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 rom
the very beginning of the campaign against Osama bin Laden and the
al Qaeda terror network, the conventional wisdom has held that a
primary objective of U.S. military operations is the dislocation
and overthrow of the Taliban militia that holds sway in Afghanistan
("rules" is the wrong word). But what follows the Taliban?
What is the U.S. plan for "war termination?" As Fred Ikle
once famously observed in a book title, every war must end.
The United
States has not done very well with war termination over the last
decade. While U.S. forces easily have defeated adversaries on the
battlefield, the resulting military successes have only infrequently
translated into political ones. A case in point is the Gulf War.
A major cause
of this less-than-stellar record in war termination can be traced
to an all-too-literal application of the guidelines for the use
of force first articulated in 1984 by Ronald Reagan's secretary
of defense, Caspar Weinberger, and reiterated by Colin Powell when
he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the case of the
Gulf War, the Weinberger-Powell doctrine resulted in military objectives,
the destruction of Saddam Hussein's republican guard, that were
too narrow to accomplish the necessary political outcome; the emphasis
on quickly ending the hostilities — for public-relations reasons
rather than for politico-military considerations — ensured
that even these narrow objectives were not achieved.
During the Clinton presidency, the manifestation of the Weinberger-Powell
doctrine was the occasional cruise missile "drive-by shooting."
The emphasis on casualty avoidance led to over-reliance on airpower,
ensuring that an adversary would hang on to fight again. As the
Prussian "philosopher of war," Carl von Clausewitz observed
over a century and a half ago, "in war, the result is never
final...The defeated state often considers the outcome merely as
a transitory evil, for which a remedy may still be found in political
conditions at some later date."
President Bush and his advisers seem to have rejected the idea that
this war against terrorism can be conducted exclusively from 15,000
feet. From the very beginning, military planners have envisioned
the employment of ground forces, albeit so far only the use of special-operations
forces. But if we are to avoid the war-termination problems that
have bedeviled us in the past, we should be thinking seriously about
deploying substantial ground forces.
There are those who would prefer that we count on the opposition
Afghan force of the so-called Northern Alliance to provide the major
effort on the ground. But there are excellent reasons for rejecting
this alternative.
First, it's
doubtful that the opposition forces can win without substantial
help. To begin with, the Taliban forces outnumber those of the Northern
Alliance. If the latter are to have any hope of success, they must
be reinforced with armor, artillery, and helicopters. At the same
time, the Taliban are proving to be more resilient than expected
by U.S. planners, who reckoned that the Northern Alliance would
have wrested the four main Afghan cities — Kabul, Kandahar,
Jalalabad, and Herat — from the Taliban before the winter.
But the opposition has yet to capture even the northern town of
Mazar-e-Sharif.
In addition,
many of the Northern Alliance distrust the U.S., believing that
it left them high and dry once they had served their purpose against
the Soviet Union. They remember that we provided training and equipment
to fight the Soviets but were unwilling to put U.S. lives on the
line. So far, they have no reason to believe that anything has changed.
The deployment of ground forces to operate in conjunction with the
Northern Alliance would go a long way in convincing the opposition
Afghan fighters that the U.S. will not leave Afghanistan to its
own devices once again.
War termination is the second reason for considering the introduction
of U.S. conventional ground troops. Relying exclusively on the Northern
Alliance to fight a ground war creates a potential post-war problem
that the United States must seek to avoid. The Northern Alliance
is made up primarily of Uzbek, Tajik, and Hazara fighters. A government
dominated by these ethnic groups is unacceptable to Pakistan, which
includes a sizable minority of the Pashtun, the same ethnic group
from which the Taliban in Afghanistan draws its main support.
A Northern Alliance government that excludes the Pashtun altogether
could destabilize Pakistan. The Taliban is popular among the Pashtun
of Pakistan and the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharref is already shaky.
Were a Taliban-like force able to seize power in Pakistan, both
the United States and India would confront a hostile, nuclear-armed
state. Osama bin Laden or his successor would then be able to portray
any combined response by the United States and India as a "clash
of civilizations" assault on Islam by not only "Crusaders
and Jews," the current claim, but also by Hindus. This might
enable bin Laden to achieve his goal of uniting the Islamic world
against the United States, leading to a wider war of the sort the
United States wants to avoid.
The possibility of a destabilized Pakistan means that war termination
in Afghanistan will require a coalition that includes not only the
ethnic groups of the Northern Alliance but also the anti-Taliban
Pashtun. Such a general agreement, whether it involves the return
of the King of Afghanistan or some other arrangement, e.g. a United
Nations mandate, will require a substantial U.S. ground force to
make it work. In other words, success in Afghanistan will necessitate
the deployment of ground forces in addition to the special-operations
forces currently in play.
The best way
to achieve stability in Afghanistan without destabilizing Pakistan
is to deploy a multinational force dominated by Islamic states,
but supplemented by a sizeable U.S. ground force. Unless Americans
are involved on the ground, any short-term success against the Taliban
will be short-lived.
Critics of
the idea that the United States should deploy a sizeable ground
force invoke the specter of previous British and Soviet failures.
But these examples have little applicability to the present situation.
The greatest British disaster occurred during the First Afghan War
of 1838-42 when the British imprudently attempted to impose an unpopular
puppet ruler on the Afghans, then demonstrated remarkable military
incompetence in the face of unified Afghan resistance.
The British garrison in Kabul was completely wiped out, but a punitive
expedition returned to Kabul to destroy the Great Bazaar. Subsequently,
the British employed a policy of manipulating the various Afghan
factions. The Second (1878-80) and Third (1919) Afghan Wars were
limited affairs. The Soviets faced a united front of Afghan factions,
substantially supported by the United States.
Additionally, deploying ground troops to Afghanistan would constitute
a major logistical challenge. Geography, topography, and geopolitics
will make it difficult to concentrate a large ground force. America's
preferred way of supplying war is by sea, but Afghanistan is landlocked.
For obvious reasons, utilizing the Pakistani port of Karachi is
not an option. Accordingly, any buildup of ground forces, particularly
heavy forces, will have to rely on airlift. This will take a long
time and depend greatly on the cooperation of the Russians. All
of this, of course, will be complicated by the approach of Afghanistan's
formidable winter. But given sufficient time and determination,
the "tyranny of distance" can be surmounted.
How large a
force should the United States deploy? One think tank has estimated
that it would take about 300,000 troops to stabilize Afghanistan.
It points out that the Soviets failed with a force half that size.
Clearly, the United States would be ill advised to deploy such a
force, even if it were logistically feasible. For one thing, a substantial
ground force might be required for a conventional campaign against
another, more militarily formidable state that supports terrorism,
e.g. Iraq.
Given the limitations
imposed by logistics, terrain, and the possibility that ground forces
will be needed elsewhere, we should consider deploying two light
infantry divisions, probably the 10th Mountain Division and the
25th Infantry Division (Light), along with a corps headquarters
— about 35,000-40,000 men in all. (Elements of the 10th Mountain
are already in theater). Such an effort would still be daunting.
It is unlikely that these divisions could be deployed before the
onset of winter. This means a winter offensive, or scaled-back operations
until spring.
Neither option
is appealing. But the benefits in terms of reassuring the Northern
Alliance and enabling a stable postwar settlement outweigh the costs.
The fact that the war on terrorism will be difficult does not mean
that the United States should shrink from the effort. Doing nothing
means the end of the way we live. But we should learn from our past
failures to ensure that battlefield success is translated into political
success. A war-termination strategy based on the deployment of ground
troops is a prudent beginning.
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