Beyond the Khyber
Christopher Flavelle at Slate describes the skyrocketing political and economic price of supplying Afghanistan. When it became clear that the US was going to shift the weight of its effort to that landlocked country, the market power of the countries which control the supply routes has increased dramatically. Flavelle describes “the ethical predicament now looming in Central Asia, where Obama may soon need to choose either funding a vicious dictator in Uzbekistan or hindering the mission in Afghanistan. Getting into bed with Uzbekistan could be Obama’s first ugly but necessary foreign-policy compromise.”
Uzbekistan’s human rights record is so odious that even the Bush administration—no pushover for world opinion—cut ties with it four years ago. … The final straw came in May 2005, when Uzbek security forces opened fire on demonstrators in the eastern city of Andijan, killing hundreds of civilians. The U.S. government joined others in publicly condemning the Uzbek regime, and Karimov responded by ordering U.S. troops out of the country. The last U.S. plane left that November, and with it American payments to the Karimov regime ceased, apparently ending one of the darker chapters in the story of America’s war on terror.
At least, until now. Washington is looking at renewing its relationship with a country that seemed untouchable four years ago. This will upset some of Obama’s liberal supporters—as it should. But the new administration may have no choice. Uzbekistan hasn’t changed, but the dynamics of the region have. First and most obvious, there’s a new administration in Washington. During his campaign, Obama promised to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The logistical consequences of the shift to the “good war” now have to be faced. Amateurs it is said, think of war in terms of tactics, but professionals see it in terms of logistics. Nowhere may this be truer than in the question of supplying Afghanistan. But the logistical burdens occasioned by greater troop strength may be only the beginning of the true requirements of the Southwest Asian theater. The real center of gravity of Taliban/al-Qaeda strength is in Pakistan, which can only be indirectly pressured from its neighbor to the West and only at the cost of feeding the fire in Pakistan itself. It is an absurd situation in conventional military terms. US supplies must pass through the enemy heartland in order to do a 180 degree to turn to fight that same foe. If the true theater of conflict is Pakistan then the US faces a possible escalation of effort in the theater depending on contingent events. In which case the real load will be the requirements of supporting an effort, direct or indirect, within Pakistan. But that’s our supply line. Flavelle continues:
Pakistan, the other main access point for supplies headed to Afghanistan, is a mess compared with 2005. Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as president in August 2008, may have been an unsteady ally, but his successor, Asif Ali Zardari, has been even more critical of U.S. attempts to engage Taliban fighters in Pakistan’s border region. If anything, those fighters are getting more brazen: On the same day that Kyrgyzstan’s president announced plans to close the U.S. base, militants in Pakistan blew up a bridge in the Khyber Pass, a main supply route between Pakistan and Afghanistan. If Obama wants to increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, relying on the Pakistan route seems less and less tenable.
There can be little dispute about the need to prevent Afghanistan from returning to its role as the grand training camp of international Jihadism. But it is fair to ask what Obama’s grand strategy really is and whether it makes sense.
First, is the real center enemy center of gravity in the Middle East, which is the site of the Jihad’s ideology and funding, or is it Southwest Asia? Second, is the tactical center of enemy strength in Afghanistan or in northwest Pakistan and if the latter, does it make sense to tackle northwest Pakistan from Afghanistan across an international border? And if Pakistan is the main theater of operations, what risks of escalation does the US running in implicitly undertaking war on Pakistani territory and are conventional military forces the best way to do this? Third, are there not grave military, economic and political risks inherent in placing large American forces out on a limb while the Taliban and/or other foreign leaders, not all of the best quility, have possession of the saw? If area denial were the only vital US objective in Afghanistan/Western Pakistan, are there not other ways, to achieve this goal?
Today Uzbekistan gets to shake down the USA. Tomorrow, who else?
I don’t know the answers, but I think it is reasonable to ask the questions. These issues are immediately linked to the rate of drawdown in in Iraq; they are linked in the medium term to the “deals” which are being struck all over the region by the Obama administration; and finally they are linked strategically. Are we giving up a certain victory in Iraq in exchange for roll of the dice in Afghanistan/Pakistan?
Open thread.
Why not acknowledge (privately, to ourselves) that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan are Westphalian states, but rather tribal confederacies divided by an artificial (Durand) line.
That way, we could free ourselves to support a single Pashtun nation, and thereby (perhaps) get a proper ground line of communications into the rump Afghanistan.
This might also focus the attention of the governments of the rump Afghanistan and Akistan (no Pushtun, so no “P”).
*shrug*
Wretchard asks:
Are we giving up a certain victory in Iraq in exchange for roll of the dice in Afghanistan/Pakistan?
programmer sadly observes:
Of course. It’s a twofer! The Democrats can have it all. A loss, as predicted by Democrat leadership, in Iraq AND a defeat in Afghanistan. If the conservative America had only listened. Oh well, they tried to tell us.
You know, I am really starting to get P.O’d at Leftists.
Cannoneer called this about a year ago if memory serves. What a frigging mess. More vindication for Iraq as far as I’m concerned. Better fight AQ et al there than in Afghanistan.
I hope the stimulus package included some earmarks for payoffs to let Nato and US troops leave Afghanistan.
Uzbekistan is, for all intents and purposes, Russia. There is an Uzbek Islamist militia contingent; it is reasonable to presume these are Russian proxies. Since “the timing” of the bridge destruction occurred on the day of Kyrgystan’s revocation of US base rights at Manan, it is reasonable to presume that both were a message to the USA. What was that message? Since the US response was to promise a slowing or termination or review of missile defense in Czech and Poland in return for Russia’s promise to curtail support for Iran’s nuclear program, but Russia’s response, as reported in today’s Associated Press, was: no, we have no plans to do that, thank you – I suppose the message is: we have you by the balls, and the vice is starting to turn.
Probably the other message is: you will not get a victory in Iraq either. The question is, will you take our deal and thereby preserve your precious political capital, or will you be stubborn and lose both your bases and your next elections?
First Russia secrets the WMDs out of Iraq, and thereby the political damage was done. Next, Russia will force us out of Afghanistan – whether before or after a bloodbath of some size is up to them. Russia has also just made a brazen demonstration of its power not only by invading Georgia but by shutting off energy to all of Eastern Europe south of Poland in the dead of winter.
We are now requesting that Russia allow shipments not only of food and fuel to our Afghanistan positions, but also arms.
And through all this, no one in the “international community,” who are apparently a bunch of dupes and whores masquerading as “representatives” of some kind, say nothing.
What an interesting period to look back on this will be.
programmer: only starting
???
I confronted several of my leftier (internet) friends with just this scenario. All I got in return were the online equivalents of blank stares. They simply cannot fathom that trying to wage a large scale campaign in a landlocked country where your forces are surrounded by hostile nations is a retarded idea.
Afghanistan was not only seen as a theater – the “good theater” – in the War on Terror but as place where we could demonstrate the good things that happen when you are our friend – even more so than the bad things that happen when you are our enemy. We could have nuked Kabul with nary a whimper from anyone, but decided that having it rise from the non-ashes would be a better way of winning friends if not influencing enemies.
Now, Iraq is THE example of being our friend and of being our enemy. And Afghanistan is….?
First and foremost a place where the Left can show it is Tough on Terror without fearing that it is actually helping the USA. And other than that…?
Afghanistan is an excellent place to revive the British Colonial practice of Air Policing. Let the Pashtun sit around the campfire and sing ”Please, Mr. Please, don’t play B-52.”
I have earned the right to say this.
I told you so! I told you so!
God that felt good, now I need to shower.
Cannoneer No. 4 and I have been beating this drum for months.
We need to find workable Pakistanis and sit down with them and the Indians and decide what the future will look like. Be as Imperialist Sykes-Picot and manipulative as we can be but take responsibility and get the job done. Implement the Marine motto “We can be your best friend or your worst enemy.” Implement real local self empowerment COIN where we can but leave no doubt that we can and will kill anyone who stands in our path. Either way we will be offering them respect, which is what they want anyway. As for Pushtunistan, it was an old Soviet front gambit to destabilize Western proxies. We could consider adopting the idea under the turnabout is fair play principle.
Remember the Islamization of many of these valleys along the Hindu Kush is a fairly recent (100 to 300 year) event. That is one reason why they are so chest thumping militant. We could threaten to reverse the process if they allow their territory to be used as the base for launching ghazi raids on the West. Those are what the 9-11 attacks were.
The fact is that Islam suffers from a paucity of failures in the eyes of its adherents. They do not measure success in terms of wealth generated or creative content generated but solely on terms of acreage controlled and souls submitting. The fact is that during the last 20 years Bethlehem has gone from a Christian community to a Moslem one. The fact is that over the last 60 years Iraq has gone from 25% Christian or Jewish to 2% Christian and essentially zero Jews. The fact is that non-Islamic communities are disappearing in Egypt and are threatened in Lebanon. Why should they change when they are doing so well?
@ #1 MG…
It’d still be Pakistan since the Punjab would still be.
To play my harp again:
Toss the ball to the Indian Army.
As it now stands, the Indian Army is actually planning to drive west into the Punjab with conventional forces as punishment for Mumbai.
Permitting the Indian Army to spank the ISI toy army from the west — and still within Afghanistan is the most realistic way to defuse Indian anger.
As it stands, Pakistani elites are terrified of the ISI rebel army which has plainly demonstrated a skill at assassination.
The ISI damn near assassinated the current leadership already.
Because of this, all Pakistani protests about clobbering the Taliban are for public consumption only.
Only India can place and maintain a sizable army in the field of battle.
Absolutely no way does the American Army have enough force to saturate the zone. NATO is a farce.
Afghanistan is being INVADED by ISI’s toy army. This is not an insurgency like Anbar.
A project that ought to have been pursued long ago: a rail and road route south out of Kandahar to the coast via Baluchistan. The place is an extreme desert, but can be conquered by modern techniques.
This type of war spending would result in a real boon to Afghanistan. It would also be a real benefit to the Pakistani government in as much as rent would be paid plus transit fees.
