I can’t recommend this talk by retired Brigadier Justin Kelly of the Australian Army, which I had the opportunity to listen to in person, highly enough. “Justin Kelly is a recently retired Australian army officer. He commanded the Peace Monitoring Group on Bougainville, was deputy commander of the peace keeping force in East Timor and was director of strategic operations in the US headquarters in Iraq from November 2006 until September 2007.” He had a ringside seat on the Surge and reflects on what it means to win a counterinsurgency. As listeners will discover, it means first and foremost defeating the enemy in a basic military way. Kelly argued that as important as the developmental aspects of victory were, none of them were possible until basic security for the population could be established.
The first part of his talk is below. Parts two to six are on the Quadrant Magazine website, which, for those who have never heard of it, is one of the premier online conservative magazines in Australia. Follow the link and watch the rest for free.
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India, Pakistan and Afghanistan with Robert Kaplan
H3: Darrell Issa, Mitch McConnell, Robert Kaplan
– Hewitt
Making it possible for the Pashtun to not act like Pashtun, vs making it too painful for the Pashtun to act like Pashtun. Requiring decapitation either bolstered by or reinforcing scorched earth and construction.
Yet we’re not into nation building?
Making it possible for the Pashtun to not act like Pashtun, vs making it too painful for the Pashtun to act like Pashtun.
That’s why I think the crucial problem in the Afghanistan/Pakistan theater is to decide on the ends or goals of the mission. If we are out to defeat the Pashtuns, then the means are such and such. Actually I think it is worse than that: what are the goals vis a vis Pakistan? A solution to Pakistan, whatever that means, is the necessary but not the sufficient condition to fixing Afghanistan. Fixing Afghanistan gets you nowhere without Pakistan. Pakistan is on the critical path.
Yet somehow I think that nobody has ever gone before the public and explained just exactly what that proposition implies. The really basic questions are: does the West want to do this? And does it have a choice?
No, the west does not have a choice, what the west has are options and none of them any good. Ultimately it is war with the Pashtun Taliban, no matter where they reside, as part of a global war on terror, not a contingent operation or part of a dumb luck encounter.
This is War.
Wade at 4. Exactly. So what to do? The Pashtun has existed in a continual state of low level violence, whether at war or feud, for centuries.
Look at it this way. In a barren land the hunters became hunters of men and brigands, feuding over the spoils (including women) of raids on caravans, villages and each other. Islam simply reinforced the old ways. Going into West Pak and Afg in a low level way is going against Pushtan strength. Ask Britain, ask Russia.
If we (west) go for again we must do it differently. First we need to get into the head of the Pashtun. When understood, we need to attack the psychology of the Pashtun. It has never been done before and I doubt their ability to react. It is conceded that an issue will be how to communicate to people who do not read and where mass communication is a not yet in place.
In paralell we need to bring the wrath of God down on their heads. A B52 raid on an offending village makes a statement.
Finally, we need to build roads. Open the damn place up.
Prosletyze
Pulverize
Penetrate
WadeUSAF,your number 4: There is no more “Global War on Terror”. The Administration now calls it “human caused disaster”. That allows for climate change to fall under the umbrella.
Exactly,
And the “heroic responders” to 9-11 were in fact mere Contingency Remediators.
Brigadier Justin Kelly’s commentary reminds me of David Galula’s military philosophy.
Several years ago, I commented that reeducation of the enemy is necessary. I stand by that statement. The Taliban are created by a school system expressly designed to generate more monsters.
We need to kill enemy soldiers and wipe out the Taliban leadership. Almost as important as killing off enemy soldiers is killing off enemy teachers and preachers. By definition, the Taliban are “students from the academy”. We need to consider education of the enemy’s children as an integral component of our long term strategy to subjugate “Pushtunistan” to the authority of a central Afghan government. Considering the importance of education, we need to consider who will take care of the widows and educate the orphans.
