Winning the War in Afghanistan

[Bob's World]

Mike,

I'm currently listening to Friedman's "Flat Hot and Crowded" (may be in a different order...). He lays down some great insights as to governance in countries that suck their money out of the ground. How good governance declines as oil revenues increase; or parallel to that thought that as a play on the American battle cry of "No taxation without representation" that in countries that do not have to tax their populaces it comes out more as "No taxation, so no representation."

As a forcing function to get to right and greater stability in the Middle East through governments that HAVE to be more open to the needs of their populaces; and a Middle East that the US is engaging through the highly clouded decision making process of an addict engaging his dealer; we must first dedicate our national energy to inventing and developing the next generation of energy.

Friedman describes energy as "Energy from Hell" (comes out of the Earth) vs. "Energy from Heaven" (comes from the sky). He gets a little too uber-green for my tastes at times, but his observations on governance in the Middle East and the impact of US energy policy at home on our foreign policy and and national security are insightful.

The Saudis are the worst offenders of the lot; and number one on the AQ hit parade for their association with the U.S. The al Saud family may be the best of bad options for governance there, but we need to change the nature of our relationship. We cannot simply embrace as partners in GWOT the Saudi and Lybian governments, who then in turn use that as a license to put the smack down on subversive nationalist movements seeking reasonable governmental reforms, or like the recent smack down the Saudis put on those Yemenes Shias. No good can come to America from validating such behavior.

Three key legs of the AQ platform are:
1. Remove Western Presence
2. Abolish Apostate Governments
3. Unite the Ummah

I think the U.S. should co-opt all three legs of that platform, but do so in a way that promotes Self-Determination and Freedom rather than the Stone Age version of Islam AQ is peddling.

There should be less overt Western influence over Middle Eastern Governance, and we should lead the effort to roll back the controls emplaced through colonialism and Cold War manipulations.

"Apostate" or more appropriately from our perspective, governments that draw too much of their legitimacy from foregin powers need to be brought into the embrace of legitimacy more widely recognized and accepted by the populaces they serve.

As to the Ummah, what does the West have to fear from an EU-like organization of Muslim states? We have far more to fear from the Muslim populaces who perceive they are being denied by the West the ability to seek such local collaboration. The Caliphate as the intel guys spin it to be is pure fanatsy. The old ones were built by conquest and held together at swordpoint. It just won't happen. But a political organization such as the EU is not only reasonable, but logical.

Look at the fear mongering that went on in the 50s and 60s over Communism. Seems silly now. It was never about the ideology, and far more about populaces seeking governments free of external controls; it was just our competition with the Soviets that muddied the waters. We don't need to go head to head with AQ by taking polar opposite positions; instead we simply steal their platform and and re-tune our engagement with the region to be more appropriate for 2010 rather than 1950. I think Ike would agree.

[jmm99]

Taking these one by one:

1. Remove Western Presence - we can remove our presence easily enough.

2. Abolish Apostate Governments - not our mission.

3. Unite the Ummah - again, not our mission.

Why engage in the region at all, except on a DIE basis ? Seriously, what would be the long-term effects if we followed that policy ?

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

Leaving isn't an option, as our energy demands and interests in the region have not changed.

So, if we stay, we must change the context of our presence. These three legs were designed specifically to challenge the current context and to take positions that are seen favorably by the populace. To stay and work to sustain the current context is to grow ever more mired in a conflict with populaces acting out and embracing change and willing to follow the leadership of whomever helps them get out from under their current positions.

It wasn't our mission to instal the "apostate governments" either, but we did, and then worked to sustain them in power. So I believe it is very appropriate for us to work now to help bring these governments and their people to the table to sort out a better future, an evolution of governance rather than the revolution of governance offered by bin Laden.

"Uniting the Ummah" creates a new potential ally, much like the EU or ASEAN. It will likely happen whether we resist it or embrace it, better to bring it on line on terms we can work with, than to resist it out of pure hard-headedness and create a powerful new enemy.

All of this supports the top three U.S. national interests of:
1. "Secure the Homeland" (defuse the powder keg of populaces currently attacking us)
2. "Access to Markets and Resources" (Overthrown governments = thrown out business contracts. Strating from scratch will not get us a better deal, and China and India will be in line making their offers as well)
3. "Preserve the American way of life." (I prefer to think of this as being able to live in accordance with the enduring principles in our Dec of Ind and Constitution; not as some particular standard of living measured by recent memory. Ensuring other populaces have access to similar freedoms helps to preserve our own as well.).