Since the area is effectively uninhabited, the USA could arrange a three way treaty providing a 99-year lease on a strip of land terminating in a port. The scheme would be in the manner of the Panama Canal. The lease would be to the USA. We’d pay cash up front and get this thing spade ready — pronto.
It’s a win-win-win for everyone: Afghanistan gets a route to the world market for her heavy metal exports; Pakistan gets cash, credit, and a construction project; America gets a reliable, lower cost — in the big picture — route to middle eastern stability.
After all, we’d have our own port and airbase sitting on a secure site miles and miles away from any major local population centers.
Should Pakistan bust up Baluchistan would have something to fall back on.
Thinking inside the box…
Won’t get us to victory.
Our greatest strength is our engineering arm. Right now we have a world wide glut of heavy engineering talent. This would be a vastly stimulating project.
On one level I don’t understand why Afghanistan has fallen apart. They seemed to respond extremely favorably to events and to US support for their loya jirga and so on. The training of their army has proceeded apace, I thought; we didn’t have the same problems that we had in Iraq at all. And yet – this is all falling apart. I hear all this crap about infrastructure and judicial systems, as though there ever had been such things – as though that didn’t sound like typical NGO bullsh-t.
Really, what’s happened there? Aren’t there enough Afghans to give money and weapons and cover to in order to keep their own sandbox? I know multiple explanations have been offered, yet I still don’t quite hear the answer. Even if the answer is “It’s just a tribal sh-thole,” isn’t there some tribe that wants to be the strongest tribe and make it *their* sh-thole?
“First and foremost a place where the Left can show it is Tough on Terror without fearing that it is actually helping the USA. And other than that…?”
Sorry mate! I heard one of the “Afhanistan is good Iraq is bad” groups say the other day that now they can start on Afghanistan.
“We need to find workable Pakistanis and sit down with them and the Indians and decide what the future will look like.”
Where have you been. You may have been pontificating about this happening for months but your solution is a bad one. Just which Paksitanis and Indians are you going to work with and what does India have to do with Afghanistan.
In its first few weeks in office the Obama Administration has provided little reason to have any confidence they will manage Afghanistan any better or with any more honesty and transparency than they have political appointments or their hysteria legislation.
I don’t think Iraq is going to fall apart if most or even all US Troops leave over the next several months. Enough Iraqi politicians have had a taste of governance that they are unlikely to accede it to a handful of mullahs. A neutral and even incompetent Iraq is a net positive against Islamism as compared to the military stronghold that it was under Saddam.
Afghanistan is a lose/lose party now, “0″ would do us all and himself a favor by declaring a complete and immediate withdraw, blame it on NATO, he wins with his grass roots, pacifies the war hawks (it is the truth, NATO is not carrying their weight) and he gets out of a situation which is going south as fast as it did for the Ruskkies, this would also free up the India-American relations in that Pakistan becomes less important to US and Pakistan will feel the heat over their uncontrolled Intel services, really it would be a quick Win/Win for “0″ and crew (not that I want “0″ to win at anything I just don’t want good living American blood shed over something that was winable but has now become a milstone around Uncle SAMs neck and would in short order cost Uncle more blood then Iraqi has or will)
@blert,
The alternative route out idea is attractive. The path South from Kandahar will pass through areas close to the Iranian border so it is not risk free. The scheme has the virtue as you pointed out of offering an alternative market for Afghanistan’s mineral exports. That should help to keep the Chinese focused on being constructive partners when they pursue their own resource interests. Of course they will also have an incentive to join with the Iranians in sabotaging the project.
dan (#10), the short (and possibly overly simplistic) answer to your question is that for all intents and purposes, there are two Afghanistans: Kabul and the rest of the country. Under the Bush administration, Kabul, the capital has been relatively pacified, but the rest of the country has remained more or less a “tribal sh-thole” and a war zone all along. What’s changed recently is that the lawlessness outside Kabul has slowly been encroaching upon the capital as the Taliban, possibly sensing Washington’s wavering will, have become more bold and daring.
Richard,
There is no connnection between the reference to Iraq in your last sentence, and the rest of your post. It makes just as much sense as if you had asked if we were giving up a “certain victory in our war with Spain” (in 1898) “in exchange for a roll of the dice in Afghanistan/Pakistan.”
Was the connecting narrative edited out?
# 1 MG: What makes you think an independent Pushtun state, without a signficant American troop presence, would be any different from an Aghanistan without an American troop presence? Do you believe we could, or should, create an independent Pushtun state over Pakistani objection?
#7 Lifeofthemind: you assume there are enough “reasonable Pakistanis” to matter. Do you have any evidence, or citeable sources, to support this assumption?
#9 Blert: What evidence do you have that the Indian army has the logistics capability for any significant movement into Pakistan of more than ten days duration? I see no such evidence, or of any intention whatever, by the Indian government, significant Indian political factions, or the Indian armed forces for any such attack, even if the Indian armed forces had such capability, and they don’t. Nor do I see any indication whatever of an intent to gain such a capability. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons might have something to do with this.
# 10 Dan: what difference is there between an Afghanistan which has fallen apart, and one which hasn’t? Not much if the only thing nominally holding it together is the presence of foreign troops and their payrolls. IMO we are in Afghanistan to keep the place from bothering us at home, which is possible for as long as we have troops there and not much longer. Turning Afghanistan into a place which won’t bother us at home, without our troop presence there, might be beyond our means unless we resort to genocide.
There are ways to supply our troops that don’t involve relying upon either Pakistan or Russia. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the Obama administration is really interested in making the choices necessary to ensure that our troops remain supplied. For one thing, that would require the Obama administration to actually listen to its critics. When has Barack Obama actually listened to his critics, as opposed to merely being seen in a photo opportunity with them?
Alexis,
Could you share your wisdom with us?
The only other countries with borders on Afghanistan are Iran and China, and the Chinese-Afghan border lacks transportation infrastructure through mountains that are nasty by Afghan standards.
Iran is actively helping Al Qaeda and the Taliban against us, while the Chinese are less friendly to us than Russia or Pakistan.
deployment to increase by 12,000, just announced. 46,000 troops and CiC opaque, his relationship with the joint chiefs, opaque. War aim, opaque.
dan, what has happened, you ask –Nov 4th is what happened. And among the changes Russia has stated it wants, add to your list, a NATO announcement that Ukraine and Georgia will not be invited in. Or did i mis-hear this.
I’m worried that enemies see a CiC circuit breaker between the expeditionary force and the national military power.
@16: But what level of troop deployment is sufficient to achieve that objective? The Taliban don’t have a credible air force at their disposal. I believe that a constant CAP/CAS + some special forces are what we need here, not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of troops.
(Re)construction is fine, but why should we bear the brunt of the costs? A pipeline helps Russia get their oil and gas to market, they should be the ones to defend it.
For the record, I don’t see how the Obama administration has much choice here, or how a McCain administration would be doing things differently. The war in Iraq is winding down with a clear-cut victory, so a shift of forces and emphasis to the remaining active theater is both normal and appropriate.
I am also pessimistic about possible outcomes in Afghanistan. Afghans being what they are, the best we can hope for is a least-bad outcome, and that requires a more or less indefinite presence by American troops.
Certainly outside forces – Iran’s mullah regime and, more importantly, the Islamic extremist faction in what passes for the Pakistani government (Pakistan is a failed state), notably but exclusively in the ISI – are supporting international Al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s related Taliban, and not merely in Afghanistan.
This complicates the problem, but I don’t see any “victory” as such for us as being possible in Afghanistan even if Iran and Pakistan act as our loyal allies, because the Afghans will keep on being Afghans.
remember, we had some bad real estate loans until boom a global crisis. remember, we had a regular old USA election until boom we’re in the midst of a marxist takeover. remember, we had management of airbase losses, blown bridges, and russian deals until boom –what? this new administration is flat freaking me out, pay no attention to me, but i have to wonder, boys & girls, are the stars turned against us?
Ladies and Gentlemen:
At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves why we bother with Afghanistan. It has zero strategic value for us. It has little mineral or agricultural wealth. It is landlocked. The population is largely illiterate, ignorant, unproductive, and xenophobic. It has been mostly ignored by the powers of the modern world for exactly those reasons.
In short, the place is a basket case. It is a backwater unworthy of notice and thus has been taken advantage of by those who want to get away with naughty things, out of sight from self righteous, high minded, politically correct, potentially interfering first world nations. This includes growing one of the worlds most tightly controlled and widely illegal substances, opium, as its primary cash crop. This includes the Soviets invading and occupying the back water in an attempt to spread communist dogma and governance in a spot they correctly concluded wouldn’t be deemed worthy of risking American lives. Lastly, it was taken over by Islamic extremist dreamers who attempted to make it a fundamentalist Muslim Shangri la to the detriment of women and non conformists across the land.
The only reason we were ever interested in Afghanistan was to thwart the success of our strategic opponent, the Soviet Union, and to stop it being used as a base to strike at us by Al Qaeda or similar anti-American terrorists. Let us examine these reasons. The Soviet Union is gone. There are other ways to ensure Afghanistan is not used as a terrorist base to attack us than occupying the region with our troops, costing hundreds or thousands of American lives and spending billions upon billions of dollars attempting to bring the area into the 21st century. We could turn the land over to one of the regional powers to control.
Pakistan is falling apart in a civil war against those same Islamic fanatics, so it is out of consideration.
India has the manpower on hand, but lacks the will to spend the necessary money or lives for the same reasons we do. The return for the investment is little to nothing (no strategic interest).
Iran, to the west of Afghanistan, may be interested in defeating Sunni extremists and spreading Shia Islam, it’s a pity they have limited assets at the moment and are trying to stave off domestic problems, what with the low price of oil on the world market. Any assets they can spare for foreign intervention are tied up with Hamas in Gaza, Hezb’Allah in Lebanon, propping up an Alawite regime in Syria, and influencing events in south and central Iraq. Those Iranian mullahs sure are busy! A bigger stick to threaten neighbors with sure would be useful!
