Progress is a relative concept. If your house catches fire you can make progress heading for the door but if you don't make enough progress you're not getting out alive. You see, making it to the door is the only progress that really matters.
We are making progress in Afghanistan, sort of, but so is the opposition, the fire, and meanwhile the house, the government, is being consumed.
NATO is making progress but is it succeeding? No, it's not. Will it succeed? No it won't, at least not without a wholesale change in a variety of factors both within and beyond NATO's control.
Two of the best think tanks in existence are the International Crisis Group and Chatham House. They tend to be fact focused instead of being ideologically blinded, propaganda mills like so many such as the Fraser Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as "Chatham House", has released a paper entitled "Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan: Burden-sharing or Disunity?" The paper cites a lack of consensus among NATO partners, the absence of any coherent strategy, and the failure to determine, collectively, how to implement effective civil-military co-operation as chronic problems that undermine what the alliance seeks to do in Afghanistan. The report also points to Pakistan and notes that, so long as the tribal lands remain a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, "coalition forces will not be able to control Afghanistan."
The report notes that the combined and confused Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF-US) and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were crippled, from the start, by critical strategic inconsistencies. The parallel structures of OEF and ISAF violate the principle of unity of command in military operations. Different mandates led to the development of differing strategic objectives made further confused by individual nations taking differing interpretations of their mandate obligations. ISAF has been far too limited (weak) in its geographical reach and ability to deliver sustained stability and reconstruction. OEF has been too American-dominated and globally directed to achieve necessary support from the European nations.
In other words, the past six years have been one giant FUBAR.
Reconstruction was similarly hobbled. The coalition was given responsibility for security. The US took charge of building the Afghan army. Germany received the mandate to train and organize the Afghan police. Italy got to reform the legal system. Britain took over the counter-narcotics programme and Japan got the job of tackling demilitarization and reintegration of the Northern Alliance militias. Each got to do its job as it saw fit. We've all seen how well that's worked out. It turned into a confused mess that is today's Afghanistan.
Then there's the resources question. Neither ISAF nor OEF have remotely enough manpower to achieve their objectives. Not even close. If you put each nation's force under a magnifying glass, look at its own immediate area, you can see signs of progress. It's when you put down the magnifying glass and look at the entire map that you see how insignificant that progress truly is.
NATO was never prepared for its expansion in 2006 from a Kabul security force into a replacement for American combat forces in southern Afghanistan. There ought to have been a clear consensus before that commitment was undertaken but that would have meant not doing it at all so NATO simply blundered ahead, relying on America, British, Canadian, Dutch and Australian forces to do the heavy lifting. The idea was that NATO somehow, magically, would later get the others to get stuck in to a conflict they shunned at the outset. What lunacy! Even those that did get involved frequently disagree on how the military effort should be pursued. Incredible.
Why can we not defeat the Taliban? Because our forces are so small that we're limited to tactical victories - clearing them out of specific locations - but we cannot achieve strategic victories - holding the territories we clear. We go in, drive them out, we leave, they return. The battles are won tactically but the war is decided strategically and OEF/ISAF have no strategic solutions because they absolutely will not furnish the resources needed.
Then there are the other problems, just as critical as the insurgency, that we can't control and so, instead, simply choose to look the other way. "Little progress has been made in dealing with the warlords, whose infighting and various forms of criminal activity remain a major security threat. In particular, the coalition has failed to tackle the nexus of Afghan government, warlords and the drug trade. ...the coalition has tended to ignore this issue."
Put simply the international effort to which Canadian forces are committed is, at the end of the day, a dysfunctional campaign undermined by a fatal lack of consensus, co-operation, commitment and coherence. We have no way forward unless we first recognize these failures and then find the means to overcome them. Without that remedial effort we cannot win in Afghanistan. Without that remedial effort we're just squandering the lives of our soldiers.
We are making progress in Afghanistan, sort of, but so is the opposition, the fire, and meanwhile the house, the government, is being consumed.
NATO is making progress but is it succeeding? No, it's not. Will it succeed? No it won't, at least not without a wholesale change in a variety of factors both within and beyond NATO's control.
Two of the best think tanks in existence are the International Crisis Group and Chatham House. They tend to be fact focused instead of being ideologically blinded, propaganda mills like so many such as the Fraser Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs, better known as "Chatham House", has released a paper entitled "Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan: Burden-sharing or Disunity?" The paper cites a lack of consensus among NATO partners, the absence of any coherent strategy, and the failure to determine, collectively, how to implement effective civil-military co-operation as chronic problems that undermine what the alliance seeks to do in Afghanistan. The report also points to Pakistan and notes that, so long as the tribal lands remain a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, "coalition forces will not be able to control Afghanistan."
The report notes that the combined and confused Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF-US) and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were crippled, from the start, by critical strategic inconsistencies. The parallel structures of OEF and ISAF violate the principle of unity of command in military operations. Different mandates led to the development of differing strategic objectives made further confused by individual nations taking differing interpretations of their mandate obligations. ISAF has been far too limited (weak) in its geographical reach and ability to deliver sustained stability and reconstruction. OEF has been too American-dominated and globally directed to achieve necessary support from the European nations.
In other words, the past six years have been one giant FUBAR.
Reconstruction was similarly hobbled. The coalition was given responsibility for security. The US took charge of building the Afghan army. Germany received the mandate to train and organize the Afghan police. Italy got to reform the legal system. Britain took over the counter-narcotics programme and Japan got the job of tackling demilitarization and reintegration of the Northern Alliance militias. Each got to do its job as it saw fit. We've all seen how well that's worked out. It turned into a confused mess that is today's Afghanistan.