Down the road, Pushtuns should face a choice of a tribal future without the Taliban or a detribalized future completely devoid of Pushtunwali. One or the other, with no third option. If necessary, it may be useful to consider which script the Pashto language should use in the future; there were reasons why Ataturk shifted Turkish to Latin script. So, should Pashto use Arabic, Latin, or Devangari script, or perhaps some new script nobody has ever seen yet?
Alexis,
Is this the same as getting into the head of the Pashtun attacking the psychology of the culture?
Trouble posting…just checking to see If i’m verboten…
We need to consider scripts and fonts as a political matter. During the War of Yugoslav Succession, the question of whether to use Latin or Cyrillic script was highly politicized. Likewise, Arabic script has political baggage. Even typeface fonts have political baggage. Witness Gotham’s use by the Obama campaign (and business seeking to ride Obama’s coattails) and Optima’s use by the McCain campaign. For that matter, the Nazis aligned themselves with a nationalistic German font until WWII; the Nazis were forced to use a simpler and easier to read font due to the necessity of war. (Subject peoples often didn’t understand signs written in an ornate Germanic font.)
Given the Taliban’s propensity to exert power in the most symbolic manner possible (such as blowing up the Buddhas of Bamyan and the World Trade Center*), it may be wise to consider promoting a massive shift in linguistic script for Afghan languages to denote the emergence of a new era.
*The Taliban and al-Qaeda are so closely allied with each other that they should be considered to be the same organization for all practical purposes.
michael hoskins:
Since the Taliban/Qaeda make it a raison d’etre to destroy any culture other than themselves, we should honestly say that yes, we seek to destroy the root cultures of the Taliban/Qaeda. Anybody from their root cultures who seek to survive intact would have the option of rejecting the Taliban and allying with us; all others must be transformed into people other than the people who facilitated the attacks of September 11.
Let’s use the very fear of assimilating to our ways as a weapon of fear to be used against the Taliban/Qaeda. The message must be, “You will either ally with us against our enemy or you will no longer be a traditional Pushtun. Choose.”
@ 11. Benj:
Trouble posting…just checking to see If i’m verboten…
Ah, benj.. .Always testing the boundaries for casting blame elsewhere but itself.
The British once had a class of destroyers called the Tribals; they represented all the wild peoples of the empire. They could build ship after ship without ever running out of tribe names. If the campaign against terrorism depends on eliminating all the wild populations of the world, communities in which terror can flourish, then it would be, to put it mildly, a shame.
The indirect approach was to go after the wellsprings of terror. The ideology. The money. The states. To some extent, those things have been done. That’s why you hear Brigadier Kelly talking about the diminished reach of Al-Qaeda. Even in this last, the core strategic idea, the germ behind the “AfPak” notion, is that Pakistan is the key to the Pashtuns. Or Iran is the key, if you prefer.
The whole purpose of a successful campaign is to collapse the enemy’s will to attack the West and that can be achieved short of physical liquidation. It can be achieved by dominance, which is not the same thing. Can it happen? The two dangers in the current situation is that the strategy adopted will do enough to ramp things up, but not enough for closure; or it will miscarry and escalate out of control. For example, if some terrible attack comes out of the NWFP, then there will be pressure to do something.
There are probably no easy answers. Given that it is a complex situation, the chances of an emergent, unanticipated event are great. About all that people can do from the outside is to make sure that the public debate is transparent; that we don’t get packaged memes in place of common sense.
michael hoskins, If you have followed my colloquy with Habu on the last thread the use of targeted and explicitly disproportionate force by B-52s makes sense to me. The operation should be called either “Linebacker III” or “Wrath of God.” The goal is to create a space for the psychological changes to happen in the Pashtun so that we can shift to pacification and COIN operations.