[Steve the Planner]

Much talk about parallels to history. Iraq, Vietnam, etc... Note that with the recent discovery of Galbraith's secret 5% KRG Oil interests as he argued for Kurdish independence and enacted a provincial-focused Iraqi constitution, reveals a weird historical tie-in to a previous shadowy Turkish 5% man that got that amount of all Iraqi oil in the past, and the 5% man that was Prime Minister Bhutto's husband.

How about this one from Galbraith in 2007:

[QUOTE]The Iraq war is lost. Of course, neither the President nor the war's intellectual architects are prepared to admit this. Nonetheless, the specter of defeat shapes their thinking in telling ways.[/QUOTE

The case for the war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning -- a stable Iraq, democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil Iranian and Syrian regimes -- but by the consequences of defeat. As President Bush put it:

The consequences of failure in Iraq would be death and destruction in the Middle East and here in America.

Tellingly, the Iraq war's intellectual boosters, while insisting the surge is working, are moving to assign blame for defeat. And they have already picked their target: the American people. In The Weekly Standard, Tom Donnelly, a fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote:

Those who believe the war is already lost -- call it the Clinton-Lugar axis -- are mounting a surge of their own. Ground won in Iraq becomes ground lost at home.

Lugar provoked Donnelly's anger by noting that the American people had lost confidence in Bush's Iraq strategy as demonstrated by the Democratic takeover of both houses of Congress:

This "blame the American people" approach has, through repetition, almost become the accepted explanation for the outcome in Vietnam, attributing defeat to a loss of public support and not to fifteen years of military failure.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1748...he_war_is_lost

[jmm99]

Continuing the role of Devil's Advocate, and reciting again the AQ platform:

from BW
Three key legs of the AQ platform are:
1. Remove Western Presence
2. Abolish Apostate Governments
3. Unite the Ummah

Since

from BW
Leaving isn't an option, as our energy demands and interests in the region have not changed.

therefore, co-opting the first leg of the stool is an excluded option. In fact, taking action to co-opt the other two legs will project the "Western Presence" even deeper into the morass of Islamic politics and religion (which are intertwined).

"Apostate governments" are very much an extreme Salafist concept - are we (US), mostly non-Muslims, to issue our own fatwas, or to endorse fatwas of convenience which we do not really understand, as to what an "apostate" is. To "Unite the Ummah" would inject us even deeper into the Islamic concept of community. Those two legs are definitely not our mission.

Going back to my questions,

from JMM
Why engage in the region at all, except on a DIE basis ? Seriously, what would be the long-term effects if we followed that policy ?

the first posits removal of the "M" component in DIME, leaving DIE[*] - thus, leaving the other variables in place.

Has anyone done an even-handed cost-benefit study of what would happen if we removed the "M" component, as opposed to continuing on the present path - or, on your modified "M" path if different ?

Another useful comparison (long-term) to study would be the cost-benefit effect on "our energy demands" from withdrawal of the "M" component. No doubt, some of the dozen or so regional powers (some global or near global powers) would enter to fill the vacuum. I suppose some of them might manage sweetheart energy deals to satisfy their energy requirements - which might be as shaky as the "apostate governments" they would now be supporting. Moreover, petro energy will eventually grow so expensive that alternative energy sources will become cost-effective. Those nations which take the lead (or are forced to take the lead) in this area will be the top dogs in the future.

One brief note before dealing with "the top three U.S. national interests". A compressed spring has a great deal of power. An uncompressed spring which has expanded to its limits has none. We seem to confuse "control" over territory (where that control is often an illusion) with power. By seeking to be powerful everywhere, we in effect are powerful nowhere.

1. "Secure the Homeland". I'm not enough of a Pollyanna to believe that withdrawal of the "M" component from Muslim lands will make everything wonderful. It would remove a source of provocation based on what seems to be a universal doctrine of the Islamic Law of Nations. Nonetheless, extremists will continue to see the US as a target. I expect those nations which rush in to fill the vacuum would find themselves the greater target.

2. "Access to Markets and Resources". If that is the basis for continued US military involvement, I guess Smedley Butler and Ike were right.

