Plans Emerge for New Troop Deployments to Afghanistan

[BanglaBhoot]

WASHINGTON -- Senior U.S. commanders are finalizing plans to send tens of thousands of reinforcements to Afghanistan's main opium-producing region and its porous border with Pakistan, moves that will form the core of President Barack Obama's emerging Afghan war strategy.

Mr. Obama is likely to formally approve additional deployments this week, and Pentagon officials hope the full complement of 20,000 to 30,000 new troops will be on the ground by the end of the summer, pushing the U.S. military presence to its highest level since the start of the war in 2001.

U.S. commanders said the moves are part of a push to beat back the resurgent Taliban and secure regions of Afghanistan that are beyond the reach of the weak central government in Kabul. Unlike Iraq, where violence has typically been concentrated in cities, the war in Afghanistan is being increasingly waged in isolated villages and towns.

Virtually none of the new troops heading to Afghanistan will go to Kabul or other major Afghan cities. By contrast, when the Bush administration dispatched 30,000 new troops to Iraq as part of the so-called surge, the bulk of the new forces went to Baghdad.

Pentagon officials said troops will be deployed along the Helmand River Valley, which produces the bulk of the world's opium; along the two main highways of southern Afghanistan which have been hit by growing numbers of roadside bombs; and in two eastern provinces outside Kabul believed to serve as staging grounds for the insurgents planning attacks in the capital.

"We'll array our troops to secure the population," Brig. Gen. John M. Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in southern Afghanistan, said in an interview. "We're going to go out to where the people are."

The deployments, part of a planned doubling of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, are almost certain to spark heavier casualties and push the war squarely onto the public agenda. "I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be [more U.S. casualties]," Vice President Joe Biden said on CBS Sunday. "There will be an uptick."

The planned deployments also highlight the changing nature of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. After years of focusing on bolstering the country's central government, the U.S. is ramping up efforts to crack down on drug eradication and border infiltration from Pakistan.

Afghanistan's security situation has continued to deteriorate. Militants are entering from bases in Pakistan and carrying out attacks that are destabilizing both countries. The Taliban have strongholds throughout southern Afghanistan and are using drug money to buy weapons and hire new fighters.

Last year was the bloodiest to date for American and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces and 24 Western troops have been killed in Afghanistan in 2009.

Afghanistan's violence has historically tapered off in the winter, but this year is shaping up differently. On Tuesday, militants destroyed a bridge in northwest Pakistan that is part of the main supply route for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, temporarily halting the shipments of food, gas and military equipment into the country. On Monday, a suicide bomber killed 21 Afghan police officers in one of Afghanistan's deadliest attacks in months.

NATO statistics show that 19 of the 20 areas with the highest numbers of attacks in Afghanistan are rural. The most dangerous city is the southern metropolis of Kandahar at No. 13; Kabul is No. 42.

The vast majority of the new troops will be deployed to southern Afghanistan, a Taliban stronghold that houses many of the shadow local governments run by the armed group. The Taliban are also profiting from the south's skyrocketing opium production, which allows the militants to continually replenish their supplies of weapons and fighters.

Some of the new forces are deploying to the border province of Kunar, a main transit route for the militants who cross into the country from Pakistan to carry out attacks on U.S., NATO and Afghan targets.

"We'll thicken our lines in Kunar," Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, said in a recent interview. "We'll be able to get out into some villages we haven't been in before."

In a potential complication to the U.S.-led war effort, the Kyrgyz government renewed its threat to close an American base that is a main transit point for troops deploying to Afghanistan. But U.S. officials dismissed the threat as political posturing designed to improve Kyrgyzstan's relationship with Russia.

Plans Emerge for New Troop Deployments to Afghanistan - WSJ.com

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Read between the lines: The real meat of the mission is in Pakistan

So, President Obama is on the verge of making the decision to commit more troops to Afghanistan this week.

A new Pentagon report, as described at Politico.com, wisely seeks to narrow our objectives. But even if the recast goals Obama adopts are (as the new recommendations allegedly suggest) focusing on regional stability and clearing out Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in Pakistan, it seems highly likely that this will largely prove to be an exercise in futility. Besides the fact that no one since Alexander the Great has won a lasting victory in that part of the world, despite whatever wisdom we may have gleaned from Rudyard Kipling and the Russians about what not to do, besides the fact that it was our own short-sighted efforts there that led to the emergence of Osama bin Laden as a threat, this is a part of the world that makes the similarly asymmetric conflicts in Vietnam and Colombia look like a piece of cake.

