Securing the Afghan border (merged thread)

In my opinion, total control of the border wouldn't be plausible but increasing control substantially through a combination of ISR and an air mobile QRF is not only reasonable but should be a priority. When trains of donkeys loaded with ??? come through the mountain passes, there is something fishy going on. If they aren't carrying weapons, ammunition or explosives, then they are trying to circumvent the tariffs at the official border crossings and the money is probably going to fund nefarious activity, anyway.

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Originally Posted by IntelTrooper

In my opinion, total control of the border wouldn't be plausible but increasing control substantially through a combination of ISR and an air mobile QRF is not only reasonable but should be a priority. When trains of donkeys loaded with ??? come through the mountain passes, there is something fishy going on. If they aren't carrying weapons, ammunition or explosives, then they are trying to circumvent the tariffs at the official border crossings and the money is probably going to fund nefarious activity, anyway.

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Good point.

I want to head off people and mention clearly I am talking about increased monitoring and surveillance backed by troops, not mines or fences, and with the understanding that it would likely be employed along the most trafficked areas.

A good point was raised though, how much of the Taliban supply comes through existing, legal checkpoints through graft or corruption?

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Originally Posted by Cavguy

A good point was raised though, how much of the Taliban supply comes through existing, legal checkpoints through graft or corruption?

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And that's going to be one of the rubs in any insurgency situation, especially if the central government is weak, corrupt, or any combination of the two. One of the interesting observations to come out of efforts to electronically monitor the Ho Chi Minh trail was how easy it was for the North Vietnamese to develop counters (usually of a low-tech nature) to fielded high-tech sensors. And the more low-tech the insurgent force is, the harder it is for these efforts to really be more than a nuisance to their supply efforts. Doesn't mean it shouldn't be used to augment current physical efforts, but one should always remember that it isn't a silver bullet.

I think it's the wrong place for the fence. Put them around the villages. (Or put another way, why stop the insurgents from crossing the border, if they can get all the supplies they need from Afghan villages?

If I were Joe Taliban I would repeatedly run women and large kids into the sensor zones from multiple locations with an occasional martyr thrown into the mix.

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Originally Posted by Rank amateur

I think it's the wrong place for the fence. Put them around the villages. (Or put another way, why stop the insurgents from crossing the border, if they can get all the supplies they need from Afghan villages?

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plus, they go to Pakistan for R&R -- stay in Afghanistan and they have to be always on the alert and must keep moving. They do that for a while until they're pretty well exhausted and then rotate out for a rest, refit and resupply of stuff they can't get inside Afghanistan.

Didn't I mention closing the border before or making it a lot more difficult than it is?

About a year ago I talked to an Indian Army Colonel, who knows the ground and felt a great deal more could be done to interdict the boarder, especially between the tribal areas and the AO, than was currently being done. A mixture of air surveillance, fences and sensor grids do make it technically feasible.

Worth the effort? I don't know as I don't have the Int or the analysis, but just saying it can't be done is not correct.

As a planner I always thought in terms of opportunity costs. Guarding the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is roughly equivalent to screening the Appalachians, if the Appalachians were twice as rugged and swarming with armed clans. A mixture of boots on the ground, outposts, aerial reconnaissance, sensors, and airmobile forces could hinder or canalize cross-border infiltration.

But then comes the 'so what' question. What do we gain by committing resources to that mission, and what opportunities are we missing because those resources aren't available elsewhere? In CJTF-76, the head MP was directed to study this problem and he briefed the CG that RC-East's border interdiction was ineffective due to insufficient resources (and Afghan corruption/complicity, but that's another story). Yet we did not apply additonal resources (there weren't any), nor did we abandon the effort. So, a MP battalion continued to work the mission with very little payoff - I guess because border interdiction is item number 3 on the COIN checklist. That battalion, in my opinion, could have been better employed elsewhere.

In practical terms, for Afghanistan, I do not think there is sufficient cross-border traffic of arms, munitions, and men to justify the effort it would take to interdict it. What we can and should concentrate on is strengthening border control sufficiently so that the Afghan government can tax legitimate trade and stop large-scale illicit trade

The costs and resources would be enormous, but my study of COIN to date suggests that it would indeed have a tactical and, possibly, operational effect. Problem is that neither wins a COIN war.

A savage war of peace provides a good primer regarding the effectiveness of the Morice line.

Cheers,

Mark

Leaning on my knowledge of things Rhodesian and how they dealt with infiltration, our own border with Mexico, and recent exposure to the problem of lethal smuggling vicinity of Sinjar Mt., this is an tough nut to crack.

It is techically feasible...to a degree. Ground-based sensors have their limitations, which become show-stoppers when one or more simply crap out and you don't have a secondary means of conducting ISR.

