Interesting question. Where would they get them, Russia maybe? Pakistan? What’s the market like for stuff like that these days? I’ve always wondered about the black market in arms more sophisticated than machine guns and RPGs. Back in the day there used to be quite a traffic in stuff; I guess it still goes on, particularly with all the former Soviet-bloc stuff and the excess production from lots of manufacturers? Be interesting to find out, if possible.
During the Soviet Afghan war we smuggled weapons through Pakistan, with the help of Pakistan’s government. It could be that all the neighbors to Afghanistan don’t want to help out the Taliban. Look at the map. China, India, a lot of former Soviet -Stans. The Pakistani government is technically on our side, but the intelligence service is iffy, and we all know about its NW Territories. Iran borders on the Western side (geographically, not ideologically), and they had no love for the Taliban (during the Taliban rule the Taliban executed a bunch of Iranian diplomats), but I imagine if we did something drastic to Iran, the Ayatollahs would open up the floodgates.
I also think that most of our CAS is provided at altitudes much higher than what Stingers and MANPADS can reach. The beauty of satellite-guided bombs. We’ve taken some helicopter losses, including that nasty one that killed about 12 SEALs, but maybe our tactics and technology help counter it. I know that choppers like the Apache have what they call “disco balls” that are laser systems designed to thwart IR-seeking warheads.
Apparently in the interim, the civilian Karzai government got very, very, very corrupt, and the Taliban have destabilized most of northern Pakistan.
I spoke with someone recently back from Helmand province on another deployment in order to get some perspective on the area. He was deeply skeptical of the long term prospects for the US/UN mission in the area, and he feels there is very little from our experience in Iraq that could be useful (in a political/strategic analogy sense) in this theater. Keep in mind when I use words like “problem” here I don’t mean it as derogatory towards the Afghan people but rather from the perspective of at least one American and our strategy in the area.
First of all, literacy (or lack of) is a potentially insurmountable symptom of the broader problem of Afghan isolation, education level, and willingness to engage in anything beyond a rudimentary economic interaction with the world at large. There will never be a Sunni awakening style event in the factions that matter in Afghanistan, because the only faction that does matter beyond the one we’ve created is the Taliban. Most others don’t have the interest or desire to address broader political issues in anything more serious than transient alliances.
Second is the geography. That seems obvious, but the key aspect there is that sections of the country are under Taliban control in a literal, direct sense and there is not a damned thing anyone can do about it with the manpower and mission we have currently or in the near future (unless Obama is being far more vague about redeployments than I thought he was). Even then, it’s hardly a foregone conclusion, because that country is a logistical nightmare that Iraq look fantastic in comparison.
And there’s a bunch of other stuff that comes after that, but the interesting thing is this: way at the bottom of his concerns is all of that stuff about millions of Afghan generations being raised by wolves with machine guns. Or something. Their tactical innovations are interesting and certainly they can give small units a run for their money until the CAS shows up, but their predilection for standing toe-to-toe is suicidal in many instances. It’s a problem for field commanders to address seriously but not a pivotal factor that is difficult to account for at the strategic level.
The punchline for the conversation was that there was no exit strategy without direct negotiation with the Taliban. The strongest bargaining chip there is the Karzai Afghan Army being a significant armed force, but as we know from history that is not much of a chip. I can’t think of any reason why the Taliban would choose to negotiate a withdrawal when they have a good chance of winning, since they are not casualty averse and base their uniting platform on a brand of sincerity that would likely be incompatible with such compromise. Complicating that is their place on the Opium issue, of course.
None of that is, of course, a criticism or downplaying the importance of the document in the OP.
The AAR’s illustrate the problem (I think) with CM:SF as a game. Simulating this stuff just isn’t that interesting. Firepower >> manouevre, especially with CAS.
But you have to consider the uneven cost on either side in regards to human life. The Afghanis are the peers if not superiors of our soldiers in the infantryman’s game, namely discipline, maneuver, and skill at arms. They are salty. But the cost to their cause per life is less than the cost to our cause. Clinton got the hell out of Mogadishu after 18 soldiers died, despite them killing roughly 1100 enemies during the “Blackhawk Down” operation. Over 50 to 1, but he decided the cost was too high, and not many fault him for it. The Afghans will incur a much higher cost on us, if they get it into their heads to get serious about this. It’s like pissing off the Fremen in Dune.
H.
Frontier Arithmetic - Kipling
[I]A great and glorious thing it is
To learn, for seven years or so,
The Lord knows what of that and this,
Ere reckoned fit to face the foe–
The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: “All flesh is grass.”
Three hundred pounds per annum spent
On making brain and body meeter
For all the murderous intent
Comprised in “villainous saltpetre!”
And after–ask the Yusufzaies
What comes of all our 'ologies.
A scrimmage in a Border Station–
A canter down some dark defile–
Two thousand pounds of education
Drops to a ten-rupee jezail–
The Crammer’s boast, the Squadron’s pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!
No proposition Euclid wrote,
No formulae the text-books know,
Will turn the bullet from your coat,
Or ward the tulwar’s downward blow
Strike hard who cares–shoot straight who can–
The odds are on the cheaper man.
One sword-knot stolen from the camp
Will pay for all the school expenses
Of any Kurrum Valley scamp
Who knows no word of moods and tenses,
But, being blessed with perfect sight,
Picks off our messmates left and right.
With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troop-ships bring us one by one,
At vast expense of time and steam,
To slay Afridis where they run.
The “captives of our bow and spear”
Are cheap–alas! as we are dear.