3. "Preserve the American way of life". So many Founding Fathers spoke of preservation of the "American Way" by not getting into foreign entanglements, that additional comment by me would be superfluous.

Regards

from Michael, Advocatus Diaboli

------------------------
[*] D=diplomacy and E=economic are self-explanatory. I=information and intelligence (not necessarily excluding direct action).

[jmm99]

Whatever PG's financial interests, his futuristic picture from 2007 looks fairly probable at the end of 2009:

Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today -- a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part. Defeat is defined by America's failure to accomplish its objective of a self-sustaining, democratic, and unified Iraq. And that failure has already taken place, along with the increase of Iranian power in the region.

Take out the word "defeat", of course. And, we'll have to see if our leaving leads to a civil war in the Arab portion - or a war between the Arab and Kurdish portions. The increase in Iranian power is fact.

Regards

Mike

[Bob's World]

It's all in "how" you go about your business. What we do is fine, how we do it is dated and inappropriate for the emerging environment.

So, don't expect me to get on the "We're right, everyone else is wrong, and if they chose to resist our rightness we will fight them" band wagon. We're better than that. Way better.

There is indeed great wisdom in the words of our founding fathers; and Washington's farewell address is a timeless classic and the essesnce of it still applies. Eisenhower's farewell holds wise advice as well.

Instead of being so focused on shaping those outside the US, we could stand a good dose of internal shaping instead:

1. Prioritize a naitonal program to take on the energy problem in a major way. Drop silly corn subsidies and develop sustainable programs under current technologies while pressing deep to develop the next generation of technology in all of what Dr. James Canton sees as the fusion of innovation and 5 key sciences (Nano-atoms, Cogno-neurons, Bio-genes, Info-bits, and Quantum-Qubits).

2. Prioritizing education in science in America.

3. Sticking to our enduring principles and interests as a nation, and not acting in such a way as to be perceived as denying the same for others.

The world is in an accelerating period of dynamic change. New technologies have been employed to do old things better; but as they come on line to do NEW things...we cannot even imagine what that means, and it is beginning to happen around us now. This is driving parallel changes in empowering individuals and therefore requireing adjustments in long held perceptions of appropriate governance and interactions between nations, and now non-states, and even individuals.

We must understand the past, but we must not seek to force the future to fit within its neat confines. Because it won't.

[Steve the Planner]

Amen.

Steve

[omarali50]

Mike,

... We don't need to go head to head with AQ by taking polar opposite positions; instead we simply steal their platform and and re-tune our engagement with the region to be more appropriate for 2010 rather than 1950. I think Ike would agree.

1. What does it mean to be "engaged" with the region? Is the US the world's policeman? or "securing energy supplies"? or making sure no arab state misbehaves with Israel? or what? It seems hard to get a clear answer on this question and yet everything else follows from this.

IF the US is the world's policeman (is it possible to have a world without a policeman?), what is the government whose writ this policeman enforces? what law does he uphold? Is it possible to be clearer about those two questions? (I personally think the US IS a sort of policeman (and some policing is generally better than no policing), but all too frequently its OWN agencies dont seem to know what law they are enforcing and in whose interest. This may be the best that can be done, but why not ask the question and see if it makes things move any differently?).

IF the US is "securing its energy supplies", it seems to be expending a lot of effort policing a region from where most of the energy actually flows to India, China, Japan and Europe. Do they all pay their share of the policing costs? Is this the best way to achieve such security? Or is it the case that its not so much about securing OUR supplies as keeping a chokehold on THEIR supplies? Does all this effort secure that chokehold and in what circumstances are we thinking of using it? (I personally think this is a reason that is frequently quoted, but in actual fact it has more to do with the business interests of particular companies and very little to do with securing our supplies OR interdicting anyone else's. The threat may be almost entirely theoretical, the benefits are almost entirely accruing to particular oil and gas companies and those companies are basically using the US taxpayers to subsidize/protect their commercial interests...and they care nought for the interests of those taxpayers, etc. etc).

I think the US clearly does carry a lot of water for Israel. But I dont think the elders of Zion control the world or any such thing. For a long time, the effort expended was peanuts from a superpower perspective and domestic political considerations made it worthwhile. But because the arabs have not rolled over and played dead, the law of diminishing returns is now beginning to kick in. I personally think the US will do less and less of Israel's work in the future and if the Israelis are sensible, they will make a deal while they hold a good hand. Before people jump on me, let me add that maybe its not possible to make a deal. OK, so they will fight it out. They are grown men, let them figure it out.