The former Soviet “Stans” to the north have neither the assets nor inclination to become involved in the low / no return for investment hole that Afghanistan always has been. No other outside nation is going to step up to this plate to solve this problem.
Without our intervention, Afghanistan will be run by a disparate group of tribes with minimal control from the outside. It will be in effect, ungoverned. It will once again be open and available to anyone with money to purchase influence with tribal leaders, no matter if their name is Mullah Omar and they call their tribe Taliban, or if they are some jumped up narco-sheik yet unknown.
There are two realistic solutions that won’t cost more than a few billion dollars and several hundred soldier’s lives. Both solutions involve old fashioned tactics to achieve an old fashioned solution with old fashioned, low cost (to us) results. Two relatively new words have been coined to describe these results: ethnic cleansing and / or genocide. These new fangled fancy words have replaced an older simpler term that had the same meaning to anyone who really understood it; WAR.
One solution, the “Carthage” solution involves Rome’s example of how to deal with a thorn in your side once and for all. Get rid of all the people in the enemy nation, destroy everything there, salt the earth of the nation, (make the nation uninhabitable for many future generations). With Nuclear weapons and a limited number of fertile valleys and dry season water sources, this is a realistic but horrible possibility. President Obama wants to get rid of several thousand nuclear warheads; here is a gainful use for at least several hundred.
The other, the “Manifest Destiny” solution is also tried and proven. You provide transportation and minimal supplies to a large, poor, desperate group of resourceful, highly motivated self serving people, into the area in question. You tell them: “Go off and stake a claim for your own homestead, ranch, farm, or mine.” “Thousands of hectares for free! And, oh yeah…don’t let those pesky natives get in your way!” Provide continuing support to the colonist / settlers / pioneers, and prevent organized backing of the natives / savages through economic pressure, gunboat diplomacy, or further warfare as necessary. In a couple generations the land will be transformed; the natives / savages wiped out, driven off, or incorporated into the new society as conforming members. I’ve been lead to believe there are at a minimum, tens of millions of Mexicans and central Americans who are tired of the old country and are willing to move elsewhere and work their fingers to the bone to build a better future for themselves. Many of them don’t seem to be pacifists.
El Presidente Petraeus por del Nueve Afghanistan? Si Se Puede!
These solutions may sound icky, but they truly are the only permanent solutions, and by the way, are exactly what Islamists have planned for all of western society.
If you don’t believe these solutions will work, just ask a Carthaginian, or Native American. All we lack is the will!
Viet Nam was a Democratic cluster foxtrot because you had a bunch of smart ass academics who didn’t know what end the round came out of, a meddling political class (but nowhere near the level of anal stupidity of Pelosi and Reid), a public who lacked will, a cowardly group of radicals who destroyed our national morale. Nixon rode to the rescue and a gracious exit. (How’d that turn out?)
These clowns running the carnival now are clueless. I would say humiliating withdrawal now might be preferable to leaving a couple divisions hung out to dry while the Chi-town ward heeler agonizes. Maybe we can withdraw and try to fund some Islamist mischief into Mother Russia. Let all the bastards kill each other. We have more important tasks here at home like selling apples on the street corner.
Tom Holsinger,
There is no connnection between the reference to Iraq in your last sentence, and the rest of your post. It makes just as much sense as if you had asked if we were giving up a “certain victory in our war with Spain” (in 1898) “in exchange for a roll of the dice in Afghanistan/Pakistan.” Was the connecting narrative edited out?
I’m sorry for skipping a few steps. Fred Kagan discusses Afghanistan strategy here. He describes the linkage to the Iraq campaign in this way.
In other words, we can still lose in Iraq, though only if we do something stupid. My argument is whether the public is sufficiently aware of the need to avoid doing something stupid.
@Armeggedon Rex,
Personally, I prefer option #2. Mexican’s would work for me. For that matter there appear to be several thousand young Greeks with time on there hands looking for something to do, last time around that crowd did alright in the region. Might even end up with a Sean Connery movie out of it again. There would also be some justice in having a quarter of a million or more Hindus or Buddhists move in.
@Lifeofthemind:
The more the merrier. So long as what they build is not a threat to western civilization! I wonder if Alexander might have looked a bit like David Petraeus if he had lived to be older?
trangbang68 comment #24:
Right on, dude! Except….(and you knew there was an except coming, didn’t you?). Withdrawing from Afghanistan is not humiliating. It is just strategy. I know what you are saying and feeling. The MSM (bless their little pointed heads) will go insane with joy as the the “defeated” soldiers come home. But the troops will be available for another day, another fight.
Besides, I am a somewhat small minded person, at times, and I like to imagine the look on Karzai’s face as the last American squad jumped on their aircraft for home.
Not just Karzai –all of ‘em, NATO, Russia, China, every one of them sumbitches that should’ve been really helping in the terror war –let’ em deal with no strong fair-minded, capable presence in the room.
And start laying keels. Boomers. BTW, under any condition, can a boomer launch a counter attack if a POTUS won’t?
The war in Afghanistan will change dramatically soon. Petreus is bringing in all those Marines in order to invade Pakistan and to devastate the Taliban bases there.
The recent truce in Swat gives the Pakistani Government an excuse to withdraw its own troops from the region, so that they are out of the way when the Marines invade.
Also, the Marines might know Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
As soon as we kill Bin Laden, President Obama will declare victory and withdraw our forces from Afghanistan.
buddy,
we may in time look back on 11/4 (was it 11/4 ?) as an event every bit as huge as 9/11… but since i’m not the only sheepdog in the house (i’m looking at YOU, brother larsen), i have to believe that, in the end, we’ll be standing at the ready, alongside other men and women of good character, ready to pick up the pieces once the leftist kiddies have finished wiping their excrement on the walls of our dear republic… only next time, the rules won’t be so loose as to allow them to play with matches unsupervised…
triton’spolarsheepdawg
It seems many of you have forgotten why we went into Afghanistan in the first place. We cannot allow a safe refuge for AQ and the other muslim Takfiri to plan and train for attacks against the western world.
There probably is a combination of strategies involving threats, Infrastructure development, COIN, aerial bombardment, or just plan tough pressuring of India, Pakistan and/or Russia that would work to ensure Afghanistan and Pakistan don’t become breeding grounds for general and/or nuclear terror.
But, as Buddy and Alexis point out, the real problem is that the will, interest or competence necessary to do the job just ain’t there in the Obama Administration. This troop increase looks like a defensive half hearted PR exercise and a precursor to an abandonment of the WOT in the region.
Bin Laden is in one of three buildings in Parachinar, Afghanistan. That’s where the Marines are going.
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-geographers-want-u-s-military-75579.aspx
web.mit.edu/mitir/2009/online/finding-bin-laden.pdf
we should try to stay in afghanistan, but something evil is occurring in pakistan. we cannot fight a counterinsurgency surrounded by russian clients, iran (but i repeat myself), and whatever the hell pakistan is becoming, in order to convince the primitives that they shouldn’t be heroin dealers anymore. something is rapidly approaching in south asia. stratfor constantly points out that indian domestic politics will eventually force, for pure self-preservation, some response against pakistan; presumably one of our real bargaining chips is “if we leave, we cannot restrain india.” if pakistan cannot control the taliban, an enraged india could crush pakistan. and then the wild card would be china, which has evidently been launching little irritating sorties along their disputed border for the past few years. i guess those communicate what they’d do in the event of an indian attack. but – given the balance of forces – unless china communicated something explicit, india should have attacked after mumbai. pakistan must be solved one way or the other. this dickering around with bribing country lords and executing taliban commanders with videogame hellfires – what is it accomplishing? it may be that certain powers intend the south asian strategic environment to collapse into general war, just as it may be that 9/11 was intended to drag us into afghanistan. but i think we might have to call the bluff soon, or get out. the chessboard is becoming rapidly unfavorable, and the Manchurian Candidate is just a f-cking mess. or who knows – maybe it’ll all work out!
re: #7 — longer than months, Life.
re: #9 — May as well try to build a rail road across the Sahara as across the Registan. Very expensive project that will never pay for itself. You must have missed Lawrence of Arabia when it was on TCM last Saturday. The various Armed Opposition Groups would do unto us as the Arabs did unto the Turks.
re: #10 — There is, dan. The Popalzai.
re: #15 — There are five Afghanistans, Joshua. Regional Commands East, South, West, North and Kloudcuckooland.
Karachi is OEF’s Shuaiba, The Sea Port of Debarkation, and the road from Karachi is OEF’s Route Tampa, or Main Supply Route. And none of it is under friendly control, UNLESS you count the Paks as friendlies. This is why Afghanistan has always been an economy of force operation, or secondary effort, or side show. We could not logistically support a large force in Central Asia. Saddam’s misfortune was that we could logistically support a large operation in Mesopotamia. — 03:55:00 PM
Beyond the Khyber Pass 5/20/2008
Mike, OBL is in one of three compounds in Parachinar, Kurram Agency, F.A.T.A.
Or not.
Didn’t see 33 when I made 38.
triton/31 –i hear ya. not to be insulting, but i chat my teenager’s friends –they all voted this yera for the first time, all for O, and all because ‘change’ meant to them no more continual bickering (BDS, tho they don’t know the term). They’re normal kids, not a one of ‘em could hit a bull with a bass fiddle on any of the issues. together the little group canceled out all my neighbors and me, a combined several centuries of knowledge and experience. Now we realize that we had always depended on the grey head councils of elders of both parties, to each always send candidates who would stick with the Spirit of 76. what’s truly frightening is that these aliens we have now must know that by acting on their politics they won’t win another election (the wrecking of the national wealth, continuing apace, ensures it). So, what’s their plan? how big could it be? the Dimiti Orlov scenario? We’re helpless, whatever it is, against the first big reveal. It’s amazing how quickly we got trapped.
Tom Holsinger:
Could you share your wisdom with us?
