- Joined
- Oct 17, 2007
- Messages
- 11,862
- Reaction score
- 10,300
- Location
- New York
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Centrist
Suspected Taliban gunmen in Pakistan set fire to more than 50 trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan, killing at least seven people in the first such attack near the capital, police said on Wednesday...
The U.S. military sends 75 percent of its supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops.
I honestly don't know what you expect these guys to do.
Issue:
Securing safe, reliable supply routes into Afghanistan is vital for victory in the Global War on Terror.
Background:
In December of 2008, the Bush Administration released a report stating, “A modern Afghan democracy -- stable and free of extremists -- may be both unattainable and unaffordable.” President Obama has changed course from this assessment by stating, as a policy of his administration, that Afghanistan is the “central front in the war on terror” and vital to our success combating extremism. The President wants to send an additional 30,000 soldiers into Afghanistan to counter the growing extremist influence. An equal number of NATO soldiers, not from the United States, are hoped to accompany this increase. To sustain this increase protecting supply routes must be made a priority.
Extremist groups in Pakistan have recently begun a large effort to attack NATO supply convoys going along the critical supply route stretching from the port city of Karachi to Peshawar, and through the Khyber Pass to Kabul. More than 300 NATO vehicles and containers have been destroyed in a series of attacks on shipping terminals in Peshawar as well as attacks on convoys moving through the region. Since roughly 75 percent of NATO and United States supplies move through Pakistan, this trend is particularly worrisome.
A vital airbase, located in Kyrgyzstan, is on the brink of being closed. The Manas Air Base has begun closing procedures after negotiations broke down on compensation. It is widely believed that Russian influence is behind the closing, and Russia has offered an aid package worth $2 billion to the impoverished nation.
The loss of supply routes in Pakistan, as well as the Kyrgyz airbase would be a devastating blow to continuing ground operations. Afghanistan, as a landlocked nation with very few passable roads is very difficult to supply using current routes. In the absence of these routes, new routes would need to be found, and they would most likely be even less developed, more expensive, and much harder to defend. These alternative routes would include multiple other nations, and would be almost impossible to keep together. The cost of setting up these routes seems to outweigh the potential benefits.
Recommendations:
1) Intelligence Community:
- Develop operational plans to infiltrate insurgent groups in order to gather intelligence on insurgent activities.
- Work with Pakistani intelligence services to find and eliminate and extremist leaders hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan “border.”
2) Financial Support
- Ensure that the government of Pakistan has enough funding to conduct operations in the Northwest Frontier Province.
- Write an aid package for the Kyrgyz government to ensure that the Manas Air Base remains open. This package could include development aid, and potentially include natural gas sales to Europe in return.
- Increase funding to Afghanistan to promote national unity and collective identity.
3) Military Options
- Accelerate the training of the Afghan Army.
- Protect convoys on the ground with predators or other military aircraft.
- Extend counter-insurgency operations along the Pakistani border, and cross border operations with the permission of the Pakistani government.
Analysis:
The human intelligence mission needs to be expanded in Afghanistan. With the difficult terrain that we are facing we must have people on the ground able to infiltrate insurgent groups to get actionable intelligence. The border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan is critical to the success of the mission in Afghanistan. Using intelligence to identify and eliminate leaders of the insurgency hiding in this area must be an priority.
Financially, the United States must ensure that Pakistan has the funds to maintain Army operations in the Northwest Frontier Province. This money could be given with conditions, or tied to development programs for the Pakistani government. The government of Kyrgyzstan must also be given an aid package. The United States can not allow this air base to be closed due to an aid package worth $2 billion, especially in the face of crumbling supply routes in Pakistan. If the government of Kyrgyzstan can be convinced that the United States will stand by it in the face of increasing Russian pressure, a deal might be struck to bring Kyrgyz natural gas to Europe. This might entice NATO to increase its efforts in the Afghan conflict.
Funding to promote national unity and collective identity could also produce some good results. Given that Afghanistan is heavily divided along tribal lines, and has rarely had a functional central government, the people of Afghanistan need to have something to take pride in about their country. For example, a national soccer team could bring tribes together and promote peaceful tribal dialogue. Education programs can be established that promote nationalist identity over tribal identity in an effort to reshape thinking about a central government.
Militarily, the United States must accelerate the training of the Afghan Army. Current plans call for the doubling of the Afghan Army in the coming years, however a senior US military official states half the Army training spots are unfilled. An increase of troops and funding will be critical in this area. An increase in predator patrols over convoys could ensure that once an attack is launched, it can be identified and neutralized. Coordination with the Pakistani government could ensure that these predator patrols continue even while in Pakistani controlled territory.
I actually wrote a memo about this in January 2009...
Keep in mind that I wrote this in January 2009, (for a graduate school class) so some of the things included are probably not all that relevant any longer. It seems however that not much has changed since then in terms of supply lines.
Great piece. In terms of the supply lines, you hit the key point about how vital they are and the need to secure them. At the same time, you offered a concrete mechanism for helping secure them. Had the planners read your memo and acted on some of its recommendations, I believe some of the things today, particularly from a cost- and supply-line perspective, would be better than they are.
