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 everal
questions about the war in Afghanistan are prevalent at the moment:
How long
will it last? The senior leadership at the Department of Defense
has not wavered from declarations that this is going to be a long
war and a long campaign. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs recently
said the campaign in Afghanistan may take until next spring or summer,
or even longer. The war against terrorism — covering cells
in at least 60 countries — could easily last five to ten years;
it could even become a routine part of our lives, akin to our 40-year
Cold War.
The Afghanistan
campaign is not particularly amenable to conventional analysis.
At one level, it is fairly safe to predict that the Taliban military
units, reinforced by two or three thousand Arabs with nothing to
do but die (according to press reports), are already on the slippery
slope of disintegration (they cannot really communicate the way
they need to, and their logistics are a mess). Certainly, a few
deadly battles — at Mazar-i-Sharif, Kabul, and Kandahar —
figure into the future. These will be in complex terrain, including
strongholds and trench works, and urban settings.
Some are predicting
"Kabul before Thanksgiving." If so, we need to see a real
blitz of coordinated air strikes against tactical targets (waves
of bombers are better than waves of fighters in many cases), followed
by the solid performance of Northern Alliance forces (and other
resistance groups), probably with the involvement of U.S. special
and conventional ground forces. All this is to "defeat"
the Taliban. Then, we have to find bin Laden. December for the Taliban
and July for al Qaeda and bin Laden are aggressive predictions.
What about
winter? Everything is more difficult in war; bad weather makes
it worse. But the U.S. military has fought and won in winter conditions
and it will do so in Afghanistan. It is not clear how well the Taliban
would do in the winter (pretty poorly one suspects). And our in-country
allies will perform better with our support. But U.S. forces will
do just fine. The weather will adversely affect some air operations,
especially those designed to closely support ground operations or
those planned for areas where military and civilian targets get
mixed together. Eye-balls on targets will be very important. Radar
and global positioning satellites will make attacks on fixed targets
or "military-only zones" pretty much weather-proof. Bad
weather, like darkness, is an ally of U.S. ground forces. We can
see better and operate better than the other side in both conditions.
What about
Ramadan? Ramadan is a new operational factor for the U.S. We
can expect a dialing back of highly visible bombing attacks on airfields
and many fixed targets during the Islamic month of fasting, but
there may not be that many left come late November. AC-130 gun ships
likely will only operate to directly support U.S. ground operations,
and U.S. ground forces will carry the main load (although our allies
will have to fight as well). We will not allow the evil doers time
to regroup by refraining from operations during Ramadan. The Taliban
and al Qaeda, in spite of some clunky propaganda, will certainly
not hold back their own operations.
What's next?
Expect more air attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda "front lines,"
especially in the vicinity of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul. Perhaps
there will be the introduction of highly mobile and highly lethal
U.S. ground forces at critical junctures. Once Mazar-I-Sharif is
available, we may see a limited U.S. presence there. There will
be continued pressure on Kandahar; the Taliban will have no rest
or sanctuary. A huge humanitarian effort to feed, house, and generally
secure hundreds of thousands of refugees is bound to come sooner
than later. This will in large part be run by coalition partners
and perhaps the UN, but as we have such high stakes in the outcome
the U.S. military will be deeply involved. We can ill-afford to
mishandle this operation.
War
Notes
I was stunned to see the videos of the U.S. Army Rangers preparing
for action, boarding aircraft, parachuting, and searching rooms
in Kandahar. Until now, you just didn't see Rangers on TV. Much
of the raid reportedly originated from the USS Kitty Hawk
aircraft carrier. The Rangers apparently changed from helicopters
to C-130s in Pakistan. Delta Force was involved, but no one is saying
much about their routes or methods. Apparently the Rangers and Delta
Force brought back so much material to the intelligence world that
it is overwhelming translation capabilities. U.S. forces were safely
extracted by C-130s and helicopters after completing their missions.
That means the supposedly fully alerted Taliban could not react
— their pathetic claims to having shot down two U.S. helicopters
notwithstanding. One Army helicopter supporting the operation crashed
(perhaps because of sand blown by rotor wash) and killed two crewmembers
in Pakistan.
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