If we can not do that then the only alternatives would be to either disperse and relocate them or to destroy them sufficiently to break them and remove their ability to threaten us or withdraw and in effect surrender. The problem with Pashtunistan is that since it already is the Back of Beyond there is no way to remove them, as Stalin did with problematic nations (Crimean Tatars, Balts or Jews) and replace them with more compliant clients who would want to live there. Given that limitation then our only options are to either succeed in subjugating Pashtunistan or we shall have to destroy it, or give up.
The option of withdrawing is advocated by voices on the right and the left. Upon consideration I do not find it feasible. There is simply no way that we can isolate the region and hope that it will not become again a base for strategic warfare against us. In their terms we live in Dar al-Harb and the war can not end.
That leaves us with only the two choices of acknowledging that we in a war, whether sought or unsought, with Pashtunistan and prosecuting it until we can secure the population and effectively convert them to a value system compatible with international norms or destroy them.
Another open tag on my part.
wretchard, Great lecture, I am up to number 3, thank you.
Alexis, Not a bad idea, it would keep of academics busy which could avoid some trouble. Idle hands and all that.
During “Bush’s War” the Neocons were ridiculed for making simplistic analogies between Iraq and Germany or Japan. Having pronounced the conclusion in their accusation the war’s opponents and the media felt absolved from any need to actually examine the issue. In fact of course the position of the war’s advocates, such as Podhoretz, was essentially correct. In WW-II we first broke the nations we were at war with so thoroughly that we were able to occupy and transform them. We started by taking charge of the education systems. No argument of “respect for local culture” was allowed to stand in the way of American Social Workers and Educators from acting with missionary zeal to ensure that future generations of Germans and Japanese would be raised to be tolerant. The process was more attenuated in Japan, largely because of the interjection of the Korean War, but the transformation desired may have proven more effective there then in Germany.
Deicide first (try to say inshallah when there is none), then miracles can happen.
I’m having a 50% off sale on “Irradiate The Tribal Areas” t-shirts.
As far as winning. Logistics will dictate the initiation of a serious conventional military push. Conventional now being SpecOps etc plus the GI Joe. After a few years, if we can afford it, for the Chinese are not going to support our debt much longer and many sell what they have destroying our currrency, the people will go anti war. We don’t do well in long term engagements.
The enemies supply line is next door with no civilian resistence. It’s his territory and all those rocks and caves etc will make war very hard.
Yesterday George Soros said he believes our current economic troubles will never allow us to return to our previous standard of living. Many other economists agree. How will we finanace this war? We can’t even sell our notes and bonds at auction for more than inflation, if that. The future of money is now at this moment being discussed and eventually another Bretton Woods will result. Maybe not for years but sooner rather than later.
I agree that my irradiation theme would never be considered but our aging fleet of B-52 have only so much more life, although it is a thing of beauty to see a massive strike, which I witnessed on occasioin in SE Asia.
If they hit us with a bio-nuke-salmonella peanut butter attack would we nuke’em with real big mushroom nukes?
War gaming on the blog is great, you don’t even run the risk of a paper cut.
But it’s that ten thousand mile supply line and public support for protracted war that is the sticky wicket. That and the money.
twobyfour,
Permit me to disagree. Atheism is not the answer. It is tempting I know to conflate the Islamists and the religious bigots of other faiths but there are differences.
First the objections to Christian and Jewish fundamentalists are often based on social snobbery. Granted, I am as prone as anyone to prefer attractive witty urban sophisticates to fat ignorant doctrinaire people who live in trailers. Nevertheless they are not, despite a few forays into educational policy that I think are basically defensive in nature, a threat to the beliefs and values of anyone outside of their communities. Even the proselytizing groups are not prone to using coercion to spread or maintain their doctrines. It is probably over 500 years since a mainline Christian group executed anyone for Apostasy and considerably longer for the Jews.