Air-based sensors have different limitations, but the biggest comes from latency between sensor, control station, and eventually that COC/TOC that has to act on the information. Good teams work through it well, but it takes a significant amount to time to get to that point, and Wx effects can put a heavy bind on things (although I do not know the prevailing conditions along the border through the year).

Just off the top of my head, we are talking about a significant commitment of resources - even for just specific TAIs and NAIs. That goes back to what several others have pondered regarding the juice and the squeeze.

Finally, the QRF becomes a whole other matter. An airborne one might work with limited results until the first Chinook or Blackhawk gets shot down with a 14.5mm, then it's anybody's guess as to how the tactics might have to be changed. And heaven forbid if any of our boys survived the landing and were put on video. The memos and armchair quarter-backing to come out of that would be brutal.

Once an airborne QRF goes wheels up, its situational awareness goes to crap real fast, especially at night, and we have already demonstrated in several glaring instances during OEF that we do not truly "own the night", nor do we do very well at cross-cueing certain sensors to the guy on the ground. In my humble opinion, without a significant investment in training a task-organized force that was run by guys heavily educated in all sorts of historical heliborne envelopment techniques (to include such concepts as the application of the Rhodesian Fire Force and our Air Cav experience in Vietnam), we'd be half-assing the effort and in turn would get mixed results. And I mean that in a very serious tone.

Coming from my time in a helo-company as a rifle platoon commander, C2 of a heliborne fight is not easy task. When you add in limited visibility, terrain, and the enemy's vote, the guys running it would have to be exceptionally switched on leaders. You can get away with a few lapses when you have various supporting arms working for you, but you are still left with only two choices: 1) landing nearby and making some sort of movement to contact, and 2) landing on the objective and taking on significant risks in the process. I do not believe that our ROE supports what needs to be done to conduct either option effectively, but then again, I have not been on the ground yet and am simply speculating. I also speculate that supporting arms required to achieve even minimal suppression can come in only one form, and I have no idea what the aviation sortie allocation looks like.

In short, we can do some of it, but probably not all that is required for a "line" to be effective compared to other concepts.

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Originally Posted by jcustis

Finally, the QRF becomes a whole other matter. An airborne one might work with limited results until the first Chinook or Blackhawk gets shot down with a 14.5mm, then it's anybody's guess as to how the tactics might have to be changed. And heaven forbid if any of our boys survived the landing and were put on video. The memos and armchair quarter-backing to come out of that would be brutal.

Once an airborne QRF goes wheels up, its situational awareness goes to crap real fast, especially at night, and we have already demonstrated in several glaring instances during OEF that we do not truly "own the night", nor do we do very well at cross-cueing certain sensors to the guy on the ground. In my humble opinion, without a significant investment in training a task-organized force that was run by guys heavily educated in all sorts of historical heliborne envelopment techniques (to include such concepts as the application of the Rhodesian Fire Force and our Air Cav experience in Vietnam), we'd be half-assing the effort and in turn would get mixed results. And I mean that in a very serious tone.

Coming from my time in a helo-company as a rifle platoon commander, C2 of a heliborne fight is not easy task. When you add in limited visibility, terrain, and the enemy's vote, the guys running it would have to be exceptionally switched on leaders. In short, we can do some of it, but probably not all that is required for a "line" to be effective compared to other concepts.

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Having operated in the border area and seen the Herculean effort required to get a helicopter-borne mission to actually get a green light, I have say all of this is valid. The mountainous areas are treacherous both from a terrain standpoint and the advantage that indigenous insurgents have. Technology can help even the odds but it's not a universal solution.

I will say there are assetts which have the required skills, equipment, and support to successfully carry out these type of missions, but I'm not sure they would be enthused with being assigned as high-speed border guards.

My experience says that if this kind of operation were carried out on a consistent basis during a few months when illicit border activity is at its highest, it would send a message that would discourage such crossings for a couple years. Then they would start testing the waters again and hopefully by then, the border communities would have a sufficient security force/pro-government presence that they would take care of hostile border crossers on their own.

What bugs me about this whole thing is that SF has a number of mountain teams who are trained and equipped to do this exact mission but the risk adverse nature of the command has precluded their use. As a result, these mountain teams are suffering some degree of atrophy in their mountain skills as the experienced mountaineers rotate out or retire. The mountains of Afghanistan have SF mountain team written all over them. It is long over due that we start using them that way.

SFC W

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Originally Posted by Uboat509

What bugs me about this whole thing is that SF has a number of mountain teams who are trained and equipped to do this exact mission but the risk adverse nature of the command has precluded their use.

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Maybe new Commander in AFG remedies this.

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Originally Posted by Uboat509

What bugs me about this whole thing is that SF has a number of mountain teams who are trained and equipped to do this exact mission but the risk adverse nature of the command has precluded their use.

