both the Iraq and Afghanistan counterinsurgency campaigns.

We must think long term, and Bhutto, because she was a clear thinker, was a long term ally of the United States.  It is a sad day for the U.S. and the global war on terror.  Only time will tell how serious this setback is.  My sense is that it’s very serious.

The Telegraph is reporting that there are ongoing secret negotiations between British intelligence and the Taliban.

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown’s pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as “jirgas”, with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.

An intelligence source said: “The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide ‘mentoring’ for the Taliban.”

The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: “We will not enter into any negotiations with these people.”

Opposition leaders said that Mr Brown had “some explaining to do”.

The Government was apparently prepared to admit that the talks had taken place but Gordon Brown was thought to have “bottled out” just before Prime Minister’s Questions on Dec 12, when he made his denial instead.

It is thought that the Americans were extremely unhappy with the news becoming public that an ally was negotiating with terrorists who supported the September 11 attackers.

This is further confirmation,  but to be precise, this is not news.  We have previously discussed the fact that British officials believed the Taliban to be too deeply rooted to be eradicated by military means, and had intended to court the alleged more “moderate” members of the Taliban to attempt to divide their organization.  We have also discussed the fact that Britain does support negotiations with the Taliban and sees a role for them to play in the new Afghanistan.

“Britain will support deals with Taliban insurgents to give them places in Afghanistan’s new government and military, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced yesterday, distancing himself from the Canadian and U.S. strategy of refusing to sit down with the Taliban.  In a speech to the House of Commons announcing a new Afghanistan strategy, Mr. Brown said that Britain will join Afghan President Hamid Karzai in making money and job offers to “former insurgents.”

Brown is referring to an effort underway by Hamid Karzai to obtain the loyalties of the lieutenants of Mullah Omar and thus split the organization.  The price for this loyalty is a place at the table in the new Afghanistan.  So Prime Minister Brown will likely continue to play politics before the House of Commons and explain that Britain really doesn’t negotiate with the Taliban, but supports settling with the more ‘moderate’ Lieutenants of the senior leadership in order to fragment the Taliban.

He is taking this position because not a single country currently engaged in Afghanistan is willing to send more troops into the theater except the U.S., and Gates himself is only willing to commit an additional 7500 troops despite the ongoing review of the Afghanistan counterinsurgency campaign.  The British position is based on the American experience in Anbar of co-opting the enemy, or settling with erstwhile insurgents with the concerned citizens program. Or so they think.

Sadly, this is to mistake the Anbar narrative.  In Anbar, the U.S. Marines gave the U.S. the upper hand from three hard years of kinetic operations, and negotiations with the tribes took place from the perspective of strength.  Further, the Anbari tribes were not, for the most part, fighting from a perspective of religious fervor.  It is one thing to settle with insurgents who need jobs to feed their families.  It is quite another to settle with men who desire your death because of religious beliefs – like the Taliban.  The Brits are involved in a dirty game, indeed.

In Review and Analysis of Afghanistan Counterinsurgency Campaign, we noted that the first quarter of 2008 should see the results of a department-wide review of the Afghanistan COIN campaign strategy, and previously we have strongly suggested the needs for more troops.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates sets the pretext for this review and essentially tells us what he expects to see as a result of the review.

Gates said a small number of additional troops are needed in Afghanistan, but ruled out a broad surge of American forces. Commanders in Afghanistan are asking for smaller numbers of combat troops and support personnel who could train Afghan forces, but do not see the need for an Iraq-style troop buildup.

“You’re talking about probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,500 troops. So it’s not like moving 100,000 troops from one place to the other or something like that,” Gates said. “But there is clearly, in the view even of the commander in the field, no requirement for a substantial plus-up of forces in Afghanistan to accomplish his mission.”

Those additional 7,500 troops could be drawn from American forces. Gates had been pressing the NATO allies for more troops. Though U.S. officials do want to maintain pressure on allied nations to send more troops, Gates noted there is little reason to press countries with a weak minority government for whom it is politically impossible to send more troops.

“Continuing to publicly go after our allies for things — to do things that politically are just impossible for them is probably not very productive,” he said.