[/I]
Wow, beautiful. Makes me want to try to like poetry. For the twentieth time.
H.
What I’d like to see is a plan for Afghanistan that’s achievable and gets us out of there semi-soon.
Maybe the problem is that we think we have to completely destory the Taliban, which sounds flat-out impossible given resource constraints. Really, if our goal is stopping an Al Qaeda resurgence we’ve probably done about all we can there. Afghanistan isn’t going to turn into a stable democracy under our tutelage, either.
Yep, there’s a reason the British Raj left it well alone in the end, with a march/buffer zone (the North West Frontier) subject to punitive raids & collective punishment. E.g. the Malakand campaign (1897) is in almost exactly the same area as the Taleban are operating in Pakistan
In the current situation, the only viable solution is negotiation and power sharing. Naturally, the Taliban would have to get an awful pig piece of the pie. How stable that would be long term is anyones guess.
I’ve seen some estimates (based on earlier stabilisation/rebuilding/counter insurgency efforts) that NATO would need at least half a million troops to ensure a reasonable, nation-wide, level of stability, allowing the actual rebuilding effort to take place. The actual civilian rebuilding effort would be in addition to the half million troops, of course.
Respectfully
krise madsen
Seems to me the key is not to think about destroying this faction or boosting that one, but to consider what endstate do we want in Afghanistan–what is the goal? If we want a stable state that isn’t a haven for terrorists, isn’t destabilizing parts of Pakistan, and isn’t a flashpoint for future trouble, we might have little choice but to make deals with people we don’t want to deal with. That is, of course, assuming they would even make deals with us. I suspect it would end up being something along the lines of a tacit agreement that the Taliban types can blow up Buddhas and shoot people who violate Sharia in exchange for them also shooting people who try to use Afghanistan as a base for terrorist actions, or something. In other words, I don’t see a clean solution to the problem.
A return to pre-2001 Afghanistan minus Al Qaeda bases might be all we can hope for. Even that might be tough to get now.
I think we all know that nuking from orbit is the only way to be sure :)
If this was Civ 4 I’d be treating Afghanistan to a culture bomb of epic proportions. Give them all that we have to offer in the areas under coalition control. Education, fine art, video games, fancy flushing toilets. Its even worth building this kind of stuff if it gets blown up. Then you can build it again, exactly the same, in the same place, then people know that you aren’t going to give up.
I find that after a few decades of western culture the civilians flip over to my side and the rioting subsides.
Many would argue that it is precisely that culture bomb that got us into this fix in the first place.
The tensions between modernizers and traditionalists helped start the civil war in the 70s. To continue the comparision, I do believe you could culture flip Afghanistan but at what cost and over how many decades? It is important to remember though that Afghanistan is not a monolithic country. Its incredibly diverse both ethnically and culturally. Its not a battle between Kabul and the Taliban. The Taliban can be split at the most basic level two ways. The Afghan and the Pakistani. Then you have Al Queda in the hills. You have the Hezb. The Balochs. But beneath that units are loyal to their leaders and often not to larger hierarchies.
I have a question about one of the scenarios in the AAR.
One of the first ambushes, the one with the “aggressive” marines, describes how a unit is lured into a dead end and pinned down from several sides.
The ambush is resolved with air support after 20 minutes.
I’m aware that real combat is nothing like movie fights, but the way it is described seemed pretty much like a quick death sentence to me.
I assume the ambushers didn’t choose a dead end that had plenty of cover… so how did the marines survive those 20 minutes?
(There is no mention about the number of dead, but it reads as if most if not all survived)
I’m of the opinion that it would be utterly wrong to abandon Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy to the tender mercies of the Taliban. It’s hard to think that we could just walk out and leave all those people to be brutalized just because saving them doesn’t bring a sufficient return to us here in Paradise.
That’s just my personal feelings on the matter.
It’s brave to call the government in Afghanistan a democracy. I highly doubt anybody BESIDES the government there would consider it one.
First, it’s not a democracy until Karzai loses an election. On saving them, wishing it was so doesn’t make it so; I have very little confidence that we can do so. Additionally, “saving people from themselves” is the kind of mindset that continually has gotten our foreign policy in trouble in the first place.
Having us wage a proxy war on behalf of whatever the fuck is still being sought after there is not particularly beneficial to the Afghan people. Part of that Illiteracy/ignorance/disengagement thing that my friend was wrestling with is founded on Western bias, if not all of it. It’s really difficult to gauge which approach is more patronizing in its extreme form, whether it’s the Democratic Man’s Burden or “they don’t know any better so leave them alone” that does any more damage. We have a tendency to view traditional Western ideals as not only good for everyone (which is an obvious point), but as if they were unburdened by the costs that came along with their current manifestation. I don’t think the Western model is sustainable in a world that doesn’t accept massive inequality enforced by superior firepower as a given. Whether we actually live in that world or not is another question.
I think that many of the stumbling quasi-democracies of the developing countries are experimenting on the cutting edge of political ideas. Many will be terrible and a few even catastrophically so, but as they get more removed from omnipotent interference I expect we will see more success.
Paradoxically (for me as a US veteran, it might be simply logical for others), being balls deep in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time that we struggle with the sort of existential economics questions we haven’t dealt with in a long time, and thus compromising our superpower status in a very public way may have been one of the least harmful outcomes that could result from the American pattern of doing business abroad. It could also lead to a multipolar world in a negative sense with the same dominance equations but no stability or consistency, but I’m trying to be optimistic here.
That said, it doesn’t help Iraq or Afghanistan in the short term.