NATO in Afghanistan till 2015 (merged thread)

[Norfolk]

"Taliban sees Canada vulnerable for now: general", by Randall Palmer, Reuters, Feb 22, 2008:

The Taliban may have mounted suicide attacks on Canadian troops this week expressly to dissuade Parliament from extending the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, Canada's outspoken top soldier said on Friday.

Chief of the defense staff Gen. Rick Hillier also said it was important for the Canadian Forces to be given a clear mandate for its future role in Afghanistan as soon as possible.

"We are, in the eyes of the Taliban, in a window of extreme vulnerability. The longer we go without that clarity, with the issue in doubt, the more the Taliban will target us as a perceived weak link," Hillier said in a speech.

More at the link.

General Hillier has had to publicly "intervene" a few times already in order to stiffen Government resolve when it has appeared to flag or to wander off in the wrong direction. The distinction between Civilian supremacy and Military obedience becomes increasingly blurred as the General, out of sheer necessity, must step in to fill the political/strategic vaccuum that a strategically and militarily ignorant and/or inept political leadership persistently fails to even attempt to fill itself.

The Taleban can smell blood in the water a mile away, and rarely miss a chance to strike when they do. It is bad enough that two of the major Opposition Parties are incorrigible contrarians; it is even worse that the main Opposition party, the former Government that sent Canadian troops to fight in Afghanistan in the first place likewise persistently attempts to subvert support for the war effort, and propose utterly nonsensical alternatives that would doom it. Having realized, tacitly, the consequences of their proposals, they are nevertheless unwilling to suffer the loss of face that doing the right thing would entail. Their apparent deal with the present Government to withdraw at the end of 2011 mitigates some of its worst aspects in the short term, but tacitly accedes to a potential Taleban victory in the long term. What a waste.

[DGreen]

NATO Confronts Surprisingly Fierce Taliban
Militia Undermines Rebuilding Efforts in Southern Province of Uruzgan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...503089_pf.html

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; A01

TARIN KOT, Afghanistan -- Lt. Col. Wilfred Rietdijk, a 6-foot-7 blond Dutchman, took command of his military's reconstruction team in the southern Afghan district of Deh Rawood in September. Tranquil and welcoming, it seemed like the perfect place for the Netherlands' mission to help rebuild this country.

Intelligence reports indicated that the district was free of the Taliban, allowing the soldiers greater freedom of movement than elsewhere in Uruzgan province.

"We could go out on foot," Rietdijk said.

Reconstruction teams, escorted by a platoon of soldiers, fanned across the fertile countryside, building bridges over streams and canals, repairing irrigation systems, and distributing books and pens to local schools.

But the day after Rietdijk arrived in Afghanistan, his field officers reported hundreds of villagers suddenly fleeing parts of Deh Rawood. "Within a few weeks, everybody was gone," Rietdijk said. "We didn't understand why."

Now the Dutch say they realize what happened. Even as the soldiers believed they had won the support of the local population, the Taliban had secretly returned to reclaim Deh Rawood, home district of the group's revered leader, Mohammad Omar. It took only a few months for the Taliban to undermine nearly six years of intelligence work by U.S. forces and almost two years of goodwill efforts by Dutch soldiers.

See the rest of the article at the link...

[SWJED]

NATO: Bucharest and Beyond by Dave Dilegge at SWJ Blog.

National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies has posted its proceedings of the 2008 European Symposium - NATO: Bucharest and Beyond. Here are several take-aways from the report:

1) The NATO-ISAF operation poses the most critical test to date of NATO’s ability to generate the military forces required to meet its level of political ambition. In several categories, ranging from maneuver battalions to helicopters to C4ISR assets to Operational Mentoring and Liaison Teams (OMLTs) intended to build the capabilities of the Afghan National Army (ANA), Allied nations as a group are not filling the Combined Joint Statement of Requirements (CJSOR) set by NATO Military Authorities. This allows opposition forces to operate in the space between what NATO-ISAF has and what it requires.