Gates said the challenge of the year ahead in Afghanistan is to build on military progress, maintain control of newly recaptured areas and start to push ahead on some economic progress.

“There is no doubt … that there has been an increase in violence over the past year,” Gates said. “But in part it has been due to much more aggressive actions on the part of the NATO alliance and the U.S. forces that are there. The spring offensive we expected from the Taliban became NATO’s spring offensive.”

This seems overly optimistic to me, and 7500 additional troops still doesn’t provide either the ability to conduct operations in a country the size of Afghanistan or to supply border security.

At the Small Wars Journal Blog there is an article by the same subject title.  This article is by Clint Watts and is another excellent warning to the Pentagon thinkers and planners.  It is commended to the reader, and I supplied the following comment.

I have argued similarly in the post:

The Special Forces Plan for Pakistan: Mistaking the Anbar Narrative

It has become in vogue to characterize the Anbar narrative as the “awakening,” and nothing more than this, as if it was all about getting a tribe to “flip.” To be sure, we needed Captain Travis Patriquin’s observations sooner than we got them, and I have argued almost nonstop for greater language training before deployment and payment to so-called “concerned citizens” and other erstwhile insurgents. You can qualify expert on the rifle range, but if you can’t speak the language, you’re going in ‘blind’ (to play on words).

But just to make it clear, to see the Anbar narrative as all about tribes “flipping” is an impoverished view of the campaign. It’s a Johnny-come-lately view. Hard and costly kinetic operations laid the groundwork for the tribal realignments. Sheikh Sattar had to have his smuggling lines cut and dismembered by specially assigned units conducting kinetic operations in order to ‘see the light’ and align with U.S. forces. Then, a tank had to be parked outside his residence to provide protection against the insurgents in order to keep him alive and aligned with the U.S.

The pundits talk about the tribes, but the Marines talk about kinetic operations inside Ramadi to provide the window of opportunity for the tribes to realign their allegiance:

Marine Staff Sergeant Helps Awaken Anbar

To be sure, the tribal alliance is a large part of the Anbar victory, but force projection (not force protection) was the pretext for the Anbar awakening. We simply cannot do COIN on the cheap. I hope that no one exists who believes that we could have waltzed into Anbar three years ago, without the pretext of force projection, and sat down with the tribes and verbally persuaded them to join “the cause?” Perhaps we could have done it (won) sooner (perhaps two years), and perhaps we could have done it without quite the heavy losses (if we had been prepared for IEDs and snipers a little better), and perhaps it could have been more efficient had we understood the culture and language better. But make no mistake. The strong horse gets the bet. There is no value in weakness in this part of the world. And the Anbar campaign must not be seen as the consequent of any revised strategy or the surge. It did not result from any of this, but was ongoing for three years separate from what happened in the balance of Iraq.

Export the strategy? Of course, but an understanding of the strategy is necessary in order to export it. SF operators and talk didn’t win Anbar. Force projection won Anbar.

COIN in Pakistan begins in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan / Afghanistan border. Unless and until we devote the troops and effect the force projection to let the people in these AOs know that we are serious about the campaign, there will be no success. The troops needed to conduct COIN in this campaign are currently in Anbar, or at Camp’s LeJeune or Pendleton.

Conclusion: This is a good article, and serves as yet another warning to the Pentagon thinkers and planners that there are no strings to pull, no buttons to push, and no magic words to speak. ‘Abracadabra’ plus the right formula just doesn’t work, and leaves us where we were before. COIN requires boots on the ground. How many more warnings will have to be issued?

Force projection + COIN =  A winning strategy.

In Musa Qala: The Argument for Force Projection, and Clarifying Expectations in Afghanistan, we discussed ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan in light of the battle for Musa Qala, Afghanistan’s “battle of Fallujah” that never occurred.  We discussed the heavy bombing approach, the evacuation of families from the city, the lack of adequate force projection to take and hold Musa Qala, the British desire to negotiate with the Taliban, and disparate doctrines held by Australia (more forces are necessary) and the U.S. (advocating the small footprint COIN approach).