Do we really think we can permanently snuff out the Al Qaeda and Taliban threat in the mountains? Aren't we really signing up for a hugely costly and never ending game of whack-a-mole? Do we really think that any number of U.S. troops will be a stabilizing force in the region? And, given the challenges associated with even these narrower missions: What's the exit strategy? If the disease is chronic, are we really willing to become an extended-care stabilizer?

No, those goals aren't really achievable (which is not to say we can't achieve periodic triumphs, rather that they are likely to be short-lived). So is the real goal something different? Is it really just to send the message that as the U.S. withdraws from Iraq we are not disengaging completely and in fact, are willing to use force somewhere? Or is it that we think it's probably a good idea to keep a decent size deployment of special forces not too far from the Pakistani border for when the balloon goes up there and we are scrambling to put a lid on their nukes?

History is against us, the terrain is against us, many of the people are against us, the corruption of our local allies is against us, the constraints on our own power are against us, the likely patience of the international community is against us -- we are just being carried forward on the residual waves of anger over a terrorist attack that took place almost eight years ago. We shouldn't forget it, but unless we are willing to adopt and fully own the evolving strategy of missiles and unmanned aircraft being sent after suspected bad guys wherever we find them without regard for borders while we all the while inflame the locals, our "allied governments", and periodically produce very unfortunate collateral damage -- this will be bloody, costly and frustrating.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's stop kidding ourselves about the most basic elements of how we think about this war. We call it Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is only the front porch of this conflict. Read between the lines in the summary of the Pentagon report: The real meat of the mission -- whether it is hunting down Al Qaeda or the Taliban, combating destabilizing forces in the mission, or keeping a lid on nukes -- is in Pakistan. As we escalate, it is worth keeping in mind that what we are really doing is getting deeper and deeper into a conflict in a nuclear nation with more than 170 million inhabitants, four-fifths of whom have decidedly anti-American views and whose country is locked in a 60-year-old conflict with the billion-person nation on its other border.

Whether it's hunting down al Qaeda or the Taliban, Afghanistan is only the front porch of this conflict | David Rothkopf

 

[ejaz007]

Pentagon urges Obama to target Pak safe havens
Wednesday, February 04, 2009


WASHINGTON: A classified Pentagon report urges President Barack Obama to shift the US military strategy in Afghanistan by de-emphasising democracy-building and concentrating more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of the Pakistani military forces.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has seen the report prepared by the US joint chiefs of staff, but it has not yet been presented to the White House, officials said on Tuesday. The recommendations are an element of a broad policy reassessment under way along with recommendations to be considered by the White House from the commander of the US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, and other military leaders.

A senior US defence official said on Tuesday that it probably would take several weeks before the Obama administration rolled out its long-term strategy for Afghanistan.The joint chiefs’ plan reflects growing worries that the US military was taking on more than it could handle in Afghanistan by pursuing the Bush administration’s broad goal of nurturing a thriving democratic government.

Instead, the plan calls for a more narrowly-focused effort to root out militant strongholds along the Pakistani border and inside the neighbouring country, according to officials, who confirmed the essence of the report.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they were not authorised to discuss the plan publicly.

The recommendations are cast broadly and provide limited detail, meant to help develop the overarching strategy for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region rather than propose a detailed military action plan.

Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman would not comment on the report’s details on Tuesday, but said the secret assessment was just one of several pieces of advice being offered by the military to help the Obama administration plot a strategy in Afghanistan.

“I think it should be of no surprise that we are looking at Afghanistan from a regional perspective,” Whitman said.“When you talk about Afghanistan, you can’t help but also recognise the fact that the border region with Pakistan is obviously a contributing factor to the stability and security of Afghanistan, and the work that Pakistan is doing to try to reduce and eliminate those safe havens, and the ability for people to move across that border that are engaged in hostile intentions,” Whitman said.

Part of the recommended approach is to search for ways to work more intensively and effectively with the Pakistanis to root out extremist elements in the border area, the senior defence official said.

The heightened emphasis on Pakistan reflects a realisation that the root of the problem lies in the militant havens inside its border — a problem outlined last week to Congress in grim testimony by Gates and the Joint Chiefs chairman, Adm Mike Mullen.

The report does not imply more incursions by the US combat forces inside Pakistan or accelerating other forms of the US military involvement, the official emphasised.“The bottom line is we have to look at what the art of the possible is there,” said a US military official who has operated in Afghanistan.

The official, who has not seen the joint chiefs’ report, said the challenge was to craft a strategy that achieved the US goals of stabilising the region and constraining al-Qaeda but also took into account the powerful tribes, which resisted a strong central government and the ties among the ethnic Pashtuns on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan border.

The joint chiefs’ report advises a greater emphasis on the US military training of the Pakistani forces for counter-terror work. Those contacts already are occurring on a more limited basis.During discussions about a new Afghanistan strategy, military leaders expressed worries that the US ambitions in Afghanistan, to stabilise the country and begin to build a democracy there, were beyond its ability.

