The war in Afghanistan is not going well, and the critical problem is the same one that dogged our efforts in Iraq for years: grossly inadequate troop levels. Western troop totals there have just inched over 60,000, while Afghan security forces total some 140,000. Let's put this into perspective: We are trying to do with 200,000 personnel what it took 700,000 soldiers and police (plus 100,000 "volunteers") to accomplish in Iraq. But Afghanistan is even larger than Iraq, and more populous.
President-elect Barack Obama has wisely promised an increase in US forces for Afghanistan. But his proposed minisurge of perhaps 15,000 more troops, on top of the 30,000 Americans and 30,000 NATO personnel now there, will not suffice as a strategy. More is needed.
To be sure, it is not all about numbers. As Gen. David Petraeus has already underscored, Afghanistan is not Iraq, and what worked in one place may not succeed in another. Among other things, the Pakistan sanctuary enjoyed by Taliban fighters, as well as partisans supporting Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords, complicates the Afghan situation enormously. That said, basic principles of counterinsurgency and stabilization do have a general applicability across missions. The size of security forces always matters.
More at The Wall Street Journal.
Comments
Opium is 1/3 of the Afghan economy, and thus is directly or indirectly probably 80% of the Taliban's financing, and contributes greatly to government corruption. General Lute's 2008 review of the war in Afghanistan listed three primary obstacles to US victory:
1. Government corruption
2. Opium production
3. Pakistani safe havens
Only one of these is within US control. If the US were to end the Drug War, opium prices would crash, and production could take place elsewhere, e.g. California (where the poppy is the state flower). If you think that is too radical a step, consider the price of losing the war.
The Taliban have multiple sources of income because they own the population. If they own the population, then "nationalizing" any industry won't work. It's similar to the families in the NWFP who live in terror when their sons are kidnapped and taken to Taliban training camps, only to return never the same as before they left. It seems to me that ownership of a son far surpasses the value of ownership of poppy. Argued a fortiori.
Herschel Smith,
You have totally misunderstood the core of my proposal. I did not say that the Taliban had no other sources other than opium to finance their operations. But the fact is that a major part of their finance comes from poppy. And by nationalizing the latter, that has a value of $4 billion, and making the tribal leaders equity holders these leaders themselves will provide the needed "more troops". And it's not a matter of "ending its presence" but of turning it into a military "WEAPON" that potentialy could "end the Taliban".
Cotton is replacing Poppy in many of the provinces as the cash crop. Furthermore, the Taliban have used thuggery and criminal extortion in Pakistan to shave profits off of mining operations (as the trucks drive away from the Ziarat marble quarry, Taliban fighters are waiting on the road to collect their "fees" for protection). They also are now using kidnapping - with huge success - to finance their operations.
If it isn't poppy, it's mining, or cotton, or extortion of other local businesses, or roadside confiscation of money along Highway 1 from Kabul to Kandahar, or extortion of the cell phone companies, or better yet, the rich Salifist Saudi financiers who continue to send them resources.
Poppy isn't the boogey man, and ending its presence won't end the Taliban. This is just a myth. Nor will it dry up the thirst for war of those who fight for reasons other than poppy money. Many still fight for religious motivation.
There is no "easy button" to push, no magic. We need more troops.
Once the Taliban and al-Qaeda are deprived of their sanctuary in Pakistan and the Americans and their allies block this strategically deadly exit-and-entry of their enemy from and into the soil of Afghanistan that will ease the defeat of the Taliban and their sundry jihadists. And the beheading of the latter will be executed mainly by the Afghans themselves if the American strategists and their allies adopt the following strategy that is to be formulated below.
To Clausewitz, the master in matters of war the following was axiomatic: That the success of a war depends on the unison of the natural resources of a nation with the existence of its people. Its this coupling that engenders the determination of a people to protect this vital natural wealth of a country from being appropriated by their enemies. In Afghanistan opium is the primary natural resource of the country. Ninety-three percent of opiates on the world market originate in Afghanistan at a value of $4 billion. Its well known that the drug industry has major linkages with local administration as well as high levels of the national government. Also, the Taliban controls substantial parts of its production with which it funds its war against the Karzai government and its American, Australian and European allies.
Its imperative therefore that the Afghanistan government turns off the faucet of opium and dry up the thirst of the Taliban to continue the war. More importantly, to use opium as a strategic weapon that will deal the Taliban a coup declat from which it will never recover. To accomplish the complete defeat of the Taliban the Karzai government should as soon as its possible nationalize the production of opium and promptly make the tribal chiefs of Afghanistan equity holders of the national consortium of opium production. As the tribal chiefs have been for aeons the shepherds of their people the profits that will be allocated to them will spread among their tribes. Hence every Afghan will have a vested interest to protect this economic benefit from being stolen by the Taliban bandits or any foreigners. Further it will enhance the status of the tribal chiefs among their people and solidify their political and social power which has been for years their goal.
Hence with this stratagem the central government in Kabul will mobilize all Afghans through their tribal elders in a war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda that will lead to the total defeat of the latter. And it will build the foundations of a federal democratic structure in Afghanistan without impinging on the historically proud status of the tribal leaders independence that has been for hundreds of years the apple of discord and has fomented internecine warfare between the tribes. Its for the Americans and their allies to persuade the Karzai government to nationalize the production of opium and turn it into the utmost political and military weapon that will decisively decimate the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Hic Rhodus hic Salta