Continuing with this theme, we noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was prepared to talk tough to NATO in order to get more troops dedicated to the campaign in Afghanistan.  While various main stream media reports and blog entries are hailing Musa Qala as a great victory, Gates has directly admitted that the campaign needs to undergo a transition.  “Gates called for overhauling the alliance’s Afghan strategy over the next three to five years, shifting NATO’s focus from primarily one of rebuilding to one of waging “a classic counterinsurgency” against a resurgent Taliban and growing influx of al-Qaida fighters.”

So how did this summit of NATO leaders turn out?  The British still want to pay enough money to split the Taliban, but intend to send no more troops into theater.  The Australians, along with every other NATO member who has troops in theater, will draft a ‘plan’ to make the Afghanistan campaign more successful, but intend to send no more troops.  Gates was reduced to platitudes like: ” … while the United States also ha[s] no plans to send more troops in the short-term, [we will be] trying more creative ways to encourage other NATO members to increase their presence in Afghanistan.”

While the Taliban would most surely like to have held Musa Qala, they determined that withdrawal and reversion to more clandestine tactics were strategically superior.  “As Afghanistan has headed into its bitterly cold winter, the Taliban have retreated from direct combat operations and have resorted to roadside bombs to target coalition forces, says Major Michael Bassingthwaighte, a commander in Australia’s Reconstruction Task Force based in Tarin Kowt …  With the coming of winter, many Taliban fighters had fled across the unpatrolled border into Pakistan or to distant homes for the Islamic holiday period of Eid.  He expects the tempo of Taliban combat operations to increase after the poppy harvesting season finishes in April, a period when the Taliban find it hard to recruit fighters.”

The Afghanistan campaign suffers most particularly in the South.  The south continues to move steadily in the wrong direction. Instability has spread to a number of previously benign provinces. Some countries, especially European ones that have contributed to NATO’s forces, are unenthusiastic about the shooting war they find themselves involved in. After a summer of repeatedly retaking the same two districts of Kandahar province, the Canadian commander, Brigadier-General Guy Laroche, commented: “Everything we have done in that regard is not a waste of time, but close to it”.

There are signs, too, that as the insurgency meshes itself tightly with the drugs trade, a sizeable proportion of the population may feel it has a vested interest in prolonged insecurity which allows narcotics production to flourish.

The winter is at least a moment to pause and reflect on strategy for next year. At Musa Qala, NATO and Afghan forces easily defeated the Taliban but as diplomats in Kabul, the capital, concede, a far greater challenge is then defending against reinfiltration. Securing territory means getting the support of local people. In Helmand, for example, this requires teams of anthropologists and political officers to deal with a mosaic of tribal interest groups, an approach used by American forces elsewhere in the country. That means a greater emphasis on reconciliation and negotiation with local Taliban leaders, as well as training Afghan forces so they are able to take the lead in military operations.

Politically the challenges are no easier. The Afghan public, particularly in the south, is gloomy about the future. Dismay over corruption and wrangling between different ethnic groups suggest that Afghan leaders, such as President Hamid Karzai, will need substantial support from outsiders for a long time yet. America is backing the idea of sending a “super envoy” to co-ordinate international efforts in Afghanistan. But the government remains unable even to reach out across areas of the south. Where it cannot reach there may need to be more controversial “tribal solutions”, such as village militias to provide local security and efforts to empower tribal elders and local systems of justice.

But it must be remembered that the tribal solution was implemented in Anbar from a position of strength.  Far from being unable to reach areas of Anbar, Marines were deployed all over the province, engaged in kinetic and constabulary operations as well as public relations, reconstruction and engagement of the population in paying labor.  We have also argued at The Captain’s Journal that the solution to the poppy problem is not to spray or use other means to kill the crops.  This might be seen as out-terrorizing the terrorists.  The solution to the insurgency problem is to target the insurgents, and the solution to the drug problem is interdiction and reconstitution of the agricultural industry in Afghanistan.  But this requires force projection.  It also requires largesse, civil affairs, diplomacy, and other arms of “soft power.”  But soft power is founded on the pretext of hard power, not the other way around.