We need to establish as many secure rear areas of supply within Afghanistan as we can. We can use a cash tether to gain access to Russian munitions and Afghan food. We can also buy off the opium farmers so they turn on the Taliban instead of supporting them. In other words, the United States could fight intelligently.
I pointed these ideas out in previous posts at the Belmont Club (on this website), to the point of sounding like a broken record. Here are some (abridged) remarks.
I posted the following on July 24, 2008:
The United States could buy food supplies from Afghan farmers; each farmer who grows wheat is a farmer who does not grow the opium that funds the Taliban. (There is a limited amount of arable land in Afghanistan.) The United States could buy Russian weaponry and ammunition, ensuring a supply line that cannot be easily snapped even by the Russian government. This “cash tether” could solve many supply problems.
Using the “cash tether” leaves only two problems — cash transfers and troop rotation. These would require air access to Afghanistan, although the United States could theoretically use a trans-Caucasus/Kazahkstan/Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan air corridor to bypass Pakistan. Astute diplomacy in Turkmenistan would strengthen such an air corridor. As long as the requisite tariffs were paid, I doubt there would be any problem with arranging charter flights delivering men and cash to Afghanistan.
Pakistan may think it has NATO by the throat, but it doesn’t. We desperately need to reconfigure our supply system, though.
I posted the following on October 17, 2008:
There is an internationally recognized need for morphine. Perhaps the United States could buy up Afghanistan’s opium supply in exchange for registering every farm and inspecting the farms so they comply with regulations.
Making Afghan farmers dependent upon farm subsidies may be the least bad option we have. We could also buy up Afghanistan’s wheat crop at high prices to encourage Afghan farmers to switch from opium to wheat. As a rule, our military ought to rely upon the purchase of foodstuffs available in Afghanistan instead of shipping food supplies through Pakistan. Where possible, we should also encourage industries in northern Afghanistan and Kabul to supply our troops.
Although it would be nice to expect the Taliban to vanish next year, I think the wisest course of action is to dig in for the duration. That effectively means subsidizing a war industry in Afghanistan to supply our troops and the Afghan Army for the next few decades.
Later the same day, I posted the following:
Merely to sustain a long term presence for the forces we have, we would need to promote industries that have never existed in Afghanistan. I still think it will be necessary to get the opium farmers on our side. If we cannot get Afghan farmers (and that includes opium farmers) on our side, the Afghan front of this war is doomed. It is often forgotten that one of the reasons why the Taliban were so unpopular in 2001 was because they had turned against the opium farmers; the opium farmers hold the balance of power in Afghanistan.
70,000+ NATO troops in Afghanistan? I wouldn’t recommend it, for many reasons.
I think the people of United States of America need to understand the necessity of choosing between fighting a “War on Drugs” and a war against al-Qaeda, FARC, Sendero Luminoso, and other terrorist organizations. When we fight against drug trafficking, we empower the terrorists; when we fight against the terrorists, we must by necessity tolerate the drug dealers.
We live in a world where there are tradeoffs for most decisions we make. Afghanistan isn’t New Jersey; it isn’t even New Mexico. If the present logistics of the American military presence in Afghanistan is unsustainable for the long term, we need to consider whether capitalizing Afghan industry ought to be a viable option for supplying our troops in the field.
I posted the following on November 20, 2008:
We need to supply our troops in Afghanistan with supply routes other than Pakistan. The Pakistani route is too dangerous. This issue has been discussed frequently on earlier threads.
I doubt the Obama administration will shift our logistics train toward a sustainable long term strategy in Afghanistan. He’ll shift more troops in, and with more troops comes more supplies and more vulnerability to the Taliban and other looters. There are workable solutions to this problem that ought to be downright obvious to anybody who thinks carefully about the situation.
Much of the problem the federal government faces with logistics into Afghanistan appears to be that it actively prefers to leave key problems unsolved. It’s as if we’ve got “why don’t you yes but” applied to military logistics, with the effect that America’s logistical train through Pakistan’s northwest frontier looks like a “KICK ME” sign to the Taliban.
The weird thing isn’t that the Taliban attack American supply convoys. The weird thing is that American policy makers don’t seem to be learning from experience.
I posted the following on December 6, 2008:
We cannot supply our forces in Afghanistan through Pakistan.
We must supply our forces from the north, not the south.
There are many ways to supply our forces.
1. Russian rail system
2. Trans-Caucasus route into Afghanistan
3. Russian black market munitions
4. Build arsenal in Afghanistan
4a. Build munitions factories in Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara regions of Afghanistan
4b. Buy all of Afghanistan’s opium, convert 90% into biodiesel, convert 10% into morphine.
4c. Buy Afghan wheat crop, use it to feed our troops
[5. In theory, if Iran ever gets liberated, it may be possible to supply our troops in Afghanistan through Iran. However, this possibility is very unlikely for the time being.]
We need to reconfigure our logistics into Afghanistan. I have said this so often in the last few months that I am probably sounding like a broken record by now.
We are in for a long siege. As long as we keep a level head about all of this and make sure we keep our forces well supplied, there is little chance of any major military disaster. Those are big ifs though, given America’s domestic political situation.
Afghan militia gears up to fight the Taliban
“This is NOT ‘tribal’ or ‘militia’ – it is community-based security,” the document says, adding: “This is NOT the Afghan National Auxiliary Police.”
Tom Holsinger:
But then again, why should President Obama bother to listen to me, given how he is such a perfect expert on America’s war policy?
Given what President Obama is on record as saying about America’s war effort, he may have well have said the following to our fallen heroes:
“Dear Sucker: Congratulations! You just died in a dumb war that undermined America’s national security.”
As harsh as those words sound, that is precisely how the far left regards not only the Iraq war (which Obama calls a “dumb war”) but also the war in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama needs to explain not only why we need to send more troops into Afghanistan without a solid supply line, but he also needs to explain to our troops how their deaths won’t be in vain. How can our soldiers ever be sure they won’t die in what some future president calls a “dumb war”, especially given President Obama’s past behavior?
As more Afghan civilians die, so does trust of U.S. forces
Officials say that the Taliban has manipulated the issue of civilian casualties to the point that the truth matters less than perception. Even when militants are killed, Afghans often choose to believe Taliban propaganda that the international forces are killing only civilians.
Col. Greg Julian, the spokesman for U.S. forces, said it’s still not clear what happened. “I would say there was some potential that some of those killed were civilians,” he said. “Because some of those men shooting at our troops may have been civilians.”
Our new “Commander-in-Chief” is going to send 17,000 more targets who will not be allowed to return fire lest “innocents” be killed.
Innocents my ass.
This is a PSYOP failure to effectively counter Taliban propaganda. And it will eventually have strategic effect in reducing American domestic support for OEF.
Secrecy and denial as Pakistan lets CIA use airbase to strike militants
Alexis/43, thank you.
TPT,
I was taught by my father that, when dealing with people, all things swing like a pendulum from one extreme to the other. (The lesson was based on racism but I have found many parallels since) This explains how we can go from Carter to Reagan to Clinton to Bush to Obama….. It also helps moderate both extremes, something I favor. I have faith in the backbone of Americans to get things done when they become apparent. The art is in recognizing the flash points so you are ready when the drums roll. Luckily, terrorists and liberals always overplay their hands making this easier. I have been planning for contingencies since the last election. Judging from weapon sales since that time, so are many others. And I don’t think the academics are responsible for the spike in sales.
The nexus of the radicals is now has been (for at least thirty years) the NWFP of Pakistan. A region that the rest of Pakistan has been unable to contain or control since the states inception. The rest of the country does not like the Pashtun, has no love lost on the Taliban and favors a modern and more cosmopolitan lifestyle. the two are incompatible. But like putting every denomination of Baptists into one room, the arguments about who is and is not correct from a theological pov is exasperated by the belief in Pakistan that the country should be able to achieve perfection under sharia law. Who’s version of that law is the question. The Iraqi (and also Turkish) experience is the answer. But first we have to figure out how to stop insulting the majority of Pakistani’s while convincing them that the Russians and the Chinese are not their friends and likewise the Indians are not such implacable enemies as they have painted them.
If we can achieve that bit of magic then we can address the issues of supply and logistics for a real effort along side the Pakistani’s against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. So what will that take? What would it take to undo the Judiciary which is sided with the extremes. What would it take to enlist the mercantile class whose work depends more on trade than on war, whose livelyhood is tied to the world and not to the pashtun?
What would it take? Why was Perves Musharrif unable to accomplish it? Afghanistan is at best a holding operation until Pakistan and the Jihadi’s there can be solved.
I read what Kagan had to say, and agree that there is linkage between the two theaters, but only as to far as our commitment of forces to Afghanistan would somehow restrict our ability to reinforce troops in Iraq should something go sour. I think there is a huge web being woven in Southern Asia between multiple players. I hope we do not rush in “Custer like” until we have the questions of Logistics and know the reason, know how and know the players involved. We cannot hope to convince partners of the chance for success without knowing those answers.
Hell I am convinced we know how to win in Afghanistan and in the NWFP. It has less to do with a surge, as it has to do with support and supply. I don’t know the answer, only that it lies in Pakistan. Well unless Iran converted en mass to Christianity overnight.
Middle East or Asia? How about both? The supposedly moderate Indonesia and Malaysia are getting more radical by the minute, and their non-Muslim populations are getting squeezed hard. The jihad in Thailand proceeds apace with no apparent will to crush it. Even the Chinese Muslim population is stirring up trouble, though the Communists are less hesitant about dealing with them in appropriately harsh ways.
Those who know me realize I am somewhat of a military historian by avocation, and that for a while I was writing for professional military journals with some success. Since 9/11 I have considered us to be in the 4th World War [Cold War was the 3rd, we won] against an Axis of Islam, Trans-national Socialism, and Failed Communist States. I have advocated, frequently rather forcefully, for the active prosecution of this war, on all fronts. I am not by any stretch, one who believes that we have any hope of a non-military way of surviving in a horribly dangerous world. And I am enough of a pragmatist to remember that all civilizations fall, all dynasties end, and in the long run the barbarians usually win due to a failure of will on the part of civilized people. My goal is to hold back the Long Night for a while longer.
