Questions of War
. . . and the answers.

By Charles E. Miller, a retired Air Force colonel
October 23, 2001 10:55 a.m.

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.