One of our problems is thinking technology is magic. Thermal image tells you someone (or something warm) is there. Doesn’t help “the cause” to whack tribesmen.
Second, Taleban are not aliens. They have relatives. In a tribal society, that counts, even if you don’t like cousin Abdulmajid’s politics, allowing him to get whacked is bad for you cause that says your tribe is weak, that you’re suckers and you can get whacked too.
That’s not too say any of these things are magic bullets on the Taleban side, but thinking technology solves our problems is foolish. That kind of thinking got us here in the first place, underinvestment in humint.
Anyone know how many years Pol Pot was holed up in Cambodia after being run out of the capital? He had done equally terrible things, against his own people, leaving a lot of bereaved relatives, in a much-smaller country, where he should have been much easier to find, with a smaller contingent of supporters, and still died of natural causes.
I know the analogy isn’t perfect, but it does show some precedent. Bin Laden and Taliban do have real supporters, apparently lots of them, and they’re in their home territory among family (well, bin Laden isn’t, but …). I hope we get lucky, too, but I wish we didn’t have to count on luck, and we do.
We also seem to have to count on Pakistan’s acquiescence, their actual support not being forthcoming, since they have their own interest in not offending the Pashtun people or accepting any more of them as refugees, either. I wish we didn’t have to hope they don’t screw us, either, but we do.
I would only add to that the observation that ObL and his main coterie are largely old Afghan hands. It may not be “home territory” but they’ve got blood ties there now and know the terrain as well as anyone. Whether they get luckier than we do is of course to be seen.
Of course technology is not “magic.” But you brought up the Soviet analogy. Against the Soviets, the mujahadeen hid in their caves, and from those caves conducted a guerrilla war. I am simply pointing out that advances in technology have made that approach today impractical. Ergo, the Soviet analogy doesn’t hold water.
I’m all for viewing the situation cautiously, but there’s caution and then there’s defeatism. I am reminded of those who warned us of the dreaded “million-man Iraqi army” and “Saddam’s elite troops.”
Allow us a bit of optimism, will you?
I suppose time will tell whether the Taliban can mount an effective guerrilla campaign. Perhaps we can revisit this thread down the road.
Oh, indeed it does. Buckets full of water. Not on the superficial level of military, but on the deeper level of understanding the problems of intervention as a political thing in Afghanistan. It’s like a mined path. A wrong step and you have no footsie.
On one hand we have technology. On the other hand we have constraints of not bombing entire villages in retribution. An advantage insofar as we should be able to have at least passive cooperation, but also a restraint. To the extent family connections and tribal
Where pray tell is my defeatism? I don’t believe anywhere I’ve said I believe this is a losing proposition. I’ve attempted to point out the pitfalls to avoid the easy rhetoric and optimism of truimphalism.
I repeat, thermal imaging gets you jack if you don’t have humint. Now, we should have humint based on current affairs, but as recent events and Afghan history tells us, their cooperation may be something less than the public image.
Why? Optimism makes you sloppy. Paranoia keeps you on your toes. Murphy’s law.
I’m sure they “can” in the widest sense of the word. It is the politics of keeping folks at least not too unhappy and taking advantage of a window of opportunity and not fucking up and thinking radios, thermals and helicopters get you all. That is part of what Somalia was about, as well as an utter lack of understanding of tribal society and the subterranean kinship networks.
In many respects Afghanistan presents a similar challenge. Somalia did not have to be a fuck up, Afghanistan doesn’t have to be, but sloppy thinking will make it so.
ObL & Co. are on the run, and that severly limits their options. The nature of Afganistan limits ours, but not as much. We only need to get lucky once to get ObL.
What’s coming, as best I can see, is going to be the real tough slog. It’s special operations troops time. Technology can tell us where people are, but soldiers are going to have to go in and find out who they are. Being that most are going to be “innocent”, the rules of engagment are by necessity going to be restrictive, and that places the initiative with the fugatives. We’re going to take casualties. Maybe quite a few. Never-the-less, we still need only to get lucky once.
There are other issues at play here that have serious ramifications for long-term stability in Afganistan: Al Queda and the Taliban have a largish number of non-Afgan figters, who will mostly stay loyal. Further, around this core will be a large number of Pashtuns. The Taliban/Al Queda, while in power, had to guard & defend a large number of areas, thining their forces, and making them fairly weak everywhere. Now, they only have to guard and defend themselves, and so, despite defections, this allows them to be strong pretty much where they chose to be strong. Conversely, the Northern Alliance could be strong at the point of attack before, but now have responsibility for a large area that must be secured, patrolled, and protected. They have civil populations looking to them for safety, security, and government, and they are going to be spread thin.
Complete swap from last week.
Well, not quite complete swap. I’ll assume that the NA will remain a client of the West for as long as it suits their and our purposes, which will likely be at least until ObL is captured or driven from the country. Likewise, the Taliban will remain a client of certain elements in Packistan and elsewhere.
