The Conflict in Afghanistan

Capt Blackadder

Some one asked me this week to explain to them why the war in Afghanistan is going on for so long, and why it looks like it's being lost. I couldn't give them a solid answer. So I ask you all.

Why does it appear that after 9 years, does it appear that there is still an ongoing conflict in Afghanistan?

Before you answer, please avoid any "imperialist war" nonsense/un warranted brit/yank bashing that usually ruins threads like this.

It would be great if you can back up your opinion with real life experience, or links to articles and videos. This is a topic I'm starting to develop an interest in, and it is quite a comlpex one from what I can see.

Local-womanizer

It might be the lack of substitute to the opium trade,resulting in the everyday farmer unwilling to support the coalition effort.

Or maybe the failings of a proper Afghan government,one which doesnt have the full support of the Afghan people.

Its not like the war has little interest from the coalition forces or governments when it comes to Afghanistan.

But my points are just based on little research in the topic and only what I pick up in the news.

Clawdeeus

Some of it may also be the Iraq war; the US took its eye off the ball so to speak and missed a window of oppurtunity to develop the infrastructure in afghanistan, giving time for people to become more dissillusioned.

OS119

personally i think its three seperate issues, all of which mesh unhappily together, but are separate problems with their own - if occasionally conflicting - solutions.

the lack of an attractive, coherent central government: A) Afghanistan is not a place that has a history of real central government - on an emotional level its just not something that 75% or so of Afghans care about, and not something they are particularly interested in. the particular central government they have right now is not attractive in its own right - its corrupt, its incompetant, and its made up of some pretty unsavoury individuals, most of whom either have 'form' with the people of A'stan, or are such unknowns that they just look like the kind of 'parachuted in' candidates that are unpopular everywhere.

the widespread belief that, at some stage, NATO will leave and the Taliban (of their many different types and flavours) will again hold the whip hand: given the cultural memory of how winning Afghans treat losing Afghans, you'd have to be pretty dumb to be on the losing side. most Afghans will sit out a conflict, see who wins and then be on their side.

the very disparate versions of 'nationalism' prevailent within Afghan society: the history of most places in Afghanistan is that anything coming from more than a few miles away is likely to be bad - it meshes in with religion (or some some versions of religion), provincial identity, tribal/ethnic identity, and just 'bent pride'.

two tours. loved them both, fascinated by the place.

Manic Moran

I think there are two main factors.

1) The Iraq distraction, mentioned earlier. It may not have been the plan at the outset to have Afghanistan play second-fiddle in resources and attention, but that's the way it turned out.

2) The complete and utter lack of infrastructure, both physical and governmental. The withdrawl relies on the existance of a functioning domestic government. The problem is that you have to somehow create this in a nation that had little power, telecommunications or road network, in pretty unforgiving territory, whilst also fighting an insurgency. Iraq was a much easier prospect: Dilapidated though it was, it had the fundamentals of a national infrastructure that could immediately be used. We're still building roads to link up district centers in Afghanistan. The conditions for a good domestic government are still being set, let alone the concept of one actually existing and functionoing. Plus, the Iraqis were used to a competent central government actually doing things, something of a foreign concept to a lot of Afghans. Whether that's a good thing is another argument.

NTM

Doctor14

Capt Blackadder wrote: »

Why does it appear that after 9 years, does it appear that there is still an ongoing conflict in Afghanistan

While the above answers are each correct in its own way, I think the answer must go back to the fact that the Afghan Conflict is 31 years old, the Coalition only being involved in the last 9 years. Effective government in Afghanistan ceased to exist many years ago and few know of any other world than that of conflict.

mgmt

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not a civil war occuring between different tribes.

While population data is somewhat unreliable for Afghanistan, Pashtuns make up the largest ethnic group at 42% of the population, followed by Tajiks (27%), Hazaras (9%), Uzbek (9%), Aimaq, Turkmen, Baluch, and other small groups.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5380.htm

The alliance is primarily comprised of three non-Pashtun ethnic groups - Tajiks, Uzbeks and the Hazaras - and in the past relied on a core of some 15,000 troops to defend its territories against the predominantly Pashtun Taleban.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1652187.stm


Also, the fact that the installed government is corrupt would not stabilise matters.

Manic Moran

mgmt wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is there not a civil war occuring between different tribes.

