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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has produced an interesting report setting out how Afghanistan is perceived in Moscow. Afghanistan: A view from Moscow, written by Dmitri Trenin and Alexei Malashenko (both of whom work for Carnegie's Moscow Center), notes that "Russia is entwined in a complex web of relationships with the Afghan parties, neighbouring states and the West."
The Soviet Union lost 14,300 soldiers in Afghanistan and the war remains deeply traumatic within Russian society. It invaded Afghanistan when it was at the height of its power and left as a broken and mangled empire, on the brink of collapse.
While initially there appears to have been an element of schadenfreude in the Kremlin as they witnessed America and its allies being drawn into a more and more complex war, that feeling has since given way to one of concern about the implications of Western forces being defeated.
Russia knows very well that the situation in Central Asia is potentially dangerous. Already there are or have been insurrections in Chechnya, Daghestan, Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan. Kyrgyzstan is also unstable.
The authors are critical of US plans to disengage from Afghanistan by the end of Barack Obama's term of office, saying that 'cutting and running' is not a good option. They argue that "Military operations need to mellow the Taliban just enough to separate and isolate the hard-line jihadists - to be further pursued and destroyed - from those whose interests are focused on power distribution within Afghanistan". They add:
"The main effort in Afghanistan should be trying to bring the Afghan government and the opposition together to discuss the terms of a new national settlement."
They add that the US should increase its relations with non-NATO partners, such as Pakistan, China and even Iran.
Showing posts with label Carnegie Endowment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carnegie Endowment. Show all posts
Friday, 7 May 2010
Monday, 13 July 2009
The risks of military entanglement in the South
As British and American forces battle against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, it is worth considering, even if only for a moment, whether or not they are fighting in the right place.
I don't say this lightly, as many soldiers have already died and it is in no way a criticism of their bravery to point out that they may have died for little palpable gain.
Last month Gilles Dorronsoro, a French scholar working with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published The Taliban's Winning Strategy in Afghanistan , which argues that military forces have little chance of making gains in the South and should therefore concentrate on holding and consolidating the North of the country. He says that while all military eyes have been on Helmand, the Taliban has been extending its influence in the North.
Dorronsoro makes the point that the Taliban, which he describes as "a revolutionary movement, deeply opposed to the Afghan tribal system and focused on the rebuilding of the Islamic Emirate", has been under-estimated - a point that has often been made in this blog.
"They have made clever use of ethnic tensions, the rejection of foreign forces by the Afghan people, and the lack of local administration to gain support in the population. In so doing the Taliban have achieved their objectives in the South and East of the country, isolating the Coalition, marginalizing the local Afghan administration, and establishing a parallel administration (mainly to dispense Sharia justice and collect taxes)", he says.
Moreover, he notes, in recent months, a more professional Taliban has succeeded in making significant inroads by recruiting from non-Pashtun communities.
Dorronsoro argues that the current Coalition strategy of focusing its reinforcements in the South (Helmand and Kandahar) is risky to say the least. The lack of local Afghan institutions there will require a long term presence and therefore a need for even more reinforcements in the coming year.
Meanwhile, he says, the pace of Taliban progress in other provinces far outstrips the ability of the Coalition to stabilize the South. The Coalition should change the priorities of its current strategy, shifting resources to stop and reverse the Taliban’s progress in the North, while reinforcing and safeguarding the Kabul region or risk losing control of the entire country.
He makes some very pertinent points about the US strategy of killing Taliban commanders.
"Ironically, the International Coalition is unwittingly helping the Taliban maintain its cohesion by killing those commanders in the field most capable of opposing the central shura. Prime examples are Mullah Akhtar Osmani, killed in December 2006, Mullah Berader in August 2007, and Mullah Dadullah in May 2007. Evidence of the resilient character of the Taliban’s structure is the fact that the International Coalition’s killing of major leaders and its battlefield victories have not reversed the Taliban’s momentum."
