Afghanistan: 1/10 the War, 1/10 the Cost… and 1/10 the Impact
The tribes are growing restless. Security measures across the south and far east are faltering, and they’re fed up with the empty promises of Kabul and NATO. How has it come to this?
One word: investment. Though things are certainly better than when the Bush administration forgot to fund reconstruction in the 2003 budget, Afghanistan’s total aid budget for the year can’t hope to compete with the $2 billion a week thrown at Iraq. No, Afghanistan—a larger country with more people and less infrastructure and fewer institutions—gets just over 10% of the funding set aside for the wars, and for reconstruction efforts. Even the “surge” in Afghanistan is one-tenth the size of Iraq: 3,200 Marines versus 30,000 Army soldiers.
It should be no surprise that Afghanistan is faltering—and just as important, NATO is unwilling to fully commit to it—when the Administration demonstrates in every way imaginable how little it cares. As an example, take Tarin Kowt—the dusty town ably covered by David Axe on his Afghanistan tour this past summer—where the Dutch are registering surprise that they have a fight on their hands. This comes after they believed intelligence that indicated there was no Taliban presence in Deh Rawood, a neighboring district, despite the heavy Taliban presence in Tarin Kowt. They then express surprise that in a matter of weeks the Taliban essentially wrest control of Mullah Omar’s birthplace back into their orbit.
Frankly, this is just lazy on their part. Any intel shop worth half its pay would have gathered from open sources that even Deh Rahwood was a looming trouble spot well before September 2007. Péter Marton’s excellent Uruzgan Series, which has explored most of the news coming out of the province as something of a case study for the narcotics and COIN campaigns, is ample enough proof that there was plenty of information about the danger of the area. Instead, the Washington Post would have us believe the Dutch were thrown to the wolves, and it’s someone else’s fault.
Regardless, the Dutch experience makes the rest of NATO highly reluctant to commit any more resources to the fight. After all, why should they? It’s not like the U.S. government cares any more.
Stumble it! |
Tags: Afghanistan, Military Affairs.
Posted by Joshua Foust on February 27th, 2008
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Comments
Time: 2/28/2008, 7:10 am
Bob, I’m paraphrasing the WaPo article. But you’re right that it was dumb to assume there were no Taliban in the area - there clearly were. Expectations for fighting are another matter, though, and if intel suggested that in late 2007 the Taliban would run without shooting, then it was bad intel.
Time: 2/28/2008, 6:39 am
“This comes after they believed intelligence that indicated there was no Taliban presence in Deh Rawood, a neighboring district, despite the heavy Taliban presence in Tarin Kowt.”
This part is flat out wrong, intelligence both US and DUtch suspected that if a large military presence would move into the area the taliban would run like they did before in Baluchi/Chora north of Tarin Kowt. The taliban however fought back but has. for now. been chased from the area.