Not really. There is definitely distrust, and sometimes one group won't lift a finger to help another group, but as neither group has any great adventurism in mind, they'll all leave sleeping dogs lie.

Also, the fact that the installed government is corrupt would not stabilise matters.

Depends on how you define 'corrupt.' There is no such thing as a non-corrupt Afghan by Western standards. We long ago gave up trying for 'corruption-free' and moved to 'acceptably corrupt'.

For example, the Afghan Army's pay is still done the old-fashioned way, with cash handed out at pay parades. In order to know how much cash for the paymaster to deliver to a unit, the unit sends an attendance report. This report is almost always exaggerated and under-reports the AWOLs, so the central disbursement will send more money out. The officers will keep the excess money. An unacceptably corrupt officer will keep the money and put it in his pocket. An acceptably corrupt officer will keep the money and put it in the unit fund to either buy things, or maybe as a fund to give to the families of soldiers killed. Both will get you court-martialled in a Western military, but now we look the other way in the second case for the Afghan purposes. We've taken a bit more to looking at 'moral intent' and accepability by local standards than we do the hard and fast Western line.
Further, 'You scratch my back' is a way of life over there, it will never be completely eradicated. The average Afghan likely doesn't care what sort of under-the-table deals the Karzai government is doing, they are far more likely to care if the police on the road are shaking them down for 'tolls'. There's actually a reason the police are instititutionally doing this, but that's where the anti-corruption focus should be. Unfortunately, the West's attention is taken up by the far less important issue of corruption in Kabul.

NTM

Avgas

I find it a bit ironic that the tone of most of the posts is basically to blame the Afghans themselves for the chaos and longevity of the war...relax I'm not working myself up into a rant about the injustices of the war or whatever.....but its interesting that nobody has pointed to huge errors on the side of the Western powers fighting in Astan.

Like for example.....

The failure to have a unified command..US forces notably were reluctant to operate with NATO allies fully and vice versa and one could throw in the fact that NATO are operating with between 50-80 national caveats on use of force, ROEs, and deployment, etc....that has changed a bit...but there is still a tension there between whether its really a NATO operation under UN mandate...or an American war with some NATO buddies along for the ride and a UN veneer of legality.

Mission creep-initially the presence was a relatively small post US invasion stabilization force and then it was decided by 2003-5 to beef up the numbers and deploy them for major ground fighting. Was this sustainable beyond one summers' worth of fighting season? Hardly.

Western armies are obsessed with high technology decisive manoeuvre warfare with relatively low numbers of troops and heavy dependence on fragile helicopters in particular. In fact, this ignores the importance of attrition and attritional strategies over time as being as often decisive. Germans were on average probably higher tech and better at manoeuvre warfare than Russians or Americans in WW2.....they lost! Israel are/were(?) masters of aggreesive desert manoeuvre and yet their (arguably) losing to an attritional long-war insurgency within and at their borders.

Western armies have mixed results at fighting long term variable intensity COIN wars. US and allies have taken a long-time to figure out what type of war their fighting in Astan and develop a workable COIN strategy. The main pillars of any sensible COIN policy in Astan is to negotiate with moderate Tban (yes really)....which is only being openly talked about now....should have been done in 2003 (prob. was be we won't hear about it until much later!). Also the ANA and the Afghan police are the two units who are crucial...the latter in particular is a total joke...whereas some units of ANA seem to be effective. But NATO should get ANA and AP to do the fighting. If they won't or can't, then that is simply natures' way of telling you its time to leave. That is understood now. It should have been policy in 2003. Instead of building the ANA/AP, NATO et al got side tracked into the more glamourous stuff of heavily fighting it out on the ground over the last 3-4 years. The points others have made about the unrepresentativeness of the Karzai government are valid, well made and crucial.

As an exercise in strategy, the war in Astan is flawed. It does not represent a sensible aggressive forward defence of NATO states from terrorists-in fact its so unpopular its giving domestic extremists a cause. It had tied down NATO and the US when they should be free to deal with terror threats more flexibly as they arise (for example Yemen) and at that primarily with intelligence, policing and SOF assets.

Just a few ideas.

twinytwo

Numerous reasons.. if they pull out the country will fall apart/ go back to the way to was, so how would they justify the loss of life and the expense?.... i personally dont think afghan can ever be 'won'. western style politices will never work there.