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Absolutely. Commanders have gone to great lengths to mitigate risk over the last year or two, in my opinion to the detriment of the mission. While I agree with jcustis's assessments on the danger of such missions, we wouldn't need to do too many before the point sunk in that the Tora Boras, among other mountain ranges, are not a safe haven.

Of course, it would only take one messed up mission to turn public opinion strongly against them.

I guess that's why I'm not in command. :p

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The mountains of Afghanistan have SF mountain team written all over them.

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I'm curious as to why you'd say SF team, as opposed to regular line formation troops...maybe with some additional training...but normal infantry operating in a "distributed operations" fashion (geesh, I almost threw up a little in my throat while typing that).

The additional skill sets required are most likely minimal, and probably fall into the following areas:

-Some basic tracking skills
-CAS (achievable with a JTAC)
-a little bit of mountaineering, if for just the stamina effects alone
-Long-rang comms (achievable with just about any communications NCO worth his salt)

It's not as though these rat lines run across heights the likes of K2. I admit that I am not familiar with mountain troop training standards, but are we actually talking about mountains, or just a multitude of ridgelines and hills under a couple thousand feet?

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Originally Posted by jcustis

I'm curious as to why you'd say SF team, as opposed to regular line formation troops.
...
It's not as though these rat lines run across heights the likes of K2. I admit that I am not familiar with mountain troop training standards, but are we actually talking about mountains, or just a multitude of ridgelines and hills under a couple thousand feet?

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and some -- not all -- the rat lines are almost K2 like.

The Army has a Division called the 10th Mountain Division. Its first Regiment was the 87th Mountain Infantry, formed at Ft Lewis WA and trained in the Cascades. They later went to Camp Hale Colorado and were the basis for the formation of the 10th Mountain Division. Camp Hale stayed the home of the Mountain Warfare School until 1965 when it was deactivated because the short sighted Army and the Congress that pays for it couldn't see past Viet Nam.

When the 10th Mtn was reactivated instead of going to Camp Hale where there are real mountains, better even than Pickle Meadows, they got sent to upstate NY for political reasons. Now they get to train in the hills -- not mountains -- hills around Plattsburgh. Or they can go to Mountain training at the ArNG Mountina School in Vermont -- more hills...

The 10th SF is located at Fort Carson, CO, not far from where Hale used to be -- and they train in the Rockies. So do the other Groups; the GPF not so much, it's a dollar thing. the 12 Man A team or even several of 'em don't cost as much as a 700 plus bod Inf Bn......

Still your point is well taken -- and Infantry Bn can learn all the Mountain stuff they need in 90 days to be reasonably proficient -- place, there are supposed to be Ranger School graduates in most infantry units and the get a little 'mountain' training. It isn't rocket science...

As late as 2007, any tactical use of helicopters in RC-East had to be approved by a general officer. Before a request could be presented to the general, it had to be vetted by the staff, to ensure the general's valuable time was not wasted. If there was any possibility of collateral damage, add in another layer of review. Minimum time: 8 hours on a good day. Tough to take advantage of fleeting opportunities when the command can't let go. Hopefully, things are better now.

Helicopters also have a tough time flying in those mountains in most weather conditions, as the lift capacity drops off very quickly at high altitudes. Even if they can get there, they are limited in what they can carry in terms of troops, ammo, weapons, etc.

Once you drop the troops, they immediately suffer from a mobility mismatch. They cannot maintain contact with the enemy under the weight of all that armor, ammo, and other 'essential' items. Every platoon dropped also sucks up helicopter support as long as it remains deployed for purposes of resupply and evacuation.

So, while the idea of an airborne QRF briefs well, it is of limited utility for border interdiction in that terrain, especially given the paucity of resources.

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Originally Posted by Eden

As late as 2007, any tactical use of helicopters in RC-East had to be approved by a general officer. Before a request could be presented to the general, it had to be vetted by the staff, to ensure the general's valuable time was not wasted. If there was any possibility of collateral damage, add in another layer of review. Minimum time: 8 hours on a good day. Tough to take advantage of fleeting opportunities when the command can't let go. Hopefully, things are better now.

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I think you would be disappointed with the current time frames. :(

the RUSI (Whitehall think tank) held a conference last year on the border issues in the region: http://www.rusi.org/research/studies...4A576275A2777/ and have just published a short report: http://www.rusi.org/downloads/assets...sium_FINAL.pdf . This seems the easiest place to drop it.

davidbfpo

A curious and open source commentary on the development of surveillance technology: http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.co...ed-scheme.html

The UK website refers to this being a development of the system atop hills along the Irish border, in South Armagh; although I'd speculate that some development has come from the US-Mexico border.

The author suggests that the UK in Helmand considered deployment far from the Durand Line in Helmand.

davidbfpo