Is it in our interest to commit blood and treasure toward the creation of a unified Afghan state?

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from FP: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/node/15124


Will we need a "Plan B" in Afghanistan?

Tue, 01/13/2009

{snip}

Take a look at the recent RAND Corporation study of U.S.-led peacekeeping operations, which contains in-depth case studies of the occupations of Germany, Japan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan. The success stories (Germany, Japan, Bosnia, and Kosovo) all featured a far more intensive commitment of men and resources than anyone is talking about in Afghanistan. In Germany, we had 100 U.S. troops for every 1000 people in the local population; in Kosovo and Bosnia, we started off with roughly 20 NATO soldiers per 1,000 locals. Somalia and Japan began with about five soldiers per 1,000 locals and then drew down (Somalia was a failure; Japan an obvious success).

By contrast, the post-conflict occupation of Afghanistan began with 14,000 U.S. and allied troops for a country with a population of nearly 30 million. That works out to well under 1 peacekeeper for every 1,000 Afghans. There are now about 63,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan and the planned reinforcements will bring that total up to somewhere around 90,000 next year. But for a country that now contains over 32 million people, that's still fewer than three soldiers per 1,000 population. To get to the force levels achieved in tiny Kosovo -- which is only 11,000 square kilometers as opposed to Afghanistan's total land area of roughly 650,000 sq. km. -- the United States and NATO would need to put over 600,000 troops in the field. And nobody is proposing to make that sort of commitment, even if we could. Afghanistan has also received much lower amounts of aid per capita than the successful postwar occupations.

. . . the difficult nature of Afghan terrain and the lack of a well-developed transportation network means that higher ground force-to-population ratios are needed to achieve lasting stability. That problem is compounded by the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which gives Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents a safe haven from most of the NATO contingent. Moreover, the lack of local infrastructure makes it harder to deliver aid cheaply and thus reduces the amount of money that actually touches the lives of ordinary Afghanis. Finally, Afghan tribes and warlords have a long history of alignment and realignment, which means that the cohesion of the "national" Army and the loyalty of tribal forces may not be something on which we can rely. And as my new colleague Rory Stewart points out here, adding more troops in the past has "had a negative political impact on the conservative and nationalistic communities of the Pashtun south and allowed Taliban propaganda to portray us as a foreign military occupation."

Add all this together, and it's easy to see why the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Bantz Craddock, said last week that the United States and NATO will have to keep a large force in Afghanistan for "at least ten years," and maintain a presence there for "decades." But Craddock's implicit recommendation should not be accepted uncritically: saying the United States should stay there for "decades" begs the question of whether it is in our interest to commit lots of blood and treasure toward the creation of a unified Afghan state. And that's a question of national interest and overall grand strategy, not just a matter of military operations or counter-insurgency tactics.


read: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/node/15124

[PDJane]

1. The expedition in Afghanistan

was always about access to the resources of the Caspian Sea Basin. Period. Endit.

[Horse with no Name]

2. In a word? No. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. The same ambitions worked ever so well for the Brits and the Russians.

But, of course, this time it will be different because our latest ventures at colonialism in SE Asia and the Middle East have been such resounding successes.

Cheering crowds and flowers await us.