2) There exists a lack of “political will” among Allies whose publics and parliaments are questioning the goals and strategy of the Alliance commitment and, in some cases, are increasingly worried about casualties suffered by their forces and/or incidents of collateral damage affecting Afghan civilians. In addition, numerous Allies lack the required capabilities and/or funding to deploy and sustain their forces, particularly in the more challenging operational environment of Afghanistan. For some Allies, this is complicated further by their competing commitments to other operations (e.g., in the Balkans, Lebanon, and Africa.)...

More at the link.

[Icebreaker]

As a non-military type, I would like to get some input from those more knowledgeable to help me understand an article I read in the "Economist" magazine regarding Afghanistan "A ray of light in a dark defile".

The following is a link to the article for those interested:

http://www.economist.com/displaystor...ry_id=10919203

The article had a chart title "Killing season" that showed the casulaties for the International Security Assistance Force and Operation Enduring Freedom. This chart showed the "United States" casulaties and "Other" casualties. The thing that confused me was that the chart indicated that the casualties for the other nations (non-US) were higher then those for the US in Calendar Years 2006, 2007 and so far in 2008.

My understanding was that the majority of troops in Afghanistan were American and that the Americans were in the most dangerous areas (please note that I am in no way lessening the contributions and suffering of the other countries). It seems logical that the US should be incurring the most casulaties. The source for the chart was www.icasualties.org, and the Economist is usually a very reliaable source. Is the information inaccurate? If the information is accurate then why are the non US countries suffering such heavy casualties (I have heard reports that the Taliban is specifically targeting countries like Canada and Germany to increase pressure on these countries to quit the war)?

Also, I think this issue illustrates one of the most frustrating things for non-professionals in regards to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - finding accurate and relaible sources of information.

Thank you

[wm]

The article had a chart title "Killing season" that showed the casulaties for the International Security Assistance Force and Operation Enduring Freedom. This chart showed the "United States" casulaties and "Other" casualties. The thing that confused me was that the chart indicated that the casualties for the other nations (non-US) were higher then those for the US in Calendar Years 2006, 2007 and so far in 2008.

My understanding was that the majority of troops in Afghanistan were American and that the Americans were in the most dangerous areas (please note that I am in no way lessening the contributions and suffering of the other countries). It seems logical that the US should be incurring the most casulaties. The source for the chart was www.icasualties.org, and

Thank you

The lines below are excerpted from the icasualties web link that you provided. I do not see how, except in 08, you can claim that ISAF casualties exceed those of the US.

Year US Other Total
2008 16 24 40
2007 117 115 232
2006 98 93 191

[Entropy]

First of all, comparing US casualties to ISAF isn't completely helpful because many US forces are part of ISAF.

Secondly, the type of chart used is confusing - it's called a "stacked area chart." Google it for an explanation of how they work, but the highest peaks are the total casualties, not the total ISAF casualties.

[Eden]

The command structure in Afghanistan is very arcane, and so is national participation in ISAF. Not all US forces in Afghanistan are part of NATO, but the majority have been under NATO command as part of ISAF since late 2006.
For that matter, there are other non-US military forces in Afghanistan that are not under ISAF, such as special forces who are working as part of SOCOM.

What used to be an independent US command - CJTF-76 - is now technically Regional Command (East), a subordinate to ISAF. There are also US forces operating as part of Regional Command (South), a subordinate command that rotates between the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands. If you look at current photos, you will see many US soldiers wearing an ISAF patch on their shoulder.

So when a US soldier becomes a casualty, he may also be counted as an ISAF casualty - or he may not, depending on how he is assigned to the theater.

As for the most dangerous part of the theater, well, that depends on how you classify it. I guess I would characterize the regions this way: In RC(East) there is a great deal of contact, but generally this is a result of the US forces seeking out the enemy; in RC(South) there is also a great deal of intense action, but this is generally a result of the enemy seeking contact. In other words, you may have roughly equal chances of becoming a casualty in either region, but RC(South) is more dangerous in the sense that we (meaning ISAF) have not yet claimed the initiative and do not control the pace of operations.

As for seeking info, this forum is a great place to start.

[Stan]

On the surface, it seems Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin each got what they wanted most at the NATO and Sochi summits.