This all boils down to: More guerrilla war, but with the Taliban attacking, and the NA defending. I don’t see an end anytime in the prdicatable future.
Meanwhile, we should be doing anything within our power to held stabilize the country, and in most cases, stability means that the average Joe can feed his family without too much strugle. Agricultre, infrastructure, and mine removal. Those oughta be moving up our priority list real damn fast.
(Aside: Man, all this post-parsing makes my eyes hurt. Can we give that technique a break for a bit?)
That’s quite a collection of straw men you have there Collounsbury. Nowhere have I said that we will prevail without human intelligence. Nowhere have I said that technology is magical.
Technology is not magical, but neither is it irrelevant. Technology changes things. It gives us advantages the Soviets did not have. Perhaps I am missing something. Do Afghanis live in caves as a rule? If not, then I think any cave with a heat signature come winter is going to be awfully suspicious.
The other problem with the Soviet analogy is one of supply. The mujahadeen were provided with excellent materiel by a major super-power. Who will be supplying the Taliban?
It is of course always a mistake to underestimate your opponent. However, you and I may disagree on which party to this conflict has made that mistake.
Bin Laden may elude us. It is, as they say, a big world. But whether or not we catch bin Laden, I do not think the Taliban will be able to sustain a guerrilla campaign for any extended period. (Unless you count isolated acts of terrorism here and there as a “campaign.”)
Frankly, spoke-, I am betting the Taliban will TRY to wage guerrilla war. Either that or lay low for a few years in hope that the government will break down again and they have a chance to regain power.
I hope this isn’t OT, but are we sure OBL is still there. I assumed he would jet off to Somila(sp) or something as soon as he was sure we were actually coming in after him.
I think Elvis is correct. It looks very much that the Taliban government (to the extent it ever was a government) has collapsed. The Taliban fighters are reverting to the tactics used against the Soviets and are heading for the mountains to wage a guerrilla war.
There are two very big differences this time, however. First, the Taliban will have a much tougher time with resupply than they did when fighting the Soviets. (I know the Taliban didn’t fight the Soviets, but it’s many of the same people.) Second, we aren’t the Soviets.
I think that Collounsbury is completely correct when he points out that you have to remember the kinship and tribal dimensions. This, however, works against OBL now. Consider. OBL doesn’t have kinship ties with any of the locals (except possibly with Mullah Omar by marriage and I believe he, while a Pashtun, is actually a Pakistani). He certainly isn’t a Pashtun. The same is true for the hardcore of Al-Quaeda. If the “liberated” areas, (especially those not controlled by the NA) get lots of humanitarian help, friendly, smiling (preferably Muslim) peace keepers, improved quality of life and a start on re-building their infrastructure, the tribes harboring OBL & Co. will start to have serious doubts as to why they are freezing and starving on his behalf. (Note, I am not suggesting that we attempt to intentionally starve portions of the Afgan population!) My bet is that OBL will become extremely unpopular with his “hosts” and someone will turn him in pretty quickly.
I think the lesson of the last few days is that in Afganistan, nothing succeeds like success. The Taliban failed and the very Pashtun tribes that were their main support are now turning on them. To succeed, we must play a very delicate role. We must come across not as a conqueror, but as a temporary presence who, along with our Muslim allies are there only to help the country back on its feet. Now that we’ve demonstrated our strength to our enemies, we must demonstrate our graciousness to our friends.
My major concern is that the Taliban will “melt into the countryside” and reduce operations to such a low key that the allies will be lulled into thinking that they have defeated them entirely. Several months after our main military forces are out of the region there will flare up more guerilla type attacks by the Taliban with the intent of disrupting any ongoing attempts at establishing a new coalition government. For this reason, I can see little alternative to some sort of continuing outside military presence in the region. I could only hope that there would be some sort of UN forces installed to quell this exact sort of scenario. Any resurgence of the Taliban only bodes particularly ill for hopes of a stable Afghanistan.
Collounsbury, what is your read on this? I do not see how the Taliban can benefit from continuing to engage ours or the NA’s forces at the moment, regardless of Mullah Omar’s exhortations. A prolonged hit and run skirmish strategy is precisely what would serve their ends when it comes to disrupting any hope of peace in the region. I do hold some hope for our advanced technology to sniff out any of the cave dwellers that try to hole up for the winter. Thermal imaging will be a strong card in our hand for that segment of the campaign. What is far more troubling is the immediate issues of the NA making heavy inroads in the major population centers. It is critical that the UN or (if needed) the US (a far more difficult proposition) somehow dilute this inrush of the NA forces into the power vacuum that is arising out of the Taliban’s retreat. I do not see how any sort of coalition can be immediately woven into a sufficiently strong cord to bind the NA to any sort of power sharing structure. What other alternatives are there when it comes to making sure the NA isn’t just another devil with his hand on the tiller of Afghan politics?