As they tried to balance military demands in both Iraq and Afghanistan, some increasingly questioned why the US continued to maintain a war-fighting force in Iraq, even though the mission there had shifted to a more support role for the Iraqi security forces.

Those fighting forces, they argued, were needed more urgently in Afghanistan.The report stressed that the Afghan strategy must be driven by what the Afghans wanted and that the US could not impose its own goals on the Afghan government.

Pentagon urges Obama to target Pak safe havens

 

[kidwaibhai]

i think they are now realizing that they have to work with the pakistani army. i think this is a good development that they will train us. but i dont think the problem is in the training the problem is in the equipment such as attack choppers and transport utility helos that will make the army more mobile and will allow the troops engage the enemy when they want to no when the enemy desires

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Russia Asserts Itself as U.S. Plans Afghan Push

Kremlin Supports Threat to Shut Base for American Troops, Moves to Start New International Force; Challenge for Obama

MOSCOW -- Russia is reasserting its role in Central Asia with a Kremlin push to eject the U.S. from a vital air base, along with a Moscow-led pact to form an international military force to rival NATO. The moves potentially complicate the new U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan.

The moves mark Russia's most aggressive steps yet to counter a U.S. military presence in the region that it has long resented. They pose a challenge for the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama, which sees Afghanistan as its top foreign-policy priority and is preparing to double the size of the American military presence there.

On Wednesday, Russia announced a financial rescue fund for a group of ex-Soviet allies and won their agreement to form a military rapid reaction force in the region that it said would match North Atlantic Treaty Organization standards. That came a day after Kyrgyzstan announced, at Russian urging, that it planned to evict the U.S. from the base it has used to ferry most of its troops into Afghanistan. Russia said the base may house part of the planned new force instead.

The developments underscore the difficulties for Mr. Obama as he seeks to build a closer relationship with Moscow. Russia is signaling that it will be a tough defender of its interests, especially in its traditional backyard of the former Soviet Union. Though its huge cash reserves are rapidly draining because of falling oil prices, the greater needs of its poorer neighbors are still giving it an opening.

"Russia would like to reassert itself in the region, and it is using the financial crisis as an opportunity," said Nikolai Zlobin, senior fellow at the World Security Institute, a Washington think tank.

Russian paratroopers are to form the core of the new military force, which is planned to be about 10,000 men. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the force will be ready "to rebuff military aggression," fight terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime, and handle natural and technological disasters.

"These are going to be quite formidable units," Mr. Medvedev said. "According to their combat potential, they must be no weaker than similar forces of the North Atlantic alliance."

When Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said Tuesday that he intended to shut the base to U.S. troops, Moscow announced that it was extending $2 billion in loans plus an additional $150 million in financial aid for the country. The aid represents a tidal wave of cash for Kyrgyzstan, whose budget is barely more than $1 billion, and whose populace has been harried by electricity shortages, rising food prices and rampant unemployment.

The Kremlin also is discussing aid packages to Armenia and Belarus, other former satellites that have been hard-hit by the financial crisis.

The seriousness of the Kyrygz push to close the Manas air base stunned Pentagon officials, who noted Bishkek had made similar threats before. "Frankly, we thought it was a negotiating tactic, and we were ready to call their bluff," said a military official. "But it's becoming clearer that, no kidding, they want us out."

U.S. officials now say they expect the Kyrgyz parliament to formally approve ending the deal this weekend, which would give the U.S. six months to vacate under the countries' agreement.

The loss of the Manas base would be a major blow to the escalating U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. In 2008, 170,000 American personnel passed through Manas on their way in or out of Afghanistan, along with 5,000 tons of equipment.

"We have contingencies, and it's not fatal, but there's no way around the fact that this would be a real blow," said a senior Pentagon official. "It could also leave us more dependent on Russia, which is not a place we'd like to be."

The main U.S. supply route into Afghanistan runs through Pakistan, and militants have mounted a wave of attacks recently designed to prevent goods from entering Afghanistan. This week, militants demolished a key bridge on the route, forcing the U.S. to temporarily halt all shipments through Pakistan.

The U.S. already ships large quantities of fuel through Russia, and senior military officials hope to start sending more supplies through Russia in coming weeks.

The Kremlin has long criticized the U.S. for maintaining the bases in Central Asia, saying Washington initially promised a temporary move after the terrorist attacks of 2001. On Wednesday Russia stressed that it supports the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan, but that Washington needs to work more closely with Moscow and Central Asian countries to ensure its success.

Russia Asserts Itself as U.S. Plans Afghan Push - WSJ.com