Supply routes to Afghanistan

[davidbfpo]

An update on the northern route (NDN), with a helping hand by the Chinese:http://www.jamestown.org/programs/ed...5934a8192a51b9

[davidbfpo]

Although the cited WaPo article is on planning the exit of materiel from Afghanistan, so fits another thread better, it does have some snippets of note:

...the Defense Department estimates that the military services have more than 750,000 major items worth more than $36 billion in Afghanistan, including about 50,000 vehicles and more than 90,000 shipping containers of materiel, according to the GAO report.

In fiscal 2011, the U.S. Transportation Command shipped 268,000 tons of supplies — more than 42,000 containers — into Afghanistan via its northern surface routes, which involve truck and rail routing through European and Central Asian countries.

Under early plans, the U.S. Transportation Command projected that “14.2 percent of all returning equipment will be transported via the [northern route], 19.9 percent via the [Pakistan route] and 65.8 percent via [the air, sea transport method].”

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...47f_story.html

[davidbfpo]

A NYT report, with little new except this

American officials hope that up to 60 percent of the hardware in Afghanistan can be sent out by way of Pakistan.

This is the first time I've seen out of region ports being mentioned IIRC:

Transportation Command officials said major transit hubs, in addition to Karachi, would include ports in the United Arab Emirates, Romania and Spain.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/wo...pagewanted=all