Second the essential nature of Islam as a faith is different than that of other religions. To me the extreme austerity and abstraction of Islam, combined with the arbitrary justifications for otherwise immoral conduct brought about by what to an observer is the effective apotheosis of the personality of Mohammed, create a contradiction that is unique and makes for a much more dangerous set of conditions than those produced in other faith groups. Only Islam is both aggressively outer directed in its willingness to expand by the use of violence as a core belief and so dominated by the need to seek out and, again as matter not just of practice but of organizing principle, destroy all evidence of nonconformity within the community. In fact the nature of Islam with its arbitrary and impersonal god is more like a form of formalized Atheism, a militant Ethical Culture coupled with a set of most unethical moral precepts as exemplified by the example of Mohammed, then it is, despite its pretensions, like any other major religion.
Perhaps what is necessary in parts of Afghanistan is a new version of the British East India Company. Or maybe the Dutch East India Company. There is a lot of stuff to be mined in Afghanistan, yet mining operations require security. So, perhaps the mining operations can pay for the security forces, security forces that can also attack the Taliban. And there are plenty of people in Afghanistan who would love to smite the Taliban.
Whatever else can be said about Afghanistan, it is critically necessary to sufficiently arm all non-Taliban factions (especially ethnic minorities) to ensure that the Taliban have more to fear from them than they do from us. It is often forgotten that Soviet atrocities against Germans during WWII made life easier for the western powers toward the end of the war; Germans couldn’t surrender fast enough to American and British forces.
On a temporary level, it is important to kill off as many Taliban as possible. In the long run, the key to winning in Afghanistan may be to industrialize its central highlands so that the worst enemies of the Pushtuns have logistical, economic, and technological superiority over the culture of Pushtunwali. An anti-Taliban economic structure based upon mining (instead of foreign aid) would shift the long term balance of power against any root culture of our enemies.
If it is possible to be Pushtun while opposing the Taliban, then we should be open to alliances. If it is not possible to be Pushtun while opposing the Taliban, aggressive cultural imperialism makes sense. From a traditionalist’s perspective, irradiation may seem less frightening than boarding schools for Pushtun children. But then, the Taliban are products of boarding schools for Pushtun boys…
Alexis
In the long run, the key to winning in Afghanistan may be to industrialize its central highlands….
What would you industrialize in it’s central highlands?
LOM. Missed your B52 comment in previous thread.
Habu. The B52 bomb load is astonding…more and more just keep falling out.
Habu at 22. I once served on an industrial development board in Eastern Kentucky. First, trust me when I say that in some ways Appalachia is not so different from what I read about Afg. Back to the board. Our biggest issue was what sort of industry to court. We (and others in other communities) correctly determined that light manufacturing THAT HIRED WOMEN would be the most viable. a.) Women already do the work in these regions. b.) In some ‘Up East’ counties the men make the trailer payment and the pu truck payment and the women do the rest. (Balance of mans money goes to huntin’, fishin’ and mostly drinkin’) c.) After incomes were established some men would seek the maintenance jobs (mechanicin’ is a mans job). Then with prosperity, changes begin.
Add a highway and hospital or two (also employers of women more than men) and soon it begins to look like the 20th century. (forget the 21st, too ambitious)
In my little county the first manufacturer made the plastic lids for coffee cans. Then a sewing factory.
So, in Afg? A small, low labor cost, textile (the traditional one) activity. It can even be a piece work operation out of a womans home (this works with Islamic restrictions.) Men then drive around, collect goods, have tea in the market and look properous…but will soon be unwilling to loose the income. Other light mfg will also work.
In KY the change took (takes) two to three generations. I suspect in Afg, three to five.
Anyhoo…it can work…
What would you industrialize in it’s central highlands?
One could start with bullet manufacturing. Although the main known lead deposits are around Kandahar, there may be some lead ores in the highlands.
There’s iron. One can mine the iron ore, smelt the iron, and then turn the iron into weaponry, all in the central highlands.
There’s copper, which is also a strategic metal.
There’s plenty of marble, and with good marble quarrying techniques (that don’t cause microfracturing), Afghanistan could supply much of Asia for quite a while.
There’s also gypsum, which can be used in construction.
