This is a discussion on What strategy can we use to win in Afganistan? within the Geo-Strategic Defense forum, part of the Global Defense & Military category; Guys, I would like to recommend that you read what four articles on two areas, the ANA and the ANP, ...
Guys, I would like to recommend that you read what four articles on two areas, the ANA and the ANP, which set the background for Stratfor's 'The Meaning of Marjah'. The Stratfor article is written by Kamran Bokhari, Peter Zeihan and Nathan Hughes and a portion of it is quoted below. I have put in bold and in blue some text for emphasis:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stratfor
...As the Obama administration’s strategy has begun to take shape, it has started thinking about endgames. A decades-long occupation and pacification of Afghanistan is simply not in the cards. A withdrawal is, but only a withdrawal where the security free-for-all that allowed al Qaeda to thrive will not return. And this is where Marjah comes in.
Denying the Taliban control of poppy farming communities like Marjah and the key population centers along the Helmand River Valley — and areas like them around the country — is the first goal of the American strategy. The fewer key population centers the Taliban can count on, the more dispersed — and militarily inefficient — their forces will be. This will hardly destroy the Taliban, but destruction isn’t the goal. The Taliban are not simply a militant Islamist force. At times they are a flag of convenience for businessmen or thugs; they can even be, simply, the least-bad alternative for villagers desperate for basic security and civil services. In many parts of Afghanistan, the Taliban are not only pervasive but also the sole option for governance and civil authority.
So destruction of what is in essence part of the local cultural and political fabric is not an American goal. Instead, the goal is to prevent the Taliban from mounting large-scale operations that could overwhelm any particular location. Remember, the Americans do not wish to pacify Afghanistan; the Americans wish to leave Afghanistan in a form that will not cause the United States severe problems down the road. In effect, achieving the first goal simply aims to shape the ground for a shot at achieving the second.
That second goal is to establish a domestic authority that can stand up to the Taliban in the long run. Most of the surge of forces into Afghanistan is not designed to battle the Taliban now but to secure the population and train the Afghan security forces to battle the Taliban later. To do this, the Taliban must be weak enough in a formal military sense to be unable to launch massive or coordinated attacks. Capturing key population centers along the Helmand River Valley is the first step in a strategy designed to create the breathing room necessary to create a replacement force, preferably a replacement force that provides Afghans with a viable alternative to the Taliban.
That is no small task. In recent years, in places where the official government has been corrupt, inept or defunct, the Taliban have in many cases stepped in to provide basic governance and civil authority. And this is why even the Americans are publicly flirting with holding talks with certain factions of the Taliban in hopes that at least some of the fighters can be dissuaded from battling the Americans (assisting with the first goal) and perhaps even joining the nascent Afghan government (assisting with the second).
The bottom line is that this battle does not mark the turning of the tide of the war. Instead, it is part of the application of a new strategy that accurately takes into account Afghanistan’s geography and all the weaknesses and challenges that geography poses. Marjah marks the first time the United States has applied a plan not to hold the line, but actually to reshape the country...
Two areas of concern - the ANA and the ANP - the problems and recommendations:
(i) Col (Rtd) Jeff Haynes* writes on 'Reforming the Afghan National Army (ANA)' in November 2009. NPS also has a 'Summary on the ANA'. This piece is longer but necessary to set the stage to critique the ANA. which provides the background for Jeff Haynes.
(ii) Robert A. Wehrle writing for Washington Times on February 21, 2010 says that 'Afghan mess bigger than we thought'. This article is mercifully short and concise on the conceptual problems with the current approach, in particular, the weak link called the ANP. There's also a companion piece called 'Reforming the ANP', which is longer and more detailed than the piece by Robert A. Wehrle.
In reality all these articles quoted above are external view points and I find that we are really lacking articles written by the Afghans themselves. Therefore I've included a link to an article (to a 17 page pdf) written by Ali A. Jalali. He was the Interior Minister of Afghanistan from January 2003 to September 2005. His expressed view sees the situation as more complex and has a focus beyond the immediate problems of the ANA and ANP.
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*Note: Jeff Haynes recently retired as a Colonel from the United States Marine Corps after 24 years of service. During 2008, he commanded Regional Corps Advisory Command-Central where he advised the Afghan National Army’s 201st Corps Commanding General and staff. Concurrently, Colonel Haynes commanded 23 Embedded Training Teams consisting of over 600 advisors and support personnel from all US services and 5 contributing nations distributed throughout central and eastern Afghanistan.
Last edited by OPSSG; February 24th, 2010 at 01:59 AM.
I don't have time right now to explain every detail of this war but here is some insight.
