Afghanistan

If the economy is at the forefront of everyone's mind, we do have two wars going on. I. has some ideas about Iraq: he favors the partition. I don't know enough to have an opinion, but I do want us to stop bothering those poor people and to plan for some reparations as well.

Afghanistan

The Taliban, armed and defending their home to the death
Photo from the Daily Mail

It seems we have been trying to impose a nation-state on a bunch of tribespeople. Hamid Karzai is not much more than the mayor of Kabul. We have 30,000 troops over there. Why? The Soviets failed with hundreds of thousands of troops. OK, so we (and Saudi Arabia) were aiding the mujahideen with buckets of money, materiel and training, but still... wouldn't anyone fight an invader to the death? They might have beat the Soviets eventually, even without our and Saudi aid.

"When you're bleeding to death on the Afghan plains,
And the Afghan women come to cut up your remains,
Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your Gawd like a soldier."
— Rudyard Kipling

So I've been thinking about this. My feeling is that Realpolitik will win out and we will have to opt for an ugly solution. Now here is a very interesting, very thorny, very explosive, and very long-term problem.


Defining the Problem
First, per a friend's suggestion (thank you, R.!), I present a recent episode of Frontline with some of my own commentary.


Let's begin with Frontline.

Along the Korengal Valley
Photo from the New York Times

[Much, much more to come...]




A Surge?
In Small Wars Journal, a group of military strategists recommend a surge such as the one implemented in Iraq, with twenty troops per 1,000 inhabitants to provide security during an counter-insurgency operation. (I could not make out whether the 20:1000 ratio included troops for a counterinsurgency as well.)

This strategists would have us concentrate troops along the Afghan-Pakistan border — technically Pakistan's NW Frontier Provice that might as well be called Pashtunistan. A surge implemented solely in this region, with, per the white paper, its population of 42 million (14 million in Afghanistan, the remainder in the border region and in Pakistan proper) would require 840,000 troops. Well!

• The writers further recommend securing the border. Am I dense, or is securing a border a largely losing proposition? Let's ask Mr. Lou Dobbs, shall we?
  
  
• The writers also want to control the "road from Peshawar, Pakistan, through the Khyber Pass and onto Jalalabad ... a crucial lifeline for Afghans." Easier, perhaps, although much of this road is very rough terrain indeed.
  
  
• The white paper notes the Taliban's control in rural Pashtun "districts," although what the term means is unclear (at least to me).

"The Taliban understand the importance of coercing or influencing the Pashtun population in the rural districts and focus most of their attention on these areas. In July 2008, the Taliban operated in 130 Pashtun districts and from June to August 2008 temporarily overran 41 districts."

Finally, the paper notes that "Afghan coalescing identity is tied to the district level with bottom-up governance" and is passingly pessimistic about the ability of a national government to form, let alone function.


No Surge; Nation-building
In Foreign Affairs, Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid disaagree with a surge

The crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan is beyond the point where more troops will help. U.S. strategy must be to seek compromise with insurgents while addressing regional rivalries and insecurities.

They condemn incursions into Pakistan's NW Frontier, but still believe that super-imposing a nation-state on the tribes might work: "good governance...effective police and justice systems."

Cross-border attacks into Pakistan may produce an "October surprise" or provide material for apologists hoping to salvage George W. Bush's legacy, but they will not provide security. Advancing reconstruction, development, good governance, and counternarcotics efforts and building effective police and justice systems in Afghanistan will require many years of relative peace and security.

MIT Study of Tribal Rivalries

[Much more to come]

"Thirty years of conflict has fragmented the traditional tribal structure which inhibits the type of broad tribal reconciliation found in the Iraqi Awakening Councils."

In other words, they hate each other.




This map is from the MIT Center for International Studies. The information there is astounding: a lot of reading, but worth it.