There is currently a policy review underway for the Afghanistan campaign.  “Amid rising concerns about lagging progress in Afghanistan, the top U.S. commander in the region has launched a review of the American mission there with a major focus on counterterrorism efforts, a senior U.S. military official said Sunday.  Adm. William Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, has ordered senior staff to conduct a thorough review of the six-year-old war against al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan, the senior official confirmed to CNN.  The review has been under way for several weeks, and Fallon is not considering any new recommendations until its completion, the official said.  The study, first reported by The New York Times, is focused on efforts by U.S. troops along Afghanistan’s rugged border with Pakistan.”

The first quarter of 2008 should reveal the results of this policy review.  Unless the campaign in Afghanistan is taken as seriously as it has been in Iraq, the policy review will not have been successful.  There are troops available for deployment in Afghanistan, but they are currently in Germany and South Korea.  Will the Pentagon have the courage to engage in global strategic thinking, or will the deliverance of this study be more platitudes about being creative?

See also Future COIN in Afghanistan, Small Wars Journal Blog

In Musa Qala: The Argument for Force Projection, we discussed the Afghan and NATO battle to retake Musa Qala, and expanded into the small footprint characteristic of the counterinsurgency campaign, along with an Australian officer’s call for more forces.  The battle is being hailed as a victory, with “hundred’s of Taliban dead while two British soldiers and one U.S. soldier lost were killed.  Actually, with seven U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division wounded, this constitutes a casualty ratio of 10:1 or slightly greater, which is routine in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  To be precise, hundreds of Taliban were said to be killed or captured, but many are still reported to have fled prior to the battle.

While it is a positive sign to win back Musa Qala, the operation required heavy air power, and the city was deserted of families after the battle.  The battle for Musa Qala is a poster child for the Afghanistan campaign, with the British having entered into a gentleman’s agreement with tribal leaders to prevent the return of the Taliban (in agreement for British force departing the area), when the tribal leaders clearly lacking the means to enforce their end of the agreement.  Adequate troops didn’t exist to perform reconstruction or constabulary operations for Musa Qala, and the question remains how either Afghanistan or NATO will now have the forces necessary to maintain order in Musa Qala when they did not before.

A telling indication of the U.S. expectations was given to us in preparation for a summit of NATO leaders concerning the Afghanistan campaign.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sharply criticized NATO countries Tuesday for failing to supply urgently needed trainers, helicopters and infantry for Afghanistan as violence escalates there, vowing not to let the alliance “off the hook.”

Gates called for overhauling the alliance’s Afghan strategy over the next three to five years, shifting NATO’s focus from primarily one of rebuilding to one of waging “a classic counterinsurgency” against a resurgent Taliban and growing influx of al-Qaida fighters.

“I am not ready to let NATO off the hook in Afghanistan at this point,” Gates told the House Armed Services Committee. Ticking off a list of vital requirements — about 3,500 more military trainers, 20 helicopters, and three infantry battalions — Gates voiced “frustration” at “our allies not being able to step up to the plate.”

The defense secretary’s blunt public scolding of NATO, together with equally forceful testimony Tuesday by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, put on display the growing transatlantic rift over the future of the mission in Afghanistan. The Bush administration over the last year has increasingly bristled at what it sees as NATO’s overly passive response to the Taliban, but European leaders have repeatedly rebuffed entreaties by Gates and President Bush to do more.

In recent months, officials said, Bush and his advisers have grown more concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, where, in contrast to Iraq, violence is on the rise and the U.S.-led coalition is struggling to adjust to changing conditions on the ground. As the White House reviews its Afghanistan policy, officials have concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals set for 2007 have not been met despite tactical combat successes.

Gates has made a stark admission; the campaign in Afghanistan has gone from one of rebuilding to one of classical counterinsurgency.  More involvement is necessary by NATO forces.  But Australia is prepared to talk tough as well.

Australia’s new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon will deliver a blunt message to NATO countries meeting in Scotland on Friday, telling them that there will be no more Australian troops sent to Afghanistan until European countries increase their commitment.

Before the conference of defence ministers kicks off in Edinburgh this weekend, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been outlining his country’s future strategy in Afghanistan.

NATO is not winning, but they are not losing either.

Australian aid workers have told ABC Radio’s AM program that it is better to have the 40,000 allied troops in Afghanistan, but they are not enough to be the solution.

When Mr Fitzgibbon is in Edinburgh, his simple message will be that the new Labor Government could send more troops, but only if countries like Spain and Germany also send more troops to the south.