Bush is moving forward with the placement of anti-Iranian missiles in Poland, and Putin kept Ukraine out of NATO, at least for the time being.

In fact, Bush's anti-Iranian missile plan was a godsend for Putin. It gave him something to protest as long as he got what he really wanted -- to keep Ukraine out of NATO.

Losing his temper, Putin revealed his real attitude toward Ukraine..."Do you understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state?" Putin told Bush in an outburst at a closed session of the NATO-Russian Council in Bucharest...

What is beyond doubt, however, is that the Poles are hitting up Washington for billions in military aid in exchange for allowing 10 missiles to be based on their territory. But Moscow's demands for a permanent monitoring presence on Polish territory could be a deal-breaker. Moreover, Warsaw is aware that if the next U.S. president is a Democrat he or she will be very unlikely to sign onto this foolish, costly and unpopular project. In other words, the U.S. missile-defense system, which might not work anyway, may never get built in the first place. That hardly sounds like a success.

But this Bush initiative did succeed in one respect. It infuriated the Russians. Of course, only the most paranoid and gullible could believe that these missiles would ever be targeted at Russia.

This could lead to hostilities...

The Kremlin has already threatened to target Ukraine with nuclear weapons, and now it might just be tempted to use them.

But hold on a minute...

Thanks to Bush, there might be a missile-defense system in Poland that now could be used to shoot down Russian missiles -- the first 10 anyway.

[Jedburgh]

Eurasia Insight, 2 Apr 08: Russia and NATO: A Meeting of the Minds on Afghanistan?

During the run-up to the NATO summit in Bucharest, expert attention has tended to focus on the differences between Russia and members of the Atlantic alliance, specifically on Kosovo’s independence, a Central European anti-missile shield and Georgia’s and Ukraine’s gravitation toward Brussels. But there is one important area where interests are converging -- in Afghanistan.

Both Russia and Washington have become alarmed by the revived Islamic radical insurgency in Afghanistan. And both countries want to stamp it out. Of course, there is no way that Russia will deploy troops to Afghanistan. For one, NATO would not consent to it. And, more importantly, the Soviet legacy of brutalization, left behind after the 1979-89 occupation, precludes such an option.

Still, Russia is interested in doing what it can do to help the United States and NATO keep Islamic radicalism at bay in Central Asia....

[AdamG]

In 1919, a young British army officer, Francis Stockdale, was deployed to the Waziristan area of British India.

The title of his book, "Walk Warily in Waziristan" seems no less appropriate now than it did 90 years ago, because today the autonomous Pakistani tribal region of North and South Waziristan is the centre of militancy orchestrated by pro-Taleban and al-Qaeda militants.

It is also an area where many believe the al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden, may be hiding after the September 2001 World Trade Centre attacks.

It wasn't until the 1980s that Capt Stockdale's family published a handful of copies of the book, only a few of which survive. But because or renewed interest in the region, the family in the English county of Norfolk are considering reprinting it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7325117.stm

Summon the publishers!

[Surferbeetle]

From the Spanish Newspaper El Pais

‘Spain resists increasing its military presence in Afghanistan’

Aunque Bush volvió a reclamar ayer la solidaridad de los aliados, el ministro de Defensa en funciones, José Antonio Alonso, reiteró antes de salir de Madrid que se mantendría "en las mismas condiciones" el compromiso militar en Afganistán. Con 750 efectivos, España es la contribuyente número 11 de la ISAF (Fuerza de Asistencia de la OTAN para Afganistán) sobre un total de 40 países y 47.000 soldados, pero perderá peso si se concretan los refuerzos anunciados por diez países.

My 'soldiers spanish' is a bit rough so please bear with me...

‘Although (President) Bush turned this (Spain keeps its forces from working in the south or participating in offensive operations) into a claim of solidarity of the allies, the minister of defense, José Antonio Alonso, repeated after the departure for Madrid (a Spanish delegation led by Mr. Zapatero was in Bucharest) that they will maintain “in the same conditions” the military commitment in Afghanistan. With 750 personnel Spain is number 11 in contributing to ISAF (Assistance Force of NATO for Afghanistan) among 40 nations and 47,000 soldiers, despite the small contribution it is a concrete/specific announcement of reinforcement among ten nations.’