The only way to beat the insurgency in Afghanistan is to stay there for about five more years but i don't think thats going to happen and at the end of the day the insurgents still have power. The Taliban are simply going to outlast the forces. For all of you who think that Opium brings them most of their money, your wrong. The insurgency does get some money off it but not at the extent that most people think, at one point the taliban almost eradicated opium from Afghanistan. The western intelligence and DEA have good control of the drug trade. The Taliban will not be bribed and part of the population support them, with resources and men (mostly pashtuns) but also some in the north. I've spoken with people recently from Kabul, they tell me that the U.S is not helping at all and even people in Kabul distrust the Americans. They do like the Germans, Japanese and the Indians who actually help the population and do it for free. You have to understand that the ISI is also connected to the Taliban, hence the recent attack that targets the guest houses (mostly Indians). The recent capture of the taliban commander is also not that surprising for most there because he was actually taking to the government (peace talks) and he might have had a little to much power. My guess is that the ISI gave him up before he did talk to the west or became too powerful. This war is not going to end pretty specially with the amount of civilians killed recently. From what I hear from Kabul, ordinary people who dislike the Taliban also dislike the Americans involvement and tactics and this is probably the worst news I've herd.
I don't have time right now to explain every detail of this war but here is some insight.
The only way to beat the insurgency in Afghanistan is to stay there for about five more years but i don't think thats going to happen and at the end of the day the insurgents still have power. The Taliban are simply going to outlast the forces. For all of you who think that Opium brings them most of their money, your wrong. The insurgency does get some money off it but not at the extent that most people think, at one point the taliban almost eradicated opium from Afghanistan. The western intelligence and DEA have good control of the drug trade. The Taliban will not be bribed and part of the population support them, with resources and men (mostly pashtuns) but also some in the north. I've spoken with people recently from Kabul, they tell me that the U.S is not helping at all and even people in Kabul distrust the Americans. They do like the Germans, Japanese and the Indians who actually help the population and do it for free. You have to understand that the ISI is also connected to the Taliban, hence the recent attack that targets the guest houses (mostly Indians). The recent capture of the taliban commander is also not that surprising for most there because he was actually taking to the government (peace talks) and he might have had a little to much power. My guess is that the ISI gave him up before he did talk to the west or became too powerful. This war is not going to end pretty specially with the amount of civilians killed recently. From what I hear from Kabul, ordinary people who dislike the Taliban also dislike the Americans involvement and tactics and this is probably the worst news I've herd.
AfghanAmbush, I'm sure you could speak on this more accurately than myself, but isn't opium, even without Taliban links, harmful to the long-term stability of Afghanistan both regionally and nationally?
I say that because opium, while it does generate a livelihood for farmers, also creates severe addictions to the drug, resulting in severe poverty and destitution which could hold Afghanistan back or could become a factor in provoking rebellion or dissent several years down the road.
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Most of Afghan's opium gets exported. Not much of it actually stays in Afghan. I wouldn't be surprised if statistics for opium usage hadn't climbed all that much in the recent decade.
This war is not going to end pretty specially with the amount of civilians killed recently. From what I hear from Kabul, ordinary people who dislike the Taliban also dislike the Americans involvement and tactics and this is probably the worst news I've herd.
Have any official figures been released about the number of Afghan civilians killed by mistake since 2001 by coalition airstrikes/artillery?
AfghanAmbush, I'm sure you could speak on this more accurately than myself, but isn't opium, even without Taliban links, harmful to the long-term stability of Afghanistan both regionally and nationally?
I say that because opium, while it does generate a livelihood for farmers, also creates severe addictions to the drug, resulting in severe poverty and destitution which could hold Afghanistan back or could become a factor in provoking rebellion or dissent several years down the road.
Of course, the Taliban did a better job at limiting the opium trade then the western forces. Some ways of reducing the illegal drug trade would be building pharmaceutical companies and giving the farmers a source to sell it to instead of the dealers etc.. Making medical use of opium would be helpful specially with the support and allied countries.
Of course, the Taliban did a better job at limiting the opium trade then the western forces. Some ways of reducing the illegal drug trade would be building pharmaceutical companies and giving the farmers a source to sell it to instead of the dealers etc.. Making medical use of opium would be helpful specially with the support and allied countries.
True, true. But adding middlemen would add to the cost of the opium and give the Afghan gov't yet another thing to try to regulate. I think that doing this would just create a black market, result in price hikes, and make the lot of the addicts even worse, not to mention the fact that it could give the Taliban an opportunity to exploit.
I think US is not going to win in Afghanistan ever, reason they cannot never win the heart of local people. Many of the local people are converting to insurgents after each NATO strike killing their loved ones. So it will be not wrong if I say US army is fighting the Afghan Nation not any regular army, as an army can defeat any army but can't defeat the a nation. So I think better for US is to leave Afghanistan asap and take testifications from the local afghan people or taliban they willl not allow Alqaeda again to use their ground to attack US, remember alqaeda is US ememy not Taliban.
I think US is not going to win in Afghanistan ever, reason they cannot never win the heart of local people. Many of the local people are converting to insurgents after each NATO strike killing their loved ones. So it will be not wrong if I say US army is fighting the Afghan Nation not any regular army, as an army can defeat any army but can't defeat the a nation. So I think better for US is to leave Afghanistan asap and take testifications from the local afghan people or taliban they willl not allow Alqaeda again to use their ground to attack US, remember alqaeda is US ememy not Taliban.