Then there's the resources question. Neither ISAF nor OEF have remotely enough manpower to achieve their objectives. Not even close. If you put each nation's force under a magnifying glass, look at its own immediate area, you can see signs of progress. It's when you put down the magnifying glass and look at the entire map that you see how insignificant that progress truly is.
NATO was never prepared for its expansion in 2006 from a Kabul security force into a replacement for American combat forces in southern Afghanistan. There ought to have been a clear consensus before that commitment was undertaken but that would have meant not doing it at all so NATO simply blundered ahead, relying on America, British, Canadian, Dutch and Australian forces to do the heavy lifting. The idea was that NATO somehow, magically, would later get the others to get stuck in to a conflict they shunned at the outset. What lunacy! Even those that did get involved frequently disagree on how the military effort should be pursued. Incredible.
Why can we not defeat the Taliban? Because our forces are so small that we're limited to tactical victories - clearing them out of specific locations - but we cannot achieve strategic victories - holding the territories we clear. We go in, drive them out, we leave, they return. The battles are won tactically but the war is decided strategically and OEF/ISAF have no strategic solutions because they absolutely will not furnish the resources needed.
Then there are the other problems, just as critical as the insurgency, that we can't control and so, instead, simply choose to look the other way. "Little progress has been made in dealing with the warlords, whose infighting and various forms of criminal activity remain a major security threat. In particular, the coalition has failed to tackle the nexus of Afghan government, warlords and the drug trade. ...the coalition has tended to ignore this issue."
Put simply the international effort to which Canadian forces are committed is, at the end of the day, a dysfunctional campaign undermined by a fatal lack of consensus, co-operation, commitment and coherence. We have no way forward unless we first recognize these failures and then find the means to overcome them. Without that remedial effort we cannot win in Afghanistan. Without that remedial effort we're just squandering the lives of our soldiers.
10 comments:
Except we're not the only ones in the house. You're saying we should leave millions of innocent Afghanis behind so we can escape before the place collapses.
Does that sound like a moral or brave thing to do?
Does leave our soldiers to kill and die in an unwinnable cause sound like the moral or brave thing to do, Aaron?
We remember the sacrifice at Galipoli, but that does mean it was a mission that should never have been undertaken. The same for Pachendale. Or Dieppe.
You can repeat the hoary predictions of death like those pro-war Americans did about Viet Nam, but that doesn't make it true - just as it turned out to be untrue after the US left Viet Nam.
But if you are comfortable leaving Canadian troops in a place where they cannot possibly win, to die fighting for an objective they cannot possibly attain, just say so.
Me, I think our troops deserve not to have their lives wasted like that (and make no mistake, those lives are being wasted). Don't get sucked into the old 'sunk cost' fallacy.
My brother is a WO in the CF and there is nothing in Afghanistan - NOTHING - worth him spraining his ankle over, let alone dying for.
Nothing.
MoS, great post.
What a great post. I found myself nodding my head in agreement with almost everything you said. Well thought out ,factual, nicely sourced, awesome. Anyone who thinks this war can be "won" in it's current context know absolutely nothing about the history of Afghanistan. Or the culture. The Idea that our going there or our leaving there will make a bit of Damn difference is laughable.
ALW, I have to agree with Mike's response. You're concerned,and rightly so, with the "millions of innocent Afghanis" we would be abandoning if (when) we leave. It's not our leaving that will be the problem, it's how we've betrayed them through our mismanaged, underfunded, undermanned military and civilian effort over there. Our leaving is inevitable but the issue won't be decided by our departure.
Are you submitting your views to the Manley Panel?
(Deadline Dec. 1
http://www.independent-panel-independant.ca/main-eng.html)
I hope so.
Jacqui
Hi Jacqui. Thanks for the suggestion. I already sent them my thoughts.
Great post, MoS. To me, it is a peculiar Western delusion that the Afghan way of life somehow needs saving by us, and that we would be capable of that anyway. We clearly are not, and Mike's Viet Nam analogy is apt.
I've heard very little from our political leaders or generals that convinces me they know what the hell they're talking about when they talk about Afghanistan. If they do, they sure aren't passing it on in public. It is impossible to think about Afghanistan without considering Pakistan first of all, and then the wider regional war a-building into Iran, Iraq, now Turkey, and possibly involving Syrian and Lebanon eventually. ISAF is a well-intentioned but clodhopperish and ignorant intervention that needs to be replaced by some serious diplomacy for a change, and by serious I mean I'd like to see the grown-ups involved, independent of the Cheney administration.
I fully understand your frustration skdadl. If you want to see the spread of the Global War Without End on Terror, open an atlas and see how far the flames of this fiasco have spread. They extend from the Arabian Sea through the Persian Gulf, northto the Caspian Sea, west to the Black Sea and then south to the Med. Throw Somalia and Sudan in the mix and you can add in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to boot. It's staggering, really. Let's hope someone can find a way to begin containing this thing.
They probably spent a lot of someones money to produce an analysis that I predicted two years ago and have blogged repeatedly upon since. There is nothing in the report that shouldn't have been obvious to anyone with half an interest.
It's amazing how the obvious passes notice by a media content with press releases, safe distances and dinner with the vested interests.
(But weren't the press johnny on the spot with, "Support the troops"?)
Anon, I too have been howling at the moon since this nonsense began in 2006. I certainly wouldn't fault Chatham House for their findings, many of which are based on the most recent developments. That said, you're right that their findings "should have been obvious to anyone with half an ingterest." I assume you would place our very own General Hillier in that group. I wonder why he didn't make it clear to his political bosses that we were getting into something that was chaotic at best and might leave us in a position where it would be very difficult to leave? Surely for that alone he ought to be given the hook.
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