More in Spanish at the link....

[Surferbeetle]

From the NYT

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said. They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.

The planning began in recent weeks, reflecting a growing resignation to the fact that NATO is unable or unwilling to contribute more troops despite public pledges of an intensified effort in Afghanistan from the presidents and prime ministers who attended an alliance summit meeting in Bucharest, Romania, last month.

Only one country so far has actually begun preparing more troops to deploy: France, which is sending 700 to Afghanistan, NATO officials said.

This article is referenced in a fair number of the european papers.

[Surferbeetle]

From the NATO website

RC(N)

* Since 2002, 1,054 PRT projects totalling 31.5 million USD, and 6842 other major infrastructure projects totalling 2.2 million USD
* 185 ongoing R&D projects totalling 6.5 million USD in 2007. Total R&D project for 2007 is 21.3 million USD.

RC(S)

* Since 2002, 1,362 PRT projects totalling 175.3 million USD, and 4,150 other major infrastructure projects totalling 1.8 million USD
* Kajaki Dam in Helmand aimed at providing power to 1.7 million people, irrigation to farmers, jobs to thousands within the next 2-3 years
* The major Gershk-Sangin-Kajaki road-building project has started and progresses north
* ANA patrol bases and 18 new permanent security check points being constructed

[davidbfpo]

Curiously UK government announces more troops for Afghanistan when President Bush visits London: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7456551.stm

Interesting details within the statement, although how this "drip surge" can be sustained is unclear.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

In today's Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ghanistan.html

Timing is interesting.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

An article from (UK) The Times, with the headline Afghanistan: ‘It was a battlefield last time I was here. The progress is remarkable’, which has some clear spin in and appears with a commentary on the Kings of War blogsite: http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com (second article down).

davidbfpo

[Rex Brynen]

Growing violence in Kandahar 'insignificant,' top soldier says
GRAEME SMITH
Globe and Mail Update
July 13, 2008 at 4:49 PM EDT

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Canada's top soldier has dismissed the growing violence in Kandahar as “insignificant,” contradicting all public data and highlighting the growing gap between Canada's upbeat view of the war and the sober analysis from other NATO countries.

...

A comparison of the past two months against the same period in the previous year shows that insurgent attacks have more than doubled in the current fighting season, from 134 in 2007 to 289 in 2008.

For the year to date, VSSA counted 532 insurgent attacks as of July 6, up 77 per cent from 300 last year.

Canadian military officials have argued that the shifting nature of the Taliban's attacks shows that the insurgents are growing weaker, because they are increasingly relying on bombs, or improvised explosive devices, instead of confronting their enemy in direct combat.

In fact, the statistics for Kandahar don't show a clear trend toward bombs as the weapon of choice for the insurgents. While IEDs were the most common type of attack last year, the number of successful IED strikes was slightly smaller this year than the number of so-called complex attacks – ambushes using more than one type of weapon. Such multi-layered attacks have increased this year by 116 per cent, to 123, according the VSSA numbers.

[RTK]

Seems to be some disagreement in this...

U.S. officials say militant attacks in Afghanistan are becoming more complex, intense and better coordinated than a year ago. Monthly death tolls of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan surpassed U.S. military deaths in Iraq in May and June. And last Monday, a homicide bomber attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital since 2001.

U.S. officials are considering drawing down additional forces from Iraq in coming months, in part because of the need for additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have said they need at least three more brigades in Afghanistan — or more than 10,000 troops.

More at the link

[Rex Brynen]

Sadly, I'm rather inclined to the latter view...

[Rex Brynen]

We don't feel secure, Afghans say
Locals perplexed. Disagree with new chief's rosy analysis
GRAHAM THOMSON, Canwest News Service
15 July 2008

On Saturday Canada's top soldier said Afghans "feel more secure" and the residents of Kandahar City "have returned to the normal pattern of life" after a spectacular prison break that freed 400 Taliban sympathizers last month.

Yesterday that's not how some local Afghans described their situation.