Also in preparation for the upcoming meeting, Mr Brown gave a speech in the British House of Commons.

“Let me make it clear at the outset, that as part of a coalition, we are winning the battle against the Taliban insurgency,” Mr Brown said.

“We are isolating and eliminating the leadership of the Taliban. We are not negotiating with them.”

But indeed Britain does support negotiations with the Taliban and sees a role for them to play in the new Afghanistan.  “Britain will support deals with Taliban insurgents to give them places in Afghanistan’s new government and military, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced yesterday, distancing himself from the Canadian and U.S. strategy of refusing to sit down with the Taliban.  In a speech to the House of Commons announcing a new Afghanistan strategy, Mr. Brown said that Britain will join Afghan President Hamid Karzai in making money and job offers to “former insurgents.”

Brown is referring to an effort underway by Hamid Karzai to obtain the loyalties of the lieutenants of Mullah Omar and thus split the organization.  The price for this loyalty is a place at the table in the new Afghanistan.  The U.S. brought the Anbaris into a peaceful solution to the insurgency from a position of strength rather than weakness, and the indigenous Anbaris were not, for the most part, fighting from a perspective of religious jihad.  This fact and the stark difference it presents against the backdrop of the Taliban seems to be lost on NATO and the Brits.  This circus-like atmosphere is made worse given the solution proferred by the NATO secretary general: increased involvement by Japan in the Afghanistan campaign!

Force projection is needed in Afghanistan, and this force projection will involve kinetic operations to capture and kill Taliban.  Co-opting them into a new Afghanistan defeats the original purpose of the war, and deprecates the sacrifices of the men who have died in Afghanistan to make the U.S. safe.  NATO will not be able to do the bidding of the U.S.  This is our task, and the message over the last year of the campaign is that it will be done by us and not someone else.

Ever since the British pulled out of Musa Qala, Afghanistan, in October of 2007, the Taliban have committed atrocities against the population and subjugated them to Taliban rule, and with forces more powerful than the Afghan police in Musa Qala, the agreement between British forces and the tribal leaders to prevent the Taliban from entering Musa Qala was rendered powerless and irrelevant.

Almost immediately after the British pullout from Musa Qala, the Taliban rolled in.  British officials believed the Taliban to be too deeply rooted to be eradicated by military means, and heretofore had intended to court the alleged more “moderate” members of the Taliban to attempt to divide their organization.

But the brutality of the Taliban occupation, along with the direct refusal of the Taliban ever to negotiate with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, apparently convinced NATO that negotiations would have redounded to no positive results.  So NATO planned operations against the Taliban that months ago was billed as Afghanistan’s Fallujah.  A series of air attacks killed various Taliban leaders over the intervening months, but this didn’t weaken the Taliban hold on the area.

The assault on Musa Qala began on December 7, with Afghan forces in the lead.  Heavy arial bombardment  preceded the advance of Afghan forces from the South, while U.S. forces were flown in by helicopter just North of the city.  Approximately seven soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded after being air assaulted in about 14 kilometers North of Musa Qala and engaging in a five or six hour gun fight with Taliban forces.  Two NATO soldiers perished as a result of the operations against the Taliban.  Several significant Taliban leaders were killed or captured during operations.

British forces have said that they wouldn’t take something they have no plan to hold, and at the moment NATO and Afghan forces, in anticipation of Taliban counterattacks, are digging in and fortifying their positions.  But while U.S. forces battled some of the Taliban as the fled North, most fighters simply melted away into the terrain.  These fighters will live to fight another day, under cover of darkness, in the shadows, planting roadside bombs, and shooting innocent Afghanis.  Afghanistan’s “battle of Fallujah” didn’t occur, as the forces necessary to encircle the Taliban forces and chase them until captured or killed didn’t exist.  While the Taliban lost some fighters and indeed some significant local leaders, they know better than to engage NATO forces in kinetic operations for any protracted period of time.

Australian Army Colonel Don Roach has argued for a larger force size in Afghanistan.