That said, we are engaged in a campaign in Afghanistan surrounded by multiple enemies from all three of the forces ranged against us in this war. They have control of our logistics lines, and most importantly we have a National Command Authority which seeks an enemy victory over our forces.
This is a campaign in this war. It is not the whole war. Indeed, the way the world is going, our problems are going to be more nuclear and economic than anything that comes out of Afghanistan. And right smartly. We won, for now, in Iraq. Once Hussein Pasha gives Iran free rein in the area, that may be reversed, but for now we have won and our troops are coming out.
Afghanistan, however, has had every strategic indicator turn against us. The closest thing I can compare our forces in Afghanistan to in military history is the German 6th Army at Stalingrad. There was a period of time when it could have been withdrawn and saved. Instead it was left there until it was surrounded and all supply routes were cut.
Alexis, with all due respect, your solutions to me seem to require either the cooperation of our enemies [Russia, Iran, etc.] or the commitment of more resources [and political will] than we physically have, or the one thing we do not have and shall not get any more of …. time. We don’t have the time or resources to build the factories [which themselves will require the import of raw materials over the same risky supply routes] or the biodiesel plants, or to turn around the local crop growing arrangements. We have at best weeks to months, before things get irreversible.
The recent statement by Holbrooke that Iran had a role in stabilizing Afghanistan should have been a beacon shining out that we have lost this campaign. We need to get our people [and as much equipment as we can] out so that we can use them where we will next need them.
We have lost battles and campaigns before in our country’s history. It hurts, but it is better not to lose what will not be replacable [our troops] and be ready for the next onslaught to come. We have to recognize that we are in no way any longer on the offensive against our enemies. We are now on the defensive and we have to hold on until the day when either Hussein Pasha is forced against his will to defend the country, or until we have a President who is willing to defend this country.
Al Quada has won this round, with the help of the Russians, the Iranians, the Pakistanis, and the Democratic Party. They and the Taliban will be able to reconstitute in Afghanistan, and we will not be able to do a thing about it.
It is ironic. Immediately after 9/11, the world would have given us a pass if we would have turned major parts of Afghanistan into a glass bowl. We chose to be humane. And look where it has gotten us.
Maybe next time a strike against the United States is planned in Kabul, things will be different.
Subotai Bahadur
Mr. Holsinger,
Re: #16… that’s why I closed w/ a “shrug”. It wasn’t intended as a serious proposal, though it DOES point out the underlying disconnect between the Westphalian concept that we incorporate into our international relations, and the facts on the ground in that part of the world.
Sinking one or more of our carriers would be the career-making hero-legend of all time in the camps of the enemy. With our force in Afghanistan beleagured and in emergency, CiC would do exactly the predictable, the thing he could explain to his puppet people, that is send a battle group in close for point protection and retrieval (it’s an emergency remember), where any number of layered swarm would be waiting in all media to test all the amazing array of new anti-US Carrier-specific weapons in inventory. waiting also would be the prepared enemy (which enemy? does it matter?) diplomatic demarche, that the sinking wasn’t an act of war, that it was mere force protection forced upon simple patriots. This would work, with our CiC, and we would be well and truly defeated, back where CiC would like us to be, that is laguished for a decade in the demoralized Vietnam Syndrome, hurt badly and foolishly and for little gain had even all worked as ideally as planned. This is not a war-fighting CiC, this is a war-losing CiC. He couldn’t do much harm in say a Normandy campaign but in this sort on martian moonscape in the enemy maw, a near-perfect command performance and a whole lot of clarity would need obtain, and this CiC is so wrong in every way it’s frankly near-unbelieveable. imho, all that.
NATO civilian cargo to follow from Riga to Afghanistan across Russia in few days.
Doesn’t say where the train stops and the jingle trucks start.
Termez, Uzbekistan, maybe.
Allies Struggle to Find Safer Supply Routes
In fact, Germany is the only NATO country that enjoys permission to transport war materiel through Russia by rail. But, to date, not a single train has arrived in Afghanistan because transit countries, including Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, have refused to grant permits for passage. However, officials at the German Defense Ministry say that these problems have recently been resolved. This month might see the first shipment to Uzbekistan brought by train to the Afghan terminal in Hairatan, near Termes.
The Bundeswehr didn’t come to fight the Taliban. They came to get the Americans off their backs, and because they couldn’t influence NATO if they stayed out. RC North is essentially at peace. Peacekeeping works up there. Kamerad is not going to come south and join the war.
Just like the Germans have their own deals for their own national line of communications, I predict the Italians and Spanish in RC West will soon be making deals with Ah-mawt-be-a-nutjob. The Americans might, too. If anybody can take Joe Biden seriously, this may be what he warned us about during the campaign.
The best road networks among all neighboring countries are to be found in Iran, a country neighboring Afghanistan that has recently had significant issues with the West, though for other reasons. These problems with Iran have made this alternative taboo. But NATO is desperate to find a solution and, according to diplomatic sources in Pakistan, it is also negotiating with Tehran “at a lower level.” The rapprochement already began under former President George W. Bush, who had accused the mullah-controlled regime of being in league with the Taliban. But now that Obama is in office, ironically enough, there is a better chance that Iran could end up helping the United States — also known as the “Great Satan” — and its allies.
During his first state visit to Kabul in August 2007, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised Afghan President Hamid Karzai his full support in the struggle for stability. “The best friend of Iran,” Ahmadinejad insisted, “is a country that is economically powerful and developed.” So far, Iran has paid Afghanistan more than $1 billion (€770 million) in development aid.
A usable long-distance road already exists in Afghanistan. India, one of the biggest investors in Karzai’s country, has built a road between the city of Zaranj on the Iranian border and Delaram, which lies about 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the northeast in Afghanistan. The road could link the Iranian port of Chabahar with Afghanistan’s turbulent south.
Work has already begun on this resupply route. Apparently even a religious fanatic like Ahmadinejad can hate the Taliban.
India Stops Playing Games With Itself
India is increasing its defense budget by 24 percent, to $29 billion, in the next year.
Afghanistan buildup takes shape
The new units are a Marine Expeditionary Brigade unit from Camp Lejeune and the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, an Army Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis in Washington state. About 8,000 Marines are expected to go this spring, followed by about 9,000 Army troops in the summer.
The Taliban get their first wish
“It’s a twofer! The Democrats can have it all. A loss, as predicted by Democrat leadership, in Iraq AND a defeat in Afghanistan. If the conservative America had only listened. Oh well, they tried to tell us.”
“You know, I am really starting to get P.O’d at Leftists.” –programmer
We lost the White House
We lost the Senate
We lost the Congress.
I have to agree with programmer that the dems can do whatever they please. And, that includes loosing wars, endangering our troops and destroying the political capital that was built-up over the last eight years.
We can only hope that 0bama will screw-up so badly that he will be forced to leave Office in disgrace. And, that also goes for his crooks and cronies.
Let the Russians have afagistan and pakistan.
Sometimes I regret harping on the Russia theory so constantly here, but, stepping back from that scenario, what I have trouble understanding is what, exactly, the power of the ISI explanation really is.
Pakistan is slowly collapsing. In 2005 Musharaf instituted the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan; just a couple days ago, Zarari ceed Swat valley, which the approach to Islamabad, as in Pakistan proper, not the FATA or other tribal territories. According to public maps the Pakistani nuclear infrastructure is already within territory ceded to “the Taliban.”
The ultimate question is, how does this even benefit an ISI coup? The latest election’s results suggest about 10% support for Islamist parties. The Army is being demoralized either through Taliban-inflicted defeats, or because they sympathize religiously and ethnically with their Pashtun Taliban brothers.
The ISI must know that it has created an unaccountable quantity in these Taliban factions, and must know that even if it manages to evict the Americans, co-opt the Pakistan government, cow the Army, and supply only its favored tribals, they are going to face years of insurgency from other disfavored factions, still have to deal with India – particularly if the Americans are not around to restrain them – and still have to figure out how to placate their electorate such that the maximum benefit can be reaped from the country.
Why would ISI pursue this policy? If they’re clever enough to devise and implement the current Taliban-proxy strategy, they’re aware enough of the topography to see that they are creating a chaotic and incoherent state which that proxy army will be powerless to reconstruct. Or is it just a long revolution, conducted with the usual Asiatic sloth and venality? “ISI” just doesn’t seem to me to be a sufficient explanation. And then of course there’s the documented involvement of “former KGB/GRU officer Victor Bout…”
@Wadeusaf: I beg to differ with you an a few points from post #48. Yes, the North West Frontier Province has been a hot bed of ignorance, middle ages attitudes and Islamic fundamentalism for decades, so what. It is not much different from many inaccessible rural areas in Muslim hands across the globe. Look at rural Nigeria, or Sudan, or Yemen, or rural Oman up on the hadramawt. Nearly anywhere beyond the glittering cities of Gulf you will find Muslims who are hardcore about their old time religion; people whose understanding of life is so different than ours that they are clinically insane by our standards. In less backward places such as Turkey or Indonesia that have traditionally practiced a more tolerant form of Islam, they are being radicalized at an alarming rate, even in the cities and centers of learning.
You mentioned, “…the Indians are not such implacable enemies as they have painted them.” You are forgetting the mindset of Islamists. The Indians are a majority Hindu nation. They are idolaters. The Koran commands that they convert to Islam, be enslaved, or be slain. The Hindus are the historic and fundamental enemy of Muslims everywhere! Your entire set of comments in this post comes from a false premise, that the Islamic terrorist Taliban are reasonable. By modern western cultural standards they are mad men! You mentioned that “Hell I am convinced we know how to win in Afghanistan and in the NWFP. It has less to do with a surge, as it has to do with support and supply. I don’t know the answer, only that it lies in Pakistan…” You just contradicted yourself, “…we know how to win in Afghanistan and in the NWFP…” and then “…I don’t know the answer, only that is lies in Pakistan…”. So, which is it? Do we know how to win, or don’t you know the answer? If you do know how to win, short of thermonuclear sterilization of the fertile valleys and dry season water sources, please share. I’m frustrated that so many clearly intelligent and thoughtful people have such naïveté regarding the difficulties of long term force projection in the high mountains and deserts of a land locked collection of tribal lands on the far side of the world.