2. It is a mistake to assume that Alqaeda's propaganda about apostate regimes imposed by the US is necessarily correct. Saudi Arabia's royal family is an old-fashioned royal family. They dont rule the place because the US put them in power, they rule it because their daddy won it by force of arms. They have a cozy relationship with the US, but they definitely have their own ambitions and they are NOT as dumb and useless as Friedman implies. The US is in no position to keep them in power or remove them from power. They have, as the leftists are fond of saying, "agency"...And they didnt just support jihadist and salafist causes all over the world in order to "pay off the mullahs". In some "moderate" fashion, its THEIR cause as well and they have not abandoned it. Do they have a right to have this cause? what is the line that they are not supposed to cross? Maybe they know their limitations and capabilities better than Friedman thinks and maybe they dont, but will learn from setbacks.....Personally, I think they had ambitions of becoming the head honcho in some Sunni Muslim NATO (manpower and nuclear weapons component mostly Pakistani) but this dream is not going to work. In the end, they will have even less success playing "strategy" than the big boys have had. In fact, they will probably end up paying Pakistan to barely survive and they will soon be in trouble in Yemen and that will be the end of that.

3. The US HAS played a big role in keeping the Egyption regime in power and that is almost entirely about Israel. But even in Egypt, the US does not call all the shots. And the mess that is US-Iranian relations has a lot to do with US arrogance (as in treating Iran as some kind of banana republic) and maybe about Israel (though I have some difficulty figuring out why Israel is supposedly so scared of Iran. I dont get it). But the bottom line is that Iran is a real country and someday the US will figure out a way to deal with them.

In Pakistan, the US has supported military dictators over democracy in the past, but again we may be giving the US too much credit if we assume that someone in Washington can magically decide whether Pakistan has democracy or dictatorship. The army high command in Pakistan has its own agenda and uses the US at least as much as the US has ever used Pakistan. And this relationship is pretty much on the rocks as well.

4. Even when its intentions are good, the US embassy is a very crude instrument and lacks the finesse or local knowledge to efficiently (as in input vs output) regulate a far away country (or even a nearby country, see Mexico). I agree with the idea of keeping goals in line with abilities. The US has tremendous clout and can force local powers to bend to its will in some matters as long as it does not try too much.

Sorry, got to run, these are off the top of my head and not well organized or prioritized. I will try again later.

[omarali50]

Amen.
I started writing my long winded reply and had to do some work, so missed the last two replies..which seem to me to pretty much sum it up.

[Surferbeetle]

...but definitely not for delicate sensibilities. Not everybody likes America

From Asia Times: UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2 Breaking up is (not) hard to do by Pepe Escobar...Spengler's relative?

Washington's rationale for occupying Afghanistan - never spelled out behind the cover story of "fighting Islamic extremism" - is pure Pentagon full spectrum dominance: to better spy on both China and Russia with forward outposts of the empire of bases; to engage in Pipelineistan, via the Trans-Afghan (TAPI) pipeline, if it ever gets built; and to have a controlling hand in the Afghan narco-trade via assorted warlords. Cheap heroin is literally flooding Russia, Iran and Eastern Europe. Not by accident, Moscow regards opium/heroin as the key issue to be tackled in Afghanistan, not Islamic fundamentalism.

[slapout9]

...but definitely not for delicate sensibilities. Not everybody likes America

From Asia Times: UNDER THE AFPAK VOLCANO, Part 2 Breaking up is (not) hard to do by Pepe Escobar...Spengler's relative?

Link to another posts by William Engdahl along the same line.

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.ne...ghanistan.html

[davidbfpo]

Hat tip to Steve Coll, who has written a short commentary on new writing on the Taliban:http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...w-taliban.html I have picked one sentence:

It is an outstanding and important collection—just the sort of locally specific, openly debatable, scholarly analysis about the diverse structures and leaders of the Taliban that will be required more and more if the international community is ever to understand the insurgents and divine how to prevent a second Taliban revolution.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz0WgkGhQdS

The book's website is:http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-2...he-new-taliban

davidbfpo

PS Copied to the 'What are you reading' thread.

[Fuchs]

(...)