… NATO-backed International Security Assistance Force and its Afghan army allies are stretched too thinly in Oruzgan province, home to the 370-strong Australian Reconstruction Task Force, which is facing a growing threat from resurgent Taliban militants … “One of the fundamental principles of a counter-insurgency is you can always do with more forces,” said Colonel Roach, who is on the headquarters staff of the ISAF, serving as its senior liaison officer with the Afghan army and police in Regional Command South. “You can go into an area and leave and Taliban will come back and chop peoples heads off.”

At The Captain’s Journal, we agree with Colonel Roach’s axiom, but it should be noted that this is not a given in COIN doctrine.  In fact, Military transition teams in Afghanistan are designed with exactly the opposite idea in mind.

MiTT training is a major part of the Pentagon’s new approach to counterinsurgency. A MiTT embeds with an Iraqi or Afghan unit. The team itself is small–10-15 soldiers, usually of more advanced rank, from staff sergeant to colonel–but designed to work with almost any size unit from battalion to division. Their goal is to make the local troops self-sustaining: tactically, operationally, and logistically. Aside from providing training and expertise, MiTTs also provide a huge morale boost to their foreign counterparts as they have the power to call in air support and reinforcements otherwise not at the disposal of the local police and military. The MiTT should encourage the locals to go on the offensive and gain the confidence needed to later fight on their own: a necessary component of our we-stand-down-as-they-stand-up exit strategy. Transition teams also leave a small footprint in hostile areas that might be stirred up by a larger U.S. presence. Such small groups remain in the shadows and emphasize the achievement of Iraqi and Afghan forces–something that greatly reduces the political fallout of U.S. operations.

But this may be more pedantic than wise.  The Anbar Province in Iraq has also seen its share of tribal leaders and concerned citizens stepping up to be counted, but in order for this to obtain, a tank had to be parked outside the home of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the most powerful figure in Anbar, to protect him from al Qaeda attacks.  There is no replacement for force projection.  The British reaction to the Taliban re-entry into Masu Qala is befuddling given the nature of power in this region.  Agreements come and go, but without the means to enforce the agreements, it seems odd that the British would have relied on this “gentleman’s understanding” with the tribes in the area.

The British want other NATO forces to shoulder more of the burden in Afghanistan, the Canadians are there only because the U.S. says they have to be there (according to a recent poll), and there are roads through Afghanistan that, in a less dangerous situation, might force competition against the poppy trade.  Yet this road is too dangerous because of bombs, shootings and Taliban influence to be relied upon for commerce.

The ruined Afghan police truck smoldered on the highway in the village bazaar, flames rising from its cargo bed. The village was silent. Its residents had hidden themselves ahead of a U.S. patrol.

The remains of a second truck, a tanker, sat on its wheel rims 100 yards to the north. To the south, another patrol was removing two other freshly burned tankers from the highway, clearing the lanes so traffic might pass.

The Americans examined the police truck. Holes marked where bullets had passed through. The front passenger door was gone; a rocket-propelled grenade had struck and exploded there.

This vehicle graveyard on Highway 1, roughly 50 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital, symbolizes both the ambitions and frustrations in Afghanistan six years after the Taliban were chased from power.

Highway 1 is the country’s main road, the route between Kabul and Kandahar, the country’s second largest city. It lies atop an ancient trade route that, in theory, could connect Central Asia and Afghanistan with ports in Pakistan, restoring Afghanistan’s place as a transit hub for something besides heroin.

The highway, which has been rebuilt with $250 million from the United States and other nations, accommodates a daily flow of automobiles, buses and ornately decorated cargo carriers, which the soldiers call “jingle trucks.”

The Afghan and U.S. governments say the road’s restored condition is a tangible step toward a self-sufficient Afghanistan.

But Highway 1 remains bedeviled by danger, extortion and treachery. Police corruption and insurgent attacks sow fear and make traveling many sections of the road a lottery. The risks limit its contribution to the economy and underscore the government’s weakness beyond Kabul.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ordered Marines to stay in the Anbar Province (rather than deploy to Afghanistan) where they will likely be conducting public relations missions and handing out food bags to the Anbaris, but force projection is needed in Afghanistan.  Yet as long as the small footprint counterinsurgency advocates hold sway, the campaign appears to be proceeding apace in Afghanistan.  Doctrine can indeed color the lenses through which we see the world.