UPDATE TO #50
One of the things that I noted as an indicator that Pakistan was truly scrod, and that our supply lines were gone; was the recent agreement by the Pakistani “government” to impose Sharia law in Malakhand and Kohistan districts in Pakistan, in return for a truce with the Taliban in Swat. That is nothing less than a surrender. The official word is that the US government is not happy.
The TELEGRAPH of London has other information. The impostion of Sharia law, and the submission of the Pakistani government was approved by Hussein Pasha.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/4681480/US-privately-backs-Pakistans-Sharia-law-for-peace-deal-with-Taliban.html
In short, Hussein Pasha is sending additional troops into an area where we are surrounded, where our supply lines are tenuous at best, and he is maneuvering to make it even more so.
Time to get our people out before they are killed by Obama’s hand.
Subotai Bahadur
Jesus.
Just finished the thread.
I’m going for a long walk and have a few days off the net.
And do some target practice.
The general consensus here appears to be that there is a significant probability that Afghanistan will at some point be deemed a failure. I agree for all the stated reasons expressed here.
The discussion seems to only differ in that it does not necessarily have to be so, that is, if only the will to victory existed with the Obama administration and American public. But alas, it does not.
In fact, a case can be made that Gen. Petraeus’ appointment and the increase in troops is an intentional betrayal, in that neither is intended as a serious effort in the WoT.
As both #50 & #52 alluded, “we have a National Command Authority which seeks an enemy victory over our forces.” and a defeat of US forces in Afghanistan would discredit both US forces and Petraeus’ reputation…
Petreaus reportedly left his meeting with Obama visibly upset. Somehow I think it was a more substantive disagreement that a mere personality conflict, perhaps over being given responsibility for a job but being denied the tools to do it with?
So, it does seem likely that in the not too distant future the Taliban and al Qaeda may well regain control of Afghanistan.
But as others have pointed out, Afghanistan itself is of minimal importance in the WoT.
I believe that the ‘real story’ here is that the ‘handwriting is on the wall’ for Pakistan as well…
A faction sympathetic to al Qaeda and the Taliban may well take control of Pakistan in the next year or two.
If and when that happens al Qaeda will gain access to Pakistan’s nukes… and then, the Mumbai’s will be rather larger.
You know, if the Enemy is paying for intelligence information against us, they are wasting their money. All they need to do is read the #&*@ newspapers.
What is going on here?
hey
air-bridge from UAE………..
dubai is broke…lots of excellengt logistics providers and storage in northern emirates…abu dhabi crown prince pro u.s.a
roll’em !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@downtowndubai:
In your comment, #67, it is really silly to believe we could even begin to supply the needs of a standing army on the ground in Afghanistan by air, from anywhere more than 200-300km away. Go look up the fuel usage of a C-130, a C-17, a 747 freighter and calculate how much they haul, per trip. Then keep in mind that our forces are spread out in little FOBs and smaller outposts across much of the Hindu Kush. Resupplying all these soldiers requires a tremendous amount of either av-gas or diesel fuel for either helecopter (extremely expensive) or ground convoys (also expensive and very vulnerable). Do you know much about MRAPs? They haul a very small contingent of troops, and practically zero cargo. Cargo must be hauled using almost entirely un-armored trucks. The Taliban are crazy, not stupid! They’ve learned to target the non-armored vehicles because then thier attacks are effective. That’s why those jingle truck drivers earn so much by local standards. That’s also why the bomb triggering scum focus attention on fuel trucks, because they have extremely little armor, if any, and make a big boom when the tank ruptures in an explosion. Guaranteed body count there!
NO!, If we can’t establish a reasonably secure overland route of resupply, we need to get all our conventional forces out of there, and just leave in Special Forces scout & sniper teams to kill high value targets (preferably by calling in an air strike) that way there’s less chance of them getting caught, and maximum chance of elliminating the target. I’m greatful the U.A.E. is a friend in a largely unfriendly region, but aerial resupply alone, of a standing army in Afghanistan, from U.A.E. will not work in the long run.
437 statute miles from Dubai to Gwadar,keeping south of Iranian airspace.
482 miles from Gwadar NW to Kandahar. 919 miles one way. No fuel at Kandahar, so 1838 miles round trip.
1,065 statute miles from Dubai across Iran to Bagram. No fuel at Bagram, so 2,130 mile round trip.
With a payload of 169,000 pounds (76,657 kilograms) and an initial cruise altitude of 28,000 feet (8,534 meters), the C-17 has an unrefueled range of approximately 2,400 nautical miles, or 2,762 statute miles, so they can do this, for a while, at enormous cost.
Inventory of C-17′s: Active duty, 158; Air National Guard, 8; Air Force Reserve, 8
Other than a miraculous change of regime in Iran there is really no workable option.
Russia will be Russia and if Putin died tomorrow we would find that their policies are driven by geopolitical factors and deeply ingrained cultural aspects and any change in policy would only be cosmetic. Roughly the same imperatives as drove the Great Game of the mid-19th Century.
Pakistan is Pakistan and its population is what it is, it won’t suddenly tolerate a higher level of “complicity” with the US—plus it’s to their benefit to keep Taliban alive in case a power vacuum develops in Afghanistan they can re-insert them and have a not-unfriendly govt on their NW border and buffering them from Russia and its clients.
Uzbekistan et al are where they are, bordered by Russia on the north and Afghanistan on the south; we need them to get northern access to Afghanistan, but they have to be a lot more afraid of what Russia could do, than what we could do.
It’s hard to see how we ever put major forces in Afghanistan without making ourselves captive to people who will squeeze us in a million other places…our forces in Afghan become hostages to Russia, Pakistan, or whomever.
This is all incredibly stupid, always was and always will be.
We need to reassess what is feasible in Afghanistan, given the physical and human reality. I don’t have the answer, but having 50,000 US troops and 20,000 NATO troops (or, whatever) and our most visible foreign policy/military initiative be hostages to Russia and Pakistan is NOT a sane approach.
Maybe we need to seriously talk with Pakistan and thru them the Taliban, about whether a slightly more moderate Taliban could return to Afghan in coalition with the current structure, with binding commitments to not allow terrorist bases, enforceable by punitive expeditions (with Pakistan being signatory to the treaty and guaranteeing us access for defined purposes in such an event) if necessary, but full-fledged invasion/occupation/recosntruction is beyond us, and may well not be necessary to accomplish our true purpose which is (only) to deny Afghanistan as a terrorist base.
I dunno, my brain hurts.
Canoneer #4:
What would be availability rate, initially and over time? Losses due to accidents and malfunction. Performance degradation at high altitudes (Hindu Kush)? No Iranian overflights or even close, please. Even Pakis may have a problem. And Taliban in NW Frontier and Afghan, armed with Russ or Chinese small SA rockets mean we’re having to fly about 15,000 ft above the ground, which means 30,000 ft above sea level, until we’re within a highly secured airport perimeter which will have to be DAMN big and therfeore porous.
Say you could keep 100 planes cycling at all times, making 2 round trips per day (optimistic), that’s about 16,000 T/day, using a very large part of our worldwide airlift capability (if the airbases on the Gulf can support that many planes, which I doubt).
I pile optimistic assumption on top of optimistic assumption and I can almost make this work. Makes me feel like Goring talking to Hitler about resupplying the 6th Army in Stalingrad with Ju-52s in the dead of winter in Dec. 1942, tho.
Rex,
I do believe that if we could resolve the supply and logistics nightmare, we have the knowledge and skills to win in Afghanistan and the NWFP of Pakistan.
I do not know how to resolve the supply situation with confidence. I think any rail born answer through Russian spheres is a short term solution, and a huge gamble at best. Iran is a no brainer no go, or so heavy would be the price and cost as to be worse than the rail option. The answer to the logistical nightmare lies in Pakistan. Perhaps a truck route from Gwadar Deep sea Port now functional for wheat ( and home to the Chinese navy that built it) up to Nok Kundi and over the existing road into Afghanistan. This uses the same route as that coming from Chabahar, but eliminates any travel through Iran. It also has the positives of traveling through Balochistan and not the NWFP.
I apologize for not stating that as clearly as I thought I had. I am nearly as frustrated with Pakistan as I am with Iran.
Rex,
“You are forgetting the mindset of Islamists.”
I was not referring to Islamists.
You are discounting what honest hardworking people would do if given a real option to overthrow the radicals. NO ONE, not even muslums, want the Taliban or Al Qaeda or the nutjobs in the NWFP to win. But a minority utilizing threats and possessing the will and ability to project its will over the majority will win out unless a means of protecting the majority from the minority and an option to what the majority offers can be sustained. We can provide such relief if we have a constant and uninterrupted logistical train. We can defeat the SOB’s if we can sustain our forces.
Rex,
Once more, I do not believe we can run anything through Pakistan without either declaring war on the Pakis or convincing the civilian leadership that we are their only hope of getting their fanny’s and their children’s fannies out the fires the Islamists have planned.
So what is your solution other than to mis-screed, muck up and fuss about my opinion. You got a solution? You think its doable? Or, as I suspect, are we in agreement on the subject.
Of course this is why we went in with a light footprint in Afghanistan to begin with. As in Iraq, the real surge occured not from the insertion of US troops, but from the ability to insert large numbers of Iraqi troops supported by US Troops. Same same will be the case in Afghanistan. I don’t know how easily it could be done but pulling Afghani army and security units out of Afghanistan for training and advanced training may be a way to better prepare them for the battles to come, both military and political. Enlarging the Afghani army and training loyal units, will require an anchor to Afghanistan, vs to the tribes, yet survival of the tribal system as a part of a modern Afghani state needs to become a vision.
