Photo: A U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines carries his weapon on his shoulders as they reach the end of a patrol in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province Tuesday July 7, 2009. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)


The operation in Helmand Province, "Operation Khanjar", is the first major offensive in Afghanistan under the Obama administration. The operation is centered near the town of Khan Nesin, which is near the Helmand river. The aim is to restore control of this province before the elections scheduled for August 20th.

Few in the US probably realize just how dangerous this province has become. There were an average of 10.6 insurgent attacks per day from January to the end of April 2009. That is six attacks more than the next most hostile region, Kandahar. Notably, January through March are winter months and thus generally experience fewer insurgent attacks than June through August.

To the extent that there is any media attention of the war, much is being made of the casualties suffered by coalition forces in recent days. The concern expressed is completely understandable given the devastation that these lives lost have on families and communities in their home countries. However, media reports tend to paint a distorted image of the overall conflict by focusing on losses to NATO troops.

In particular, reading American and European papers, one tends to gain the impression that coalition troops are taking the lion's share of the risks in the country. The Western media also gives the illusion that the occupation is less deadly than it actually is, since reports of casualties are rather infrequent and numbers are small.

Nevertheless, in the last two years the overwhelming majority of casualties have been members of the Afghan National Police (ANP) and the Afghan National Army (ANA). The ANA is also playing an increased leadership role. Since the start of this year over half of the average 83 deliberate military missions per week were conducted and led by the ANA according to unclassified ISAF documents. In day to day affairs, the ANP, local shuras, and the ANA are generally perceived to be the main providers of security by the local population according to the ANQAR survey.

Of course, statistics are not neutral -- particularly in wartime. Nevertheless, a view of the aggregate data may help to paint a more complex picture than the standard narrative being conveyed to American and European audiences.



Photo: Soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) jump down from their pick-up truck during a search operation for pro-Taliban fighters in Baghlan Jalid, Baghlan province of northern Afghanistan, Wednesday, July 8, 2009. The province's only ANA battalion started an operation Wednesday to search for insurgents in the Qandahari Valley with the assistance the Ohio National Guard and the Hungarian Army. (AP Photo/Bela Szandelszky)

Labels: afghanistan, helmand, security, south asia, taliban, us

US and NATO troops are pushing into Helmand Province today, the biggest offensive since 2001. The push is supposedly a test for the Obama administration's Afghanistan policy. According to the AFP:

Success in Afghanistan is important not only for the Afghan population, but also for war-weary Americans, the Obama administration has insisted.

"I think what we are saying simply is that we think that the strategy needs to show some signs that it's working," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told lawmakers during a June congressional hearing.

"It's very important for us to be able to show the American people that we are moving forward by the end of the year or a year from now," he said.

"I think the American people will be willing to sustain this endeavor if they believe it's not just a stalemate."

The idea that the success of this particular mission is important is not a very convincing argument. The war in Afghanistan is far from the headlines of most news services in the US. People are more interested in Sarah Palin's resignation, Michael Jackson's death, etc. There will be some coverage of the war today in the US because it is America's Independence Day, but that is really about it. In large part, one cannot blame the American people for being distracted from one of the longest wars in modern US history.

If Afghanistan were a serious or urgent threat to national security, it would not have been neglected for seven years by the Bush administration. As incompetent as that administration was, it would not have ignored a lethal threat to pursue an optional war in Iraq. The truth is that there is only a very modest threat to the US mainland from the Taliban and Al Qaeda today. In fact, the Taliban never possessed the capability to harm the US mainland. The main crime of the Taliban vis-a-vis the US was failing to hand over Osama Bin Laden in 2001. There is much hype about the territorial gains of the Pakistani Taliban, but most of this talk is alarmist nonsense. The Taliban have zero chance of acquiring Pakistan's nuclear weapons or of defeating the Pakistani army in Punjab. As for Al Qaeda itself, their operational capability has been highly degraded since 2001. The main threat posed by these groups today is regional, not global.

Moreover, the US has a limited strategic interest in the region. As Lord Cromer once observed (with regard to Egypt): whenever one sees a coalition occupying a country one can usually surmise that the threat from the resistance groups and the value of the territory is insufficient for one of the occupying powers to bear the burden alone, or the use of a coalition prevents open hostility between great powers by hedging the perception that one country is making a grab for territory. In the case of Afghanistan, while there was initially some interest amongst the great powers and regional powers in gas and oil pipelines from Central Asia, few of the great powers believe that the cost of occupying Afghanistan would be worth the profits from the pipelines. Hence, one can safely conclude that the presence of a coalition of countries is indicative of limited US interests in the region.

The Secretary of Defense is correct that the American people are bored by this war. This flagging interest combined with the low strategic value of the territory is why the Obama administration has been desperate to find an honorable exit strategy since day one. (The previous Bush administration chose a rather dishonorable "exit strategy," i.e. starting a second war to distract from the failure to conclude the first war). Unfortunately, defeating guerrilla insurgents (who tend to melt back into the population) in one province is unlikely to actually generate forward momentum in resolving the conflict. This well scripted "surge" is unlikely to work in the long run to defeat the Taliban. Nevertheless, the administration may be hoping that it will provide enough breathing space to conclude a hasty exit with a group of hand picked successors and some "reconciled insurgents." While this formula is understandable given the election-cycle logic on which it is based, it is short-sighted. A durable solution to Afghanistan requires that the Taliban be defeated, but this does not have to be America's task.

It may be time for a real re-think of US strategy (as opposed to the re-cycling and re-packaging of ideas left over from the Bush adminstration). A long-term strategy to actually restore durable stability to Afghanistan most likely entails handing over power to regional actors (i.e. Russia, Iran, China, India, and perhaps Pakistan).

Labels: afghanistan, gates, helmand, south asia, us