Infliltration of insurgent groups has been an ongoing US policy for quite a few years, the recent (within a year) suicide bombing of a US forward operating base was done by one of the agents used to inflitrate insurgent groups, to bad he turned out to be a double agent. US and Pakistan intel services have been working together on quite a few issues, generally targeting Pakistani taliban though rather then Afghan taliban, as Pakistan still considers Afghani taliban to be of useRecommendations:
1) Intelligence Community:
- Develop operational plans to infiltrate insurgent groups in order to gather intelligence on insurgent activities.
- Work with Pakistani intelligence services to find and eliminate and extremist leaders hiding along the Pakistani-Afghan “border.”
The US has been providing aid to Pakistan, typically military aid, which was supposed to be for insurgent operations, but Pakistan typically used for equipment used to defend vs India. Financial aid to Kyrgistan(sp) has been lacking, and the money that has been sent has been used to enrich those close to the recently deposed president. The US was also quite slow in realizing the socio political problems in Kyrgistan. Funding to Afghanistan to promotee national unity and collective identity, while laudable is entirely unrealistic for a variety of reason. Corruption is number one. Secondly the idea of national unity and collective identity has to start with the largest ethnic group. That is the Pashtuns, who also make up the Taliban primarily. They are going to identify with the Pakistani Pashtun before the Tajiks or Hazara. To change this would require decades of central government control over eduction, culture etc2) Financial Support
- Ensure that the government of Pakistan has enough funding to conduct operations in the Northwest Frontier Province.
- Write an aid package for the Kyrgyz government to ensure that the Manas Air Base remains open. This package could include development aid, and potentially include natural gas sales to Europe in return.
- Increase funding to Afghanistan to promote national unity and collective identity.
Accelerated training is ideal and has been attempted, but the quality of training and of the trainees has been lacking. Protecting convoys with aircraft is unrealistic as most of the attacks are in the depots in Pakistan or at the boarder. Trying to identify who is going to attack convoys when they are at a depot is nearly impossible untill the attack has occured. Counter insurgency operations within Pakistan has been increased along with drone strikes within Pakistan during the Obama admin. If I recall correctly drone strikes have increased by at least 50% under Obama compared to Bush3) Military Options
- Accelerate the training of the Afghan Army.
- Protect convoys on the ground with predators or other military aircraft.
- Extend counter-insurgency operations along the Pakistani border, and cross border operations with the permission of the Pakistani government.
Which ones have they not followed?
-- Funding to Afghanistan to promotee national unity and collective identity, while laudable is entirely unrealistic for a variety of reason. Corruption is number one. Secondly the idea of national unity and collective identity has to start with the largest ethnic group. That is the Pashtuns, who also make up the Taliban primarily. They are going to identify with the Pakistani Pashtun before the Tajiks or Hazara --
Contractors on a $2.1 billion job trucking U.S. supplies into Afghanistan are paying millions of dollars in protection money to warlords controlling their routes, according to a congressional report...
The Pentagon “has been largely blind to the potential strategic consequences” of its supply-chain contracting, the report said...
The lack of U.S. escorts also means the Pentagon “has little visibility into what happens to the trucks carrying U.S. supplies between the times the trucks leave the gates in the Pakistan port of Karachi” to their destinations.
"Protect convoys on the ground with predators or other military aircraft" hasn't been pursued. Neither has an approach of providing armed escorts for such convoys been utilized.
Okay, outside of directly taking control of a swath of Pakistan from the port to Afghanistan, what's your proposal Don?
Don, you do realize that's not going to happen regardless no?
To secure the route, which is pretty much the Khyber pass, we need the Pakistani military to permanently hold it. That's not going to happen, thus leaving us to hold it. Which means more or less invading Pakistan.
Do you actually think what you posted is a realistic viable strategy?
Having armed escorts or guards accompanying the convoys in no way, shape, or form, requires the military's invading and holding Pakistan's territory. Hence, it is not only viable, it makes far more sense than leaving the convoys exposed to attack.
Not necessarily. Especially considering the insurgent's capacity to place explosives under the roads. You pretty much need to deny insurgent's access to the road entirely to secure it. Furthermore, Pakistan is obviously not up to the task of securing the roads. That more or less means we have to. Thus, we'd have to take control of a large portion of Pakistan.
Note, I don't think your plan is inherently bad, just very unrealistic.
Okay Don, let's go with your armed escorts idea. The Khyber pass where most of the goods travel by road is in Peshwar. Which is in the North of Pakistan. That's I'm estimating around 800 miles from Karachi. And last month I believe insurgents hit a convoy starting in Karachi. With Pakistan unable to do the job, that more or less means we have to. How would we supply people along that route? Bases in Pakistan seem very out of the question.
I don't disagree that the costs are insane (and why buying Russian Mi-17s was a good choice if purely for that reason) and we need to reduce costs, but I don't see a way of doing this outside of getting China to ship our stuff. And even China has problems in its most Western state.
Since we cannot count on Pakistan to do the escort duty, who do you propose provide security?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?