One major advantage to industrializing the central highlands would be to ensure that the Hazaras have plenty of weapons to make war on their Taliban enemies. The idea is to ensure that the Hazaras become our proxies rather than Iran’s, as well as ensure that they have the means to enlarge their territory toward the south if the United States ever does bail out of Afghanistan.
Alexis, LOM
Re: Academics. To continue my E. KY experience…the school systems in most of the counties is by far the largest employer. In my county (Pop. 13,000) the school system employed 475 or so. My fathers hospital about 75 was number two. A small quarry with 12 was third. Since the school boards and superintendents are elected, the superintendent’s family became the local gentry.
The first little factory hired 90, all in. Wow. Jobs based on showing up, on time, sober and willing to do the simple tasks. What a concept.
Further, the county was 85% interrelated by blood or marriage. Wheels within wheels. I remember, in youthful exhuberance denouncing an 85 year old politician as past his sell by date. Oops. He was the grandfather of a key player and oh by the way my great uncle had been the sheriff for 24 years.
Since, again per my reading, Afg schools are mostly religious and represent the income of the clerics, one must be careful whose rice bowl you step on.
This is why I say first penetrate, second get a source of secure income then see what happens. No its not easy.
michael hoskins #23:
Huntin, fishin and drinkin. Now….. That’s what I’m talkin about! Except…. being a redneck MUSLIM, I gotta substitute smokin fer drinkin!
Seriously, #23 is a very good post!
Salaam eleikum Sir!
michael hoskins:
I like your comments about textiles. For the next couple of decades, textiles from Afghanistan would have the advantage of being perceived as “exotic” in major markets. In particular, I think Afghan wool textiles should be promoted.
Wretchard –
I profoundly disagree that there is ANY hope of bringing this conflict between “tribals” and the West to a peaceful end short of Caesar’s methods. There just isn’t.
And that is because of TECHNOLOGY.
Now the “tribals” have the capability of wiping out DC. They clearly intend to do so. Probably while the weak, dithering, feminized, and profoundly Muslim sympathetic “If there is conflict between America and Muslims, I will stand with the Muslims” Barack Hussein Obama is safely out of town.
The enemy gets a vote. He’s clearly voted to escalate, and has the MEANS to do so.
It’s not 1897. Tribal people have nuclear weapons. They will use them. Over and over again until they are simply destroyed in the manner that Caesar destroyed Gaul.
Their society is NOT CAPABLE of change. It is indeed, tribal, polygamous, herding-based, and thus filled with violence. These people have remained unchanged since the Neolithic. Indeed the one thing their societies are very good at is NOT changing. Alexander, the Persians, the Mongols, the British, the Russians, and Soviets all tried and failed to change them.
My critique of this line (“humane war”) would be that of Sherman’s. There is no use in reforming War, only winning it as rapidly as possible with a complete defeat of the enemy, in all ways, so that the killing goes on for a short a time as possible, and is never repeated with that enemy.
11. Benj:
Yes, you are.
In Polite Circles.
michael hoskins,
Some great ideas.
One of their challenges will be that doing it without the infrastructure,roads,electricity,sewage,etc that are America, even Kentucky
I’m not simply trying to be argumentative but Afghan simple doesn’t have a lot to work with. They do have plenty of warlords who war on each other so if say Warlord Cliff Claven isn’t making any money off of Warlord N O R M’s painting shop he may make trouble. Paint everywhere, tagging new paintjobs..it’s a mess.
“Irradiate T’s” 75% off ….
Habu:
One more note about central Afghanistan. The (Shi’ite) Hazara are said to be hard working in comparison to all of their (Sunni) neighbors. They are easy to tell apart because they tend to look like Mongols. If Pashtuns could be compared to Appalachian mountain people, Hazaras could be seen as the Mormons of Afghanistan. Except that the Hazaras tend to get picked on more than the Mormons did (and that’s saying something).
The Hazaras are the classic “low caste” of Afghanistan; it is in our interests fight together with them on our side to overthrow our common foe.
