I’ll freely admit that the debate over what value roads have is certainly not settled, even if I have my own mostly-informed opinions of them. In brief, roads are an essential long-term component of Afghanistan’s stability, but in the meantime they represent an incredible example of the dual-use nature of infrastructure—the very constructs that enable a quicker reaction force also enable a quicker insurgency, with the side benefit of channeling local traffic through a single, indefensible path.
Moon of Alabama just wrote a post on “the road war,” which is the growing presence of violence along these roads.
Between 100 to 150 US troops have withdrawn from a strategically important district of the the Afghan province of Ghazni, officials say.
They say that soldiers retreated from the district of Nawa after repeated attacks by Taleban insurgents…
Roads are not development or counterinsurgency. Their primary use is as logistic ‘lines of communication’ for the occupation forces.
Positioned in Nawa, the Taliban can now easily cut off road bound logistics for the Canadian forces in Kandahar and for the British and U.S. forces in Helmand province, west of Kandahar.
Unfortunately, this seems like slightly muddled thinking. Are the Taliban militants and NATO BOTH occupying forces? I can see that case being made, but it really looks like b is arguing that roads are dual use: they enable better security but also present easier targets. The post is worth reading in full (though avoid the comment section, which descends into trolling fairly early on).
Worthy of note, too, is Graham Thomson’s picture diary of a trip along one of these roads in Panjwai. He notes the frustration of continually rebuilding the same 10km patch of road the Taliban keep blowing up, as often as they can when NATO fuel trucks are traveling along it. This is what roads do: by concentrating traffic, they create incredibly tempting targets, like T.E. Lawrence cutting rail lines in the Ottoman Empire.
Alas, the constant attacks on and near the Canadians have led to a sort of Iraq-in-2005 outlook, in which paranoia of suicide attacks leads to “pre-emptive” shooting at civilians who wander too closely. The full report of that experience is here, also courtesy Graham Thomson.
Both ideas paint a discouraging picture of the security arrangements in Afghanistan: an insecure supply route coupled to routine secession of districts to AAF control (that’s two in as many months, counting the withdrawal from Want that gave them Waigal district in Nuristan—both in RC-East, which is ignored as the actual centerpiece in Taliban and other militant attacks, rather than the south), coupled with violent if understandable paranoia on the part of the occupying troops… well, let’s just say those situations don’t end well. For anyone. Except, I suppose, the Taliban.
Parting thought: Where the hell is the American media on this? Lara King does a so-so job at the LA Times, and Carlotta Gall’s dispatches in the New York Times are must-reads, but that’s two women covering the entire freaking country. Furthermore, the way the Canadian and British presses have structured their coverage they’ve been able to get much deeper, more in-depth stories out of these areas. Since we’re all finally coming into agreement that, hey, Afghanistan actually does matter in the big picture, maybe media could try broadcasting more than 45 minutes of coverage a year, and a few more papers could send out correspondents? Just a thought.
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Thanks for the link to the Canadian “firefighter” story.
One thing that struck me is, if it is so easy to avoid the roads and go through the desert… maybe roads aren’t as big a priority as we are making out.
This also looks like a good space for civilian-assisted satellite photography analysis. We are looking not for any type of car, but cars that stop in the middle of a stretch of road.
Re: The American Media
What are you talking about? I’ve seen that there have been many, many hours of coverage of the missing Baby Caylee.
Don’t forget the countless hours of coverage of the shocking revelation that a politician lied about cheating on his wife, since the U.S. has never seen that phenomenon before, ever, in any of its leaders. No one even mentioned the funnier/sadder side of that, which is that now we know cheating on your cancer-ridden wife is actually a bi-partisan affair, so to speak, and not just a Republican thing.
But we digress. With very few exceptions, the Brits and Canadians provide the best modern coverage of Afghanistan out there, period. And they didn’t even start this war.
Hi Joshua – only found this today – the FT had agood piece on the road war on Aug 12: Taliban attacks Nato by choking supplies
It is behind the (free) subscription curtain – I have excerpted a lot of it here
Check out Michael Yon, an independent journalist who raises his own funds to cover his costs. He’s been in Iraq for years and is now moving to the front lines again. I’ve found his coverage very insightful and actually bears much evidence of critical thinking. He’s not bias free (ex-special forces), but he’s also actually there, in the middle of things.
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