Supply routes to Afghanistan

[Entropy]

..with more to come in "weeks, not months."

Nato plans to open a new supply route to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia in the next eight weeks following a spate of attacks on its main lifeline through Pakistan this year, Nato and Russian sources have told The Times.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the former Soviet Central Asian states that lie between Russia and Afghanistan, have agreed in principle to the railway route and are working out the small print with Nato, the sources said.

“It'll be weeks rather than months,” said one Nato official. “Two months max.”

From the same article, a third route:

However, Nato and the United States are simultaneously in talks on opening a third supply route through the secretive Central Asian state of Turkmenistan to prevent Russia from gaining a stranglehold on supplies to Afghanistan, the sources said. Non-lethal supplies, including fuel, would be shipped across the Black Sea to Georgia, driven to neighbouring Azerbaijan, shipped across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan and then driven to the Afghan border.

The week-long journey along this “central route” would be longer and more expensive than those through Pakistan or Russia and would leave supplies vulnerable to political volatility in the Caucasus and Turkmenistan.

[Jedburgh]

.......shipped across the Black Sea to Georgia, driven to neighbouring Azerbaijan, shipped across the Caspian Sea to Turkmenistan and then driven to the Afghan border.

I want to book a seat on that package. That this is a serious option is a measure of how bad the situation is with the Paki route. It's difficult to consider what would make up a more interesting route - unless it went through the North Caucasus.......

[davidbfpo]

An interesting Australian article on the problems in Pakistani routes: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...0-2703,00.html

Note attack on the Quetta route.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

Story reports pass closed for local security action against bandits: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081230/...as/as_pakistan and the BBC commentary: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7804389.stm

davidbfpo

[Harry Phillips]

From yesterday's New York Times.


U.S. to Widen Supply Routes in Afghan War
WASHINGTON — The United States and NATO are planning to open and expand supply lines through Central Asia to deliver fuel, food and other goods to a military mission in Afghanistan that is expected to grow by tens of thousands of troops in the months ahead, according to American and alliance diplomats and military officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/wo..._r=1&ref=world

[TheCurmudgeon]

Not sure how much this will help since any goods coming from the US would have to transit through either Iran, Russia, or China to make use of this route. Even if we could make the arrangements to go through Russia the customs fees, transit taxes, or whatever we are calling them these days will cost a fortune. If World Wide or KBR purchase their foodstuffs from these countries we may be able to limit our need for the Pakistani route but I don't think we can eliminate it.

[Bill Moore]

Even if the Pakistan route wasn't challenged, we should not create a vulnerable friendly center of gravity by only having one primary logistics route. I'm glad to see they're looking at and developing additional routes, but I doubt there is any plan to shut down current routes.

Maybe it has been written elsewhere, but it seems that the logistics effort to support a conflict in a land locked country like Afghanistan must be a tremendous effort not only at the logistics level, but at the diplomatic level. There are probably several unsong logistics heros that we need to recognize.

No one notices good logistical support, we only complain when the system isn't working.

Happy New Years to all you loggies out there.