@ 20. Lifeofthemind
Who said anything about atheism? Not me. Just remove the the pillar, the meteorite in silver vagina and all other pillars would fall like if made from mud after heavy rain. And by removal I mean non-lethal tech which is available right now, with some tweaking.
To make it even more dramatic, figure out how to make a holographic YWHW in hebrew letters somewhere above the edifice, a signature as it were.
Would there be some leftover die-hard? Yewbetcha. But the majority of people would see the moon god has no clothes and would replace it with something else, in all likelihood with christianity.
Budget: between 10 million – 100 million
Result: priceless
For everything else there’s a mastercard.
Alexis,
Great analogy. I’m convinced. Now I’m thinking TARP money..how can we help the Afghans using TARP money…charter the First National Bank of Afghanistan. We’ll make our first big loan to the remains of GM which we can relocate to Afghan.
memo to self:
Call Geithner when he gets back from G-20
Alexis, will you be the CEO? I’ll just hang in the background working for a small salary and a bonus of some size. I know, EVP for corpoate T-shirts ! I’ll telecommute from Newport Beach.
The Washington Post says
The campaign in Afghanistan/Pakistan will be a multi-year affair. Considering that Afghanistan will start from a lower institutional base than Iraq and lacks the oil resource to sustain itself, this means that in terms of the Iraqi clock, if such a comparison can be meaningful, it is 2006 with the hands running slow. It is likely that by 2012, Obama will be asking the country to “stay the course” (if he hasn’t decided to withdraw). This is where the chickens of the BDS years will come home to roost; because he will be asking the opposition for what he would not give in the same situation — support for a President at war. Ironically, he may get it. Conservatives may, for reasons of culture and patriotism, provide more support than he can get from the Kos crowd. President Obama will be in the odd situation of relying on one group for domestic political support and another coalition for national security.
During the Cold War, there was to a large degree bipartisan support for the policy of containment that lasted over several Presidencies, whichever party was in the White House. Whether that king of bipartisan base can still be built to meet the challenges of the future remains to be seen.
We’ll be bankrupt by then.
LBJ tried guns and butter and from a starting point economically much stronger than the one we are in at the moment.
Further, obama’s budget cuts military spending. Experts were telling us less than a year ago that our equipment and other resources were worn out.
This attempt to control Afghanistan by subduing the Taliban and then constructing a totally tribal country from the ground up is, in the current economy insane.
In one respect obama is very lucky. Our supine economy will force more and more yuts into the volunteer services, thus avoiding a draft. Should a draft become necessary…whoa Nellie.
But again. High much debt can we continue to pile up? And if our economy doesn’t begin to pick up thus aiding bond yields then our main buyer, China will jump ship. Even if they didn’t wait, if they did it now we would be a third world country within a very short period of time.
The money, always the money.
BTW Irradiate T’s off 95%..a bargain.
“During the Cold War, there was to a large degree bipartisan support for the policy of containment that lasted over several Presidencies….”
Even more remarkably, the overall strategy of containment and “going toe to toe in every possible theater” was consistent as well. Most of the conflict between Dems and Repubs over the Cold War was in seeing who could be more anticommunist. Few people recall today that JFK went to the “right” of Nixon in 1960. Nixon had dente with the USSR and contact with the PRC as innovations and Carter had, uh, something or another that escapes me at the moment. But it was consistent for the most part.
Obama is trying to sound consistent, but changing the name of the war to something nonwarlike and saying he is willing to fix all sorts of things by talking to people sure sounds like a change in basic strategy. I am not sure that kind of change will enable a bipartisan approach
“There is a lot of stuff to be mined in Afghanistan,”
Alexis, you have help to answer the question that I have been asking myself lately… exactly why do we give a damn about Afghanistan again? Run the Taliban out of Afghanistan…OK not bad but the Paki problem. Now what? I mean for all practical considerations what are our motivations here besides national pride?