I am in fact in favor of a VERY different operational idea; I WANT them to take over control of territories (territories in which their opponents can wage war freely, unlike the U.S. inside Pakistan).
They're vulnerable once they leave their covert mode, and they spend much manpower on running things once they're in control. Even more; they become more responsible for what happens, and can disappoint the population.
I wrote a text last year ago about how we could use a COIN equivalent of mobile defence; lure them to take over control, become visible, become careless, expose themselves - and then we could hit them badly.

That, of course, necessitates that we're able of waging war instead of merely a mix of peacekeeping, mentoring and occupation. It does also require that our art of war goes beyond logistics, beyond just piling more resources on a problem.

A strategic Mobile Defense equivalent for COIN

I read Manstein's "Verlorene Siege" recently. He's recognized as one of the greatest generals of WW2 and wrote that book in the 50's.

One of the interesting parts of that book was a repeated side-note; an accusation at WW2 generals that they failed to break the trench war pattern by voluntarily sacrifice ground to resume mobile warfare once the enemy advances into the widened neutral ground.
That fits pretty well to his WW2 operational concept "Schlagen aus der Nachhand" (Mobile Defense) which allowed the enemy to go beyond the Clausewitzian "Kulminationspunkt" (culminating point) before a decisive counter-attack destroys the attacking armies.
It requires a great deal of patience, discipline and military understanding by the politicians (Hitler most often lacked that) to allow the generals to use such a devastatingly effective operational plan.

I believe that I found a modern-time parallel for COIN.
The low level of Guerrilla combat in Iraq seems to me to be at least in part due to the overwhelming combat effectiveness of the occupation forces. The deterrence is so strong that the classic Maoist Guerrilla warfare stage of open confrontation was never really attempted. There were some major fights as in Fallujah, but those were in their size rather reminiscent of the numerous combat actions in Vietnam than Vietcong's all-out Tet offensive or Castro's drive to Havanna.

The parallel is probably not yet clear: Imagine the counter-Guerrilla parties would be able to provoke a general, decisive uprising that could be defeated conventionally and decisively.
The Vietcong didn't recover from the Tet offensive - regular Northern Vietnamese troops did most of the fighting afterwards.

To provoke such a large-scale open uprising would require less, not more military power in the country (but availability of quick strategic reinforcements).
The counter-Guerrilla forces would need to give up some strength and ground first and to deceive the Guerrillas about the relative physical and morale strengths.
That's certainly a risk; to give up some strength and ground to entice the enemy into an extremely vulnerable action to defeat him decisively.

To give provoke a risky Guerrilla offensive by intentionally giving up some control and strength could be a counter-Guerrilla strategy, resembling the extremely demanding operational concept of mobile defense / "Schlagen aus der Nachhand".
It might work in Afghanistan.

The equivalent to the culminating point would be the switch from covert to overt mode of operations; the critical point in regard to vulnerability.

[tequila]

(...)

I am in fact in favor of a VERY different operational idea; I WANT them to take over control of territories (territories in which their opponents can wage war freely, unlike the U.S. inside Pakistan).
They're vulnerable once they leave their covert mode, and they spend much manpower on running things once they're in control. Even more; they become more responsible for what happens, and can disappoint the population.
I wrote a text last year ago about how we could use a COIN equivalent of mobile defence; lure them to take over control, become visible, become careless, expose themselves - and then we could hit them badly.

That, of course, necessitates that we're able of waging war instead of merely a mix of peacekeeping, mentoring and occupation. It does also require that our art of war goes beyond logistics, beyond just piling more resources on a problem.

The equivalent to the culminating point would be the switch from covert to overt mode of operations; the critical point in regard to vulnerability.

Actually this an interesting strategy and I think it has some definite plus points. We can actually watch this unfolding now in Pakistan's campaign in the FATA and Swat Valley, which were under the control of the TTP and aligned elements for several years.

The IO victory in the Swat Valley, coupled with the TTP's aggression in attacking Buner District, was quite significant in bringing Pakistani public opinion behind an energetic military response to the TTP. That the TTP is now characterized as an Indian or American puppet in Pakistani ultra-nationalist circles shocks the Western imagination, but the important thing is that it is recognized even by such anti-Western ultras as a genuine enemy of Pakistan.