That's one of the reasons US, etc. military leaders are working so hard to partner with and co-operate with local leaders and governments. They recognize that they have to create a framework which can make the Afghans self-governing and prevent the Taliban from exploiting an unstable gov't or poor balance of power.
Pulling out right now, quite simply is not an option. The vast majority of the ANP and the Afghan Army are not ready for individual, unsupervised combat operations. If NATO forces pull out now, the whole house of cars will come down and the country will descend into tribal violence, and the Taliban will simply seize control again, leaving the country in an even worse position than it was in 2001-2002.
"Testifications?" Without enforcement, people aren't going to keep a promise to keep the Taliban and Al-Qaeda out. Such an idea represents a stunning amount of naivete. Al-Qaeda is going to exploit any and every US failure, especially a defeat in Afghanistan. There's a lot more at stake here than just a bunch of mountains and poppy fields.
If we thought Iraq was bad, just wait and see what happens if we leave Afghanistan prematurely. It'd simply be Vietnam all over again, and it would destroy the last shards of US credibility on the world stage.
We all know that attacks on the US were not planned in Afghanistan, but in other parts of the world. .
No, it was mostly planned by Al Qaeda cells based in Europe and the U.S. The Al Aqeda leadership was based in Afghanistan. So what's the point you're trying make ?
Quote:
Originally Posted by umair655
You cannot defeat people who have slammed two Super Powers in last century, I think US is going to complete the hatrick for them.
Wait and See The game of desctruction of the US army and economy.
I think ''slammed'' is a bit too strong a word to use. Let's keep in mind that the various Afghan groups received a lot of aid from the U.S. and Saudi, plus other nations, during the struggle against the Soviets. Involvement in Afghanistan took a heavy toll on the Soviet economy and the after effects of the war contributed to the collapse of the Soviet system, but U.S. and coalition failure in Afghanistan will not lead to the ''destruction of the U.S. army and economy'' though it will have other effects.
One of the many problems facing the coalition is that the Taliban is seen as a legitimite ressistance movement against foreign occupation by a sizeable amount of the population, not all of whom subscribe to Al Qaeda ideology or the brand of Islam practised by the Taliban. And not all of whom are against ''western values'', ''the American way of life'' and democracy, as so oftened mentioned even today by many news reports. The coalition however appears to have a sound long term strategy in place to deal with all or most of the problems faced, so lets wait see before drawing any conclusions.
As Kilo 2-3 said earlier - ''That's one of the reasons US, etc. military leaders are working so hard to partner with and co-operate with local leaders and governments. They recognize that they have to create a framework which can make the Afghans self-governing and prevent the Taliban from exploiting an unstable gov't or poor balance of power.''
Last edited by STURM; March 2nd, 2010 at 02:20 PM.
No, it was mostly planned by Al Qaeda cells based in Europe and the U.S. The Al Aqeda leadership was based in Afghanistan. So what's the point you're trying make ?
I think ''slammed'' is a bit too strong a word to use. Let's keep in mind that the various Afghan groups received a lot of aid from the U.S. and Saudi, plus other nations, during the struggle against the Soviets.
One of the many problems facing the coalition is that the Taliban is seen as a legitimite ressistance movement against foreign occupation by a sizeable amount of the population, not all of whom subscribe to Al Qaeda ideology or the brand of Islam practised by the Taliban. And not all of whom are against ''western values'', ''the American way of life'' and democracy, as so oftened mentioned even today by many news reports. The coalition however appears to have a sound long term strategy in place to deal with all or most of the problems faced, so lets wait see before drawing any conclusions.
As Kilo 2-3 said earlier - ''That's one of the reasons US, etc. military leaders are working so hard to partner with and co-operate with local leaders and governments. They recognize that they have to create a framework which can make the Afghans self-governing and prevent the Taliban from exploiting an unstable gov't or poor balance of power.''
Well I think the US and the coalition have to talk with them eventually so why they do it sooner then later, talk to them US cannot make an army with non-pashtuns, and have them defeat Taliban. Eventually US have to leave.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by umair655
We all know that attacks on the US were not planned in Afghanistan, but in other parts of the world.
When in 2001/02 Taliban asked US to provide proofs to them against Alqaeda so that they can sewed, US attacked them.
You cannot defeat people who have slammed two Super Powers in last century, I think US is going to complete the hatrick for them.
Wait and See The game of desctruction of the US army and economy.
Silly. Afghanistan got demolished by the Soviets. The damage to Afghan was so bad, it was called migratory genocide. The only reason the Mujahadeen existed as long as they did, is because of enormous US aid, and Pakistani complicity in providing the resistance with bases and a safe haven. In the end, had the USSR not had too many internal problems to deal with, it could have put an end to the insurgency.
The situation is even more favorable for the US today. In fact the only reason the US wouldn't be able to stabilize Afghanistan is if the political will is absent to commit the necessary resources.
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