There are opportunities there a plenty in preparing Afghanistan for modernity without loosing them to religious insanity, and not just by our standards but mainly by their own. As General Petraeus said it will require drinking lots of tea read chai. But it still requires that we overcome the logistics nightmare.
HEY
i started this ”use dubai for logistics”angle and let me add meat to bones. dubai sits on a lake of jet A (in storage) that was intended to fuel its hugh nat. airline and all other airlines that come into the region because they cut jet A prices to the bone. even if we let them take a bigger cut…they will bend over backwards to make money.
why ???
they are broke…repeat, broke. sea of high rises semi complete, faux disneylands at three locations, a stockmarket in freefall and a smack down from big cousin in abu dhabi, that is now realizing its better to help themselves(rather than 80% foreign investors forming Dubai Inc. these days), with their u.s. investments (maybe 45% of all their total cash) in the tank…if not vapor.
the Gwadar issue is key. chicoms want afghanistan for the minerals and have no horse in the race.
always amazed at the ”big brains” at b-club. many thanks your time amigos.
Or you could think of the Berlin Airlift. Or Khe Sanh instead of Dienbienphu. A little optimism guys!
However, yes, we’re on the raggedy edge.
Three Options:
first –
Quaere: would we wake up the good people of AF (& maybe Pak) by saying, “If you don’t cooperate with us and I mean HELP we’re taking our bat and ball and going home?” Sure, some will be glad to see our backs, but we can always just bomb them.
What cannot we accomplish with aerial policing?
Ground presence, obviously.
Does the United States need ground presence in AF?
I dunno, does what happens there matter that much? Granting sufficient intel – which is like the economist saying “Assume a can opener” if you’ve heard that one – to hell with ‘em. Forget rebuilding and helping. Just punish.
Keep a hundred CIA and SOCOM in country for drones, lasing targets, handing out the hundred-dollar bills to informers, going to pick up OBL or minions should someone decide to hand him over hogtied.
Is it worth it to do more? I don’t mean “boo hoo the US is weak, it’s too hard, the Russians are getting over on us.” I mean “don’t feed the hill/mountain trolls.” I mean “never wrestle with a pig” or for the Aubrey-Maturin fans, “who washes an ass’ head wastes both time and soap”). Or, “you can’t paint a turd.”
Perhaps AF is just unimprovable. Maybe this is a case for Oderint dum metuant. Even – Here, we’ll even give you some light weapons, go say hi to the Russians, just don’t base terror here or we’ll go madman on you, KTHXBAI.
…or if there is an Af-Pak Awakening, that’s a goat of a different color. PROFIT!!!, maybe. At least it justifies our commitment.
Okay, 2nd alternative:
Who has the power to give us exactly what we want? Where are their testicles? How hard do we have to squeeze them?
Apparently the answer is not Zardari (would he do any better for us if say we seized his whole clan and started popping them like grapes? or would we do better to simply freeze his bank accounts?) or at least not him alone.
Which leaders have to be turned inside out? And how?
Or, Plan C:
What amount of effort would be required to end all life in NWFP?
Let’s rule out nukes unless no other answer is viable – ruling in chem-bio-rad as options – eff the law, or rely on Obama’s Teflon. (I think we now have a POTUS who knows and hates Pakistan with sincerity. Suspect he had a bad time there.)
Would plague do? Use something that we can cure, so as to offer a carrot to go with the stick.
Without any mass ground forces, definitely not. Just kill anything that moves, free-fire zone, poison gas, Soviet-style doll-mines, whatever.
I’m not a racist, I don’t hate NWFPers, I just want them to obey. This whole non-cooperation thing…just, no. Too tedious. How long until they crack? 1% of the population? 10%? 25%? 51%? 90%? 99%? 99+%?
—
Rank these three on the following: efficacy, efficiency, eviltude. Try to provide relative rankings in each category.
Anybody else had enough of these guys? I have a button that addresses this situation:
It reads:
NO MORE MR. NICE GUY
down on your knees bitch
The romantic independent spirit of the wild frontier has just passed its shelf life.
Arm Rex:
If you’re saying a C-5 cargo is not big/efficient enough, do we need a Double Super Mega Cargo liner? Forget landing, drop it all by Sherpa chutes, or have parasite C-130s a la the Goblin fighter. Abu Dhabi wants the business, let ‘em build a five mile runway and defend the airspace.
Marty:
“if Putin died tomorrow”
You have a thought there. Yeltsin would never have done this to us. How far down the leadership tree do we have to reach to get some cooperation there?
If the direct approach is distasteful, how do we twist Russia’s nuts sufficiently to assure access? We’ll find some nice flashy carrots for ‘em somehow, but right now they want the whole truck garden and the truck too.
If we’re going to be an Empire, let’s do it right. The Romans didn’t take no for an answer.
Excuse me, downtown, I meant – if Dubai wants the business then let them build the world’s largest airport for the world’s largest aircraft.
Question: how big an aircraft are we thinking of? How big should it be?
Excuse me, I missed Alexis.
What would be the production of the entire AF opium, or better still poppy crop?
Cheap, I bet. Much cheaper than the current war effort, I bet.
License the growers, buy all their crop; kill any who don’t comply and poison their land. Refine ourselves (refining equipment past personal family needs = death);
provide ample pharma stocks for the world;
and smuggle the rest as heroin (or whatever heroin-plus we can devise) at neck-snapping discounts into China, Russia, Iran and any other country that gets in our way.
@wadeusaf:
See my comment #23 in this post for my suggestions for dealing with the Paki / Afghan “problem”.
I don’t think the current administration has the balls or forsight to pursue either of these, or any other solution that is likely to be effective, so I think we should pull all our conventional forces out ASAP and use very limited air assets and special forces to continue elliminating high value targets. This would require a secure Afghani airbase for logistics, R&R, CAS sorties, predator & reaper sorties, field hospital, etc, but our footprint should drop to less than 4000 boots on the ground, and the vast majority of these would be FOBbits on that one secure base.
@nichevo:
As cannoneer commented above, we could sustain an army in the field through airlift / airdrop for an extremely limited time. The expense would be enormous, and aircraft maintanence would put an end to it within weeks or a couple months at most. Such as scheme would be practical for a greatly reduced number of boots on the ground. (see my comment #80 above) It would still be very expensive. The C-5s that remain flying are in fragile shape. We don’t load them up nearly to capicity so they won’t wear out quickly. We don’t have time to design, manufacture, and build some new super transport to support an army already in the field in Afghanistan, but the 747 freighters we have could do the job for several years if we cut 90% of our forces on the ground.
4000 BOG sounds pretty radical, Rex, and the COINdinistas will have a cow.
You are on the right track, I think. The U.S. Armed Forces footprint needs to be reduced to a number we can logistically sustain without Russian, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Turkmen, or Iranian cooperation. We will still require overflight of Pakistan, and bases in Kuwait, Qatar and UAE.
I would also pay good money to Department of Defense and Department of Justice civilian contractors to live out side the wire on the Host Nation economy and really mentor the ANA, ANP, APPF, whatever we can reconstruct of the ASF, and any other friendly tribal, district or provincial forces we can organize. They would essentially be expendable, but they would know that going in, and be compensated for the risk.
Afghan National Army
Afghan National Police
Afghan Public Protection Force
Afghan Security Forces
C-5′s don’t well out there.
There are bloody great Antonov An-124 Condors we lease with lots of wheels in the landing gear that don’t crack the concrete, but Putin could shut those down with a phone call.
@Cannoneer No. 4:
If we follow the single secure airbase plan with minimal footprint (the smaller the better by the way) we are giving up on COIN as the strategy to pursue in this theatre. Our new strategy will be search and destroy. Our shooters infiltrating hostile territory from a secure base by ground, air drop, helicopter insertion, etc, killing the bad guys, and exfiltrating when that mission is done to rest, refit and do it all again. This is one possible “nice” alternative to full on genocide or Pashtun ethnic cleansing which may prevent Afghanistan from becoming a terrorist base to strike at western civilization again.
If we are unwilling to do what is necessary to win outright, which increasingly looks like it would involve a much wider war with Pakistan, probably Iran, and possibly Russia, then we should reduce our loss of blood and treasure immensely by reducing the scope of our operations and our boots on the ground enormously.
I believe it is long past time to have additional training / instructor forces living with and mentoring the Afghani security forces (on the economy). We should continue to back our local friendly forces with equipment, material, technical support, etc. as needed. I disagree that we should endanger U.S. government employees. Let’s hire (ex-cop) mercenaries to do it. Blackwater (or whatever they’re calling themselves this month) and similar companies could do the lions share of the work, with oversight from our special forces, who visit from our secure airbase.
@Cannoneer No. 4:
I should have paid closer attention to your comment. You did indeed propose DoD, etc. contractors to mentor the Afghani security forces. I agree with you entirely, and it sure would be a better use of taxpayer funds than bailing out deadbeat homeowners who should have been renting to begin with!
#76 Nichevo
Maybe I’m not reading the same portents as you, but “I think we now have a POTUS who knows and hates Pakistan with sincerity.” does not scan the same for me. I consider that we have a Usurper who hates the government of Pakistan with sincerity, probably because they sided for a while with the US. Since it seems that Hussein Pasha was accomodating, if not complicite in the inposition of Sharia law in parts of Pakistan, I have to say that it is a matter of which side he is on in the fight over who controls Pakistan.
I do not rule out the necessity of WMD’s eventually in dealing with the Islamist part of the war; the Three Conjectures are now part of the most likely hypothesis, not mere conjecture.
#79 Nichevo
I have no problem with the idea, but we have to realize that the majority of the country does not accept that we are in an existential war; and the part of the country that does realize and is in control of the country is rooting for the other side to win or is actually part of the other side.
If we did buy the opiate crops, we would be up to our tuchus in Soma® here at home long before a microgram ended up in enemy territory, and it would be sold/given away by our own government.