That being said, Pakistan is now paying for allowing the TTP to get that strong in the wave of suicide attacks throughout Pakistan as well as the huge human costs that are coming in the Pakistan Army's clearing operations. It might have been much easier simply to not allow the TTP any sort of control in the first place.

[omarali50]

you should keep in mind that the army encourages all the crazy conspiracy theories (India funds the TTP, USA supports Baitullah Mehsud, etc) first and foremost out of a desire to keep the national security paradigm within Pakistan fundamentally unchanged. They fear (with some justification) that if the whole anti-Indian, Islamist, conspiracy minded paradigm is changed, then people will no longer tolerate their dominance in political affairs. Politicans will slip out of control and .....
This political need, and not some kind of superior strategic vision, primarily drives psyops in this domain....A second overlooked factor is the intellectual level of most of the high command. These are not great thinkers, they are army officers promoted in a system that rewards conformity and the ability to keep your mouth shut. They went to school and learned that "strategic depth" dictates X or Y. They never figured out that the whole scheme may be wrong. That, by the way, is a common failing in armies, which is why we have civilian control of the armed forces. Tunnel vision is part of the package (and a necessary part; was it Tolstoy who said a good general needs to be stupid or he would never manage to stay the course and win a battle? I will have to look it up..)

[Entropy]

Interesting discussion, as usual.

I forget who, but someone once said that policymaking is the art of choosing the least bad option since very often there isn't a clearly "good" policy to choose. Choosing from a list of unsatisfactory policy choices, therefore, is really an exercise in prioritizing competing interests or values. Some interests and/or values will have to be sacrificed to enable the fulfillment of others. For obvious reasons politicians in democracies don't like making sacrifices which explains why that status quo is often so powerful and difficult to change.

The US role in the middle east is all about those competing priorities and unsatisfactory choices in my opinion. There's no way to have our cake and eat it too. We also need to be cognizant of the fact that actions (or inaction) we take with have 2nd and 3rd order effects - some predictable, others not.

So while I agree in theory with a lot of the policy changes Bob's World recommends, they would put at risk some pretty important interests. I do agree the hinge for policy change in the ME is energy. As long as oil remains the world's most important strategic resource I don't think we will see any dramatic policy shifts no matter how much we may wish for them. The strategic importance of oil isn't going away anytime soon either - even if we had a technically and economically viable alternative available now, the shift would take decades and hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars of investment. I think we have to acknowledge the reality that energy supply with continue to be a dominant - if not the dominant - interest we have in the region.

If that is the case, then we should look at what can be achieved given the limitations imposed by our energy interest.

[slapout9]

So while I agree in theory with a lot of the policy changes Bob's World recommends, they would put at risk some pretty important interests. I do agree the hinge for policy change in the ME is energy. As long as oil remains the world's most important strategic resource I don't think we will see any dramatic policy shifts no matter how much we may wish for them. The strategic importance of oil isn't going away anytime soon either - even if we had a technically and economically viable alternative available now, the shift would take decades and hundreds-of-billions-of-dollars of investment. I think we have to acknowledge the reality that energy supply with continue to be a dominant - if not the dominant - interest we have in the region.

If that is the case, then we should look at what can be achieved given the limitations imposed by our energy interest.

Now that is some Strategic Thinking

[slapout9]

Don't know if I posted this before or not. Link to Colonel Warden's analysis of the options in A'stan.




http://www.strategydevelopment.net/s...fghanistan.php

[davidbfpo]

Slap,

I liked - at first - the last paragraph in Warden's piece:

This cursory strategic review would suggest that the best course would be to end the war in return for an agreement from the Afghan government not to allow any foreign group to operate against the West from Afghanistan. Verification would be easy and deviance could be addressed with tactics ranging from increased payments to Afghanistan to air operations against strategic targets within the nation.

Then on reflection is there an Afghan government capable to stop a foriegn roup, now or in the likely, traditional future we can glimpse? No. Verification would be easy. No, not convinced and in the future as hostile groups learnt more difficult. Clearly our ability now to "fix" is poor and done remotely as I think is envisaged even less reliable. The tactics used, well what strategic targets exist in the Afghanistan foreseen? Not many I venture, unless the heroin is collected to be bombed.

Now if we could persaude and "rent" enough Afghans to get agreement on excluding hostiles, even counterin them - then I could see the merit in such a strategic approach.

Made me think, thanks Slap.