If it’s any consolation, I don’t think we need to worry about the Northern Alliance overrunning the country. The NA have neither the logistical capacity, the organizational skills or even the manpower to do so. Soon to be ex-Taliban portions of Afghanistan will almost certainly be controlled by various Pashtun warlords.
I think we are more likely to run into to the opposite problem. The NA has never really been a unified command. There’s a far larger risk that the NA will start to fracture and start fighting amongst themselves again. There are worrying reports that Kabul is already being divided up into half a dozen areas under the control of different factions. (Collounsbury, what’s the latest on this?) In a way, the Taliban’s spectacular collapse is unfortunate as the military situation on the ground has far outrun our ability to deal with it politically.
Afghanistan has a history of exactly this kind of thing - apparently once one side perceives that it is ‘losing’, it pulls back out of the cities and back into the mountains, to regroup and attack again.
This was actually a very smart move by the Taliban, and bad luck for us in a way. It would have been MUCH better if the cities had held until the U.S. was prepared to cover the withdrawal of the Taliban with air power and destroy them like it did the retreating Iraqis. The Taliban suffered almost no casulties in their withdrawal from the cities, so their forces are largely intact (other than those lost in the front-line bombing). They now have a huge guerilla force in the mountains to counter-attack with.
This won’t be over for a long time, methinks. We’re just entering phase II, in which the Taliban formally gives up power and goes back to being the kind of Guerilla force that ejected the Soviets. Not that we have any intent of occupying Afghanistan, but the same tactics will work with whatever government is there.
I am going to mark this down on my calander as the first time Sam and I agree on anything.
The retreat does seem to have been a strategic move by the Taliban rather than a military loss. The NA are now spread all over the country holding real estate which they aren’t prepared to defend. The Taliban has thinned its ranks of any with questionable allegiance and are now positioned to use their military strengths.
There will now be strong calls for ground troops to go in and maintain order given the nasty reputation of the NA. I think the Taliban is hoping they arrive soon.
I think it’s worth bearing in mind what the Taliban bring to the party for Afghani’s:
For most Afghani’s, save for a very few fundamentalists and hard-core loyalists, the Taliban represent the only boss in town for the Mujihadin brought up as soldiers and who know not much else.
Given an option – thus far denied to them – there’s no reason to believe native Afghani’s will support the oppressive Taliban regime in any great numbers at all.
Thus when Mullah Omar, OBL and the rag tag remains of Arabs, Pakistani’s and the odd Afghani do hole up for the last stand, ain’t going to be too long before their whereabouts is pointed up by, for example, an entrepreneurial defector from the cause.
This isn’t 79-89 revisited, nor is it the Mujihadin of old. The core Taliban are non-Afghani’s holed up in a country that, largely, doesn’t want them. The net closes, IMHO, as alternatives (non-NA, non-Taliban but Pashtun) open up to the people of southern Afghanistan.
Plus, another bomnus is the overwhelming US Air support. This is a mountain country. In wintertime its gonna be hell in there. And guess what? The minute we find the Taiban, we can go in and drop a bit hotter version of hell on their heads. Sure the countries bg, but our jest can go from one end to the other in 2 hours.
Another, and even more important plus is that the people fighting the Taliban are not the standing Soviet regulars, they are hardned vetaran warriors just as skilled in guerrilla tactics. Plus, they have expert advice from the best-trained and best-equipped military machine in history, and complete air command via the US.
The fact that the Taliban is despised by many, if not most Afgani groups helps, too.
(a) Spoke I fail to see a straw man in my response. Your post
seems to lack mention of humint. Hard to read in what is not there. Insofar as a fire may be a herder, a traveling non-Taleban party etc…
Now, as to Afghanis living in caves or the wilderness, all I know from people I know with Afghan experience is you will have tribal people up in the mountains and simply assuming anyone out and about (or sheltering in a cave as they travel) is Taleban is not a good default strategy.
Aside from the fact, as I said, the Taleban are not aliens. They have tribal connections. Further, the cave connection is not as relevant to the Pashtun based Taleban as their ability to melt into Pakistan tribal territories where the government’s writ does not reach.
Once more, technology is far, far less relevant than the politics and the human intelligence.
(b) Mulla Omar is not Pakistani, he’s Afghani. He studied at one point in Pakistan, and once more it is best to recall that in the case of Pashtun tribes, tribal solidarities run neck in neck with these vague states run by strange English speaking generals who effeminately shave.
And again, while perhaps Abulhamid may not have liked cousin Abdulmajid bossing him around as a Taleban, that does not necessarily translate into him wanting to hand over Abjulmajid to the White Boys or the Ouzbeks or someone else.
What that means for the leadership, I don’t know. I do think that our optimists here are underestimating the degree to which the Taleban, including the leadership and the old Arab Afghan hands (those with 20 or so years of experience and now kin ties in Afghanistan) may be able to melt away, possibly into the uncontrolled Paki border lands.
I certainly hope this is not the case, and I give moderate chances of near term success for the US, but I see far more complications than our optimists.