As far as any conception of trying to support any sizable ground force commitment in Afghanistan by air, I revert to obscene Chinese as the only way to rationally discuss the prospect. Our aerial logistics system is at the end of its rope. Berlin was possible because we had a huge military compared to now, new production aircraft pouring off of the assembly lines, national will, a strong economy, and a government that wanted our side to win. None of those conditions obtain now.
One can almost excuse Goering for promising to supply Von Paulus’ 6th Army by air. It had never been tried, and the reality of the situation had not been discovered. This is NOT Khe Sanh, nor is it the Berlin Blockade. We could, possibly, do this for a couple of weeks, at the cost of crippling all other operations worldwide for a short period of time, and permanently reducing our capabilities after that. That ‘possible’ is assuming that there is NO opposition, either tactically in the theater of operations or domestically in Harare-on-the-Potomac. There is too little reality testing involved for it to even be considered.
Subotai Bahadur
Blackwater cut their PR losses and rebranded as Xe.
Dyncorp hires a lot of cops.
I’d go outside the regular American military-industrial complex and create a multi-national Private Security Company with the mission of providing contract leaders and mentors to the various indigenous forces we want on our side. Hire internationals with experience in gendarmeries, Carabinieri, Guardia Civil and paramilitary national forces we don’t have in America. I’d put expats in ANP uniforms with actual rank and command authority.
Damn moderation. A comment very similar to this will show up down thread. Sorry for the duplication.
Blackwater cut their PR losses and rebranded as Xe.
Dyncorp hires a lot of cops.
I’d go outside the regular American military-industrial complex and create a multi-national Private Security Company with the mission of providing contract leaders and mentors to the various indigenous forces we want on our side. Hire internationals with experience in gendarmeries, Carabinieri, Guardia Civil and paramilitary national forces we don’t have in America.
See Seconded to the Afghan Constabulary for more along that line.
@Cannoneer No. 4:
You sold me on the idea! Now just pick up the phone and call the big 0, and let him know how we should proceed from here on out… It’s worth a try.
81 Arm:
We don’t have time to design, manufacture, and build some new super transport to support an army already in the field in Afghanistan,
I just threw that out there. You’re 100% right. I am looking towards the future. I’m sure we will be back, don’t you think?
89 Subotai
my 76
I think Obama has a personal grudge against the people there. I think in his travels he was probably assaulted by natives and carries psychic scars that feel a little better every time he blows something up. I have no proof, let me be up front.
Frankly I do not see maximum danger coming out of this region; sincere air-policing would keep that threat down and the death of, e.g., Washington, D.C. will be engineered in some other place (possibly, only a few hundred miles in any direction). There are so few resources there.
It is IMHO the principle, the moral question that justifies any further effort, not the threat matrix.
my 79
Heh, noted. Legalization in the US? At the expense of *mostly* underclass deaths you would free up a lot of both firepower and maneuver.
For instance, corrections officers could be freed up for military service; as could perhaps many prisoners. Security clearances would be easier to get minus proscription of casual drug use, yielding less disqualification of otherwise useful people.
We’d screw narcoterrorists in Latin America and elsewhere too, reeeeal good. Helpful with border security; if legal shipments can be booked through customs on insured freighters, why use submersibles and dig tunnels?
Refining ops in a secured reservation in AF or in any case outside the US (AF military base? GTMO? Oil rigs?). But sure, quis custodiet ipsos custodes.
If legalized in the US it would matter little about smuggling, diversion as it would only happen outside US as we could buy it for $9.95 per box of 24 at the corner pharmacy or candy store.
I doubt China, Russia, Iran would legalize so would be perfect targets. As communist drug smuggling efforts were used against the US during the Cold War this has deliciously ironic aspects.
In theory something with air-only could be managed within certain constraints (i.e., build 400 C-17s or repurpose hundreds of 747s in a very short time).
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is none (difference between theory and practice), but in practice, there is.
Again, as a thought, how do we maximize ability to support air-bridging at the far end of the earth? Again I suggest the mega-freighter, and ask for discussion. Of course it would be a decade or two away, no help now.
Also of course, we will need it later, unless Central Asia suddenly decides to love us, and even then there will be other scenarios. Soviet era a/c are better but not by an order of magnitude…
Even with 400 C-17s at $200M per for what, 85 tons cargo capacity, perhaps we do better with 40 C-170s at $2B per with 850 tons cargo capacity, at, perhaps, double the ton-miles per gallon or better.
(Or…what?)
Note, the C-170 never descends below 35,000 feet – perhaps higher; all cargo dropped by smart GPS/UAV parachute, unless smaller aircraft will meet, dock and transfer payloads with the C-170 “Roc” or “Griffin.”
I doubt that any current airport could accommodate such a beast except perhaps Shuttle-class airstrips of over 15000ft (some of which exist in both Russia and Iran; quite a few in Africa). See http://www.simtours.net/longestrunways.php for a review of current candidates.
At this point it seems that the blended wing body concept comes into its own as nobody will much care whether their tank, IFV or CONEX has a window seat. Stealth might be desirable (LOL) as would altitude and reasonable speed, but the key would be efficiency – cost and esp. fuel per ton-mile. (Altitude for this is evidently key.)
There would be plenty of room for defensive systems like anti-SAM countermissiles or DEWs. A satellite/parasite a/c might be a separate development effort, especially one capable of tanking this behemoth, and/or swapping payloads on and off the C-170, assuming current a/c won’t do.
The C-170 would, of course, be mostly a one-way ticket.
The alternative seems to be coddling these villains who, apparently, can’t be coddled to our satisfaction. I suppose one response to the threat of shootdowns is to utilize nuclear propulsion in some form; how annoying to irradiate ten thousand square miles surrounding your lucky S-400.
Obviously this is musing at best but don’t we like new and bold technological solutions to resistant problems?
@nichevo and comment #92:
Well, if we’re going to dream big dreams to solve relatively small problems in areas of the world that could be largely ignored, why not just build a space elevator, then we can pull the cargo up and insert it anywhere on earth by releasing the packages on the upward elevation at the correct time? It will be an unguided ICBM, having not achieved escape velocity and will fall back to earth following an easily calculated ballistic path. We can then spend a fortune on reusable freight containers and parachutes! What a great use of resources at a time when our economy is tanking!
Why don’t we stop trying to police the entire planet, and why don’t we stop pulling our punches? As it stands now, our enemy engages us with tactics and strategies that cost them very little and cost us an enormous amount to counter. This is called asymmetric warfare. One key thought that I don’t hear discussed often enough is that asymmetric warfare only works as long as the stronger side in the war agrees to play by those rules. So far we have bled hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of casualties fighting by rules selected by turd world dirtbags. The next time our civilian population suffers a major attack by terrorists with involvement by anyone in Pashtunistan, we should save a lot of time, money and dying (on our part) and change the rules of the game to utilize the strategy and tactics we planned, trained for, and refined for 50 years. Why don’t we use some 30 year old thermonuclear warheads the Obamassiah wants to get rid of anyway and sterilize all the fertile valleys and dry season watering sources in Pashtunistan? We will save hundreds of billions of dollars, lots of American lives, remove the threat of any future terrorist operations there, and send an unmistakable message to any other terrorists who may have planned to strike at us. This isn’t exactly a “new and bold technological solution” to this intractable problem, but it is a tried and proven strategy for dealing with uncivilized savages in the area. When the British staged their several campaigns against the Pashtun tribes they didn’t reduce themselves to using tulwars, scimitars, and lances, they brought in breech fed artillery and Maxim machineguns. Using our nukes today is the equivalent!
I covered WMD as an option. I think nukes would be suboptimal for the following reasons:
Mountainous terrain
Highly distributed nature of targets
High cost of nuclear weapons
Fallout = resentment of neighbors
Breach of taboos = Russians nuke next Georgia?
So I recommended biologicals. Targeted strikes against key natural infrastructure leading to the destruction of the NWFP economy is fine too, but biowarfare has advantages like deniability, controllability and cost.
Meanwhile, a space elevator is much to be desired, and if murdering tribesmen were a useful subterfuge to fund its development, sing Hey! But in fact a mega-cargoliner would be much more approachable technologically.
@nichevo: re comment #94:
“Highly distributed nature of targets”: It would take hundreds of nukes to sterilize the fertile valleys and dry season water sources, but much of the terrain consists of high mountains or desert with no usable topsoil. If all the agricultural water sources and farmable land is radioactive, there will be no human population to support an insurgency or terrorists.
“High cost of nuclear weapons”: The Obamassiah reportedly wants to decommission several thousand U.S. nuclear weapons. If we’re going to throw them away (destroy them) anyway, why not put several hundred to good use.
“Fallout = resentment of neighbors”: prevailing winds will blow the fallout into western Pakistan. This is a feature, not a bug!
“Breach of taboos = Russian nuke next Georgia?” This is not a good comparison. A better would be Russians nuke Chechnya. It would breech the taboo against nuking Islamist terrorists, but not anyone else! Again, this is a feature, not a bug in my opinion.
Biological weapons scare the crap out of me. As someone who has undergone some training to counter / contain them and received recent inoculations for anthrax and smallpox, I can honestly say I’d rather have Islamist terrorists responding with their own nukes than attacking the U.S. with smallpox or some other effective biological agent on a large scale. Wide scale use of Biological agents is, to my mind, a much larger taboo to cross than using nukes which are basically just enormous explosives with some lingering side effects. Unless humanity is very lucky, the entire human species may be wiped out by some manmade viral hemorrhagic fever or other highly infectious weaponized super-virus or super-bacteria. This is one excellent argument for why we must colonize another planet locally and another solar system as soon as it is feasible.
Perhaps the Chinese will pay the U.S. to research the key technologies to build a working space elevator (since we’re broke), the Japanese could then design it, and the Chinese of course would build it! The European Union would then whine about it, blame Booooosh for everything, including European malaise, and after several years of debate, embark upon a redundant EU sponsored version with extra bells and whistles that would cost billions of Euros before being abandoned as unnecessary, impractical, and unaffordable.
at least the Russians aren’t actively supporting the Taliban…..yet