The Taliban, says Dorronsoro, has created a sophisticated communications apparatus that "routinely outperforms the coalition in the contest to dominate public perceptions of the war in Afghanistan.” He says they build on the growing discontent of Afghans through a relatively sophisticated propaganda apparatus, which employs radio, video, and night letters to devastating effect. Videos, made in as-Sahab, the Taliban’s media center in Quetta, Pakistan, are readily available. This is certainly accurate, as I can attest myself. Last summer I came across Taliban videos being circulated by mobile phone around Kabul.
Backing up research by the Afghan organisation Cooperation for Peace and Unity (see my previous blogs on their research), Dorronsoro says that the main driver of the insurgency is not the political programme of the Islamist radicals, but local conflicts (many of which have an ethnic component) that have been allowed to flourish through government inaction, incompetence and corruption.
There is much to recommend Dorronsoro's analysis. Unfortunately, it would appear that battle lines have been drawn and that a re-emphasis on the North would now look like a defeat. We are reminded of one of the oldest laws of warfare - know your enemy.
I don't say this lightly, as many soldiers have already died and it is in no way a criticism of their bravery to point out that they may have died for little palpable gain.
Last month Gilles Dorronsoro, a French scholar working with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published The Taliban's Winning Strategy in Afghanistan , which argues that military forces have little chance of making gains in the South and should therefore concentrate on holding and consolidating the North of the country. He says that while all military eyes have been on Helmand, the Taliban has been extending its influence in the North.
Dorronsoro makes the point that the Taliban, which he describes as "a revolutionary movement, deeply opposed to the Afghan tribal system and focused on the rebuilding of the Islamic Emirate", has been under-estimated - a point that has often been made in this blog.
"They have made clever use of ethnic tensions, the rejection of foreign forces by the Afghan people, and the lack of local administration to gain support in the population. In so doing the Taliban have achieved their objectives in the South and East of the country, isolating the Coalition, marginalizing the local Afghan administration, and establishing a parallel administration (mainly to dispense Sharia justice and collect taxes)", he says.
Moreover, he notes, in recent months, a more professional Taliban has succeeded in making significant inroads by recruiting from non-Pashtun communities.
Dorronsoro argues that the current Coalition strategy of focusing its reinforcements in the South (Helmand and Kandahar) is risky to say the least. The lack of local Afghan institutions there will require a long term presence and therefore a need for even more reinforcements in the coming year.
Meanwhile, he says, the pace of Taliban progress in other provinces far outstrips the ability of the Coalition to stabilize the South. The Coalition should change the priorities of its current strategy, shifting resources to stop and reverse the Taliban’s progress in the North, while reinforcing and safeguarding the Kabul region or risk losing control of the entire country.
He makes some very pertinent points about the US strategy of killing Taliban commanders.
"Ironically, the International Coalition is unwittingly helping the Taliban maintain its cohesion by killing those commanders in the field most capable of opposing the central shura. Prime examples are Mullah Akhtar Osmani, killed in December 2006, Mullah Berader in August 2007, and Mullah Dadullah in May 2007. Evidence of the resilient character of the Taliban’s structure is the fact that the International Coalition’s killing of major leaders and its battlefield victories have not reversed the Taliban’s momentum."
The Taliban, says Dorronsoro, has created a sophisticated communications apparatus that "routinely outperforms the coalition in the contest to dominate public perceptions of the war in Afghanistan.” He says they build on the growing discontent of Afghans through a relatively sophisticated propaganda apparatus, which employs radio, video, and night letters to devastating effect. Videos, made in as-Sahab, the Taliban’s media center in Quetta, Pakistan, are readily available. This is certainly accurate, as I can attest myself. Last summer I came across Taliban videos being circulated by mobile phone around Kabul.
Backing up research by the Afghan organisation Cooperation for Peace and Unity (see my previous blogs on their research), Dorronsoro says that the main driver of the insurgency is not the political programme of the Islamist radicals, but local conflicts (many of which have an ethnic component) that have been allowed to flourish through government inaction, incompetence and corruption.
There is much to recommend Dorronsoro's analysis. Unfortunately, it would appear that battle lines have been drawn and that a re-emphasis on the North would now look like a defeat. We are reminded of one of the oldest laws of warfare - know your enemy.
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