I guess I am ready to get on board with carpet bombing with B52′s but seriously who in this administration is going to push that. THe first namby pamby thing I hear will be the first I believe in with any credibility.
What would Holbrooke do?
Annoy Mouse,
What would Holbrooke do?
1. Arrange his own payoff.
2. Arrange jobs for his friends.
3. Choose an official victim to compensate. Here that means some, not officially Taliban, Pashtun tribe .
4. Choose a defenseless victim to screw. Here that means somebody who trusted the Americans.
Sounds par for the course LoTM.
I’ll add:
0. Blame Bush.
wretchard said:
“A solution to Pakistan, whatever that means, is the necessary but not the sufficient condition to fixing Afghanistan. Fixing Afghanistan gets you nowhere without Pakistan. Pakistan is on the critical path.”
I believe this is correct. In fact, I would argue that it is obviously correct. Unfortunately Pakistan is well on its way to becoming a failed state that is also a nuclear power.
“Fixing Pakistan” probably involves the use of nuclear weapons. That tells me that we should leave the problem to India since they’ll be dealing with the collateral damage, e.g. nuclear fallout, refugees, etc.
There were many excellent reasons why George W. Bush opted to shift the focal point of the Global War on Terror away from Afghanistan/Pakistan and towards Iraq. The best of those excellent reasons was that a war against Saddam Hussein was winnable while it was not clear that non-nuclear war against Afghanistan/Pakistan was winnable. I don’t understand why Obama has not come to the same conclusion (appeasing moonbats is an insufficient reason).
Probably the best tactic against the Taliban is to keep hitting their leadership with Hellfire missiles whenever they provide a cost effective target (Hellfire missiles are expensive). Beyond that, the Taliban should be allowed to control the tribal areas in West Pakistan until India deals with the problem, i.e. levels the whole area in a nuclear assault.
I think Club members are underestimating the damage done by chronic Hellfire strikes.
Raging at Washington… announcing that something terrible is coming… is totally against Pashtun tactical style.
One can reasonably assume that the Taliban’s top ranks are getting so thin that some morale boosting bombast became necessary.
The very same phenomena occurred in the waning days of WWII. Hitler was constantly promising wonder weapons and devastating retaliation. Japan’s propaganda mill was constantly claiming naval victories that never were. It’s in the nature of losing big to talk exactly against reality.
I was pleased to hear the General clearly state that the war in Afghanistan is not an insurgency and that we need to have localized persistence. I’m on board with that.
Hence, we need a massive, low cost, low overhead army: it’s time to get the Indians involved.
Back in the day, Bush made a categorical error in not forcing Pakistan to eject the Tribal Areas from its sovereignty.
The crazy notion that Afghanistan provides Pakistan operational depth in the event of an Indian war does not pass the smell test.
Pakistan’s interest in Afghanistan lies entirely in the illicit profits to be had from the drug trade which can be funneled to various corrupt politicians in Islamabad. Those profits flow best if the Pashtun sit in Kabul. Having the poppy fields tended by serfs/ sharecroppers regarded as lower caste muslims is the perfect setup for the drug lords. Pakistan can duck its involvement/ permissive environment while reaping the lion’s share of the profit.
It would be nice if someone invented a bug that would kill the poppies. Then the US could invite the farmers to grow wheat or whatever–to be sold to US troops, the local economy & for export.
They’ve already got the ‘bug.’ It’s a fungus which is very specific to the opium poppy. It creates a blight upon the crop. It’s persistent, once dosed the field stays affected.
This fungus does not affect cereal grains, etc.
The big hang-up is the Geneva Treaty condemnations of bio-warfare. It’s hard to argue that the treaty doesn’t cover this fungus.
Of course, the Taliban, shadow army, AQ and Soviet Mafia (KGB) do not conform to any of the Geneva Conventions. That’s asymmetric warfare for you. Millions suffer because we’ve treatied ourselves into a corner.