Mission in Afghanistan Dwarfs, Outpaces the US Commitment

Joshua Grenzsund - The Campus Word

Wednesday, 23 January 2008

If one hasn’t been particularly paying much attention to the United States’ first war of the 21st century, perhaps distracted by Iraq (or by the writers’ strike), one might just believe the claims being made by Secretary Gates concerning US operations in Afghanistan.

When first made public, Gates said that the possible deployment of additional troops to the country was simply to make up for numbers that nations participating in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force Allies were unwilling or unable to provide, which left a gap of about 7,500 troops short.

Sure, we may be able to accept that, but first we’ve got to ask what numbers have already been provided? According to news reports from early 2005, and according to information posted on NATO’s own website, ISAF troop levels in February 2005 topped out at about 8,000 troops, less than 100 of which were American. At that same time, about 17,000 US military personnel were conducting training and counter-terrorism combat operations. Now, three years later, the NATO-led force has expanded its area of responsibility, most notably in the south, and its numbers have grown to about 40,000, of which about 14,000 are US. Additionally, the US still has about 13,000 troops dedicated to hunting Taliban and al-Qaida forces, and when the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit and part of the 7th Marine Regiment arrive, that number will return to about 16,500. When we break down the numbers like this, we see a five-time increase in the number of NATO-led forces and a near-level number of US troops serving as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.

When faced with this sort of analysis, Secretary Gates said that the real reason for the US Marine deployment was that NATO, as a whole, “has not trained for counterinsurgency operations,” implying that the US troops would be able to handle the mission better. But lost behind all the exchanges over which troops and which numbers, there is the actual question of why more than 50,000 troops are unable to do the job or have the apparent effects that about 25,000 had just three years ago when the Pentagon was planning US troop reductions thanks to a growing Afghan Army and increased NATO presence. If there was a moment of opportunity to realize an enduring and democratic freedom in Afghanistan, it was during the 2004 Parliamentary and Presidential elections. But that moment is very much in the past.

The scale of the US mission in Afghanistan, as a whole, is underwhelming, and is justifiably dwarfed by the lofty goals that we have set up for ourselves and for Afghanistan. For more than six years we've claimed success in helping establish a just and sustainable democracy in a region edging to the far end of three decades of continual war, not to mention the century previous to that. But in 2004 we sent just 1,000 extra soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to help stabilize things during the elections, and now we send just 3,200 Marines to fend off the perennial “spring offensive,” when the snow melts in the Afghan mountains and it's easier to pack around a PKM and RPG and set up a roadside bomb or make-shift rocket tube. One could continue to argue that it’s not numbers, but tactics and strategy, but in any case what little has been thrown at Afghanistan over the last three years has not been calculated for a full military, political, economic,or social achievement of our freedom-minded goals. In light of all this, the deployment of these Marine units on an unscheduled tour indicates that the democratic goals of the mission in Afghanistan are not viable, specifically because the strength and tactics of US and Coalition Forces are not able to keep pace with the growing insurgency.

The US and NATO are quickly losing real, political and symbolic ground because they are not adapting to the insurgency; because Afghanistan is not a priority for either the US or its NATO allies; and, increasingly, because the instability in Pakistan is a psychological victory for extremists and a defeat for a US that is cobbled to the increasingly tyrannical Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. At best we can hope, or I should say, those in Afghanistan who have risked their political and physical lives should hope — and all those US and ISAF personnel who are likewise risking their lives should hope — that we arrive at a mix of strength, tactics and strategy that will bring a lasting peace to that nation.

But this hope alone will almost certainly prove futile, as prior to the recent assination of Benazir Bhutto only two of our presidential candidates, Barak Obama and John McCain, were forwarding policies that actively pursue that enduring end. Since then Hillary Clinton has also voiced her concern for specific "success" on the Afghan-Pakistan front in the "War on Terror." But Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani do not see Afghanistan as a foreign policy priority, which resembles Secretary Gates' own position. He is concerned with Afghanistan only as a third priority, after Iraq, and a top priority of maneuvering the US Military into “a sustainable position.” Given that prioritization, it appears that it will only be a position that sustains our lessening influence against the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, but doesn’t end the occupations one way or the other.

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