Winning in Afghanistan
A military analyst on what's wrong with U.S. strategy.
America's war in Afghanistan, soon to enter its eighth year, is arguably at its lowest point since troops drove the Taliban from power in 2001. Throughout the country, Taliban forces are making inroads. Allied casualties are at their highest since the war began. And Al Qaeda operates from a safe haven on the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, just out of America's reach.
Thomas Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and an expert on Afghanistan, believes the U.S.-led war now resembles the failed Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, which lasted almost 10 years and cost the mighty Soviet military about 15,000 lives. Johnson recently returned from Afghanistan, where he spent seven weeks talking to military officers, Afghan politicians and tribal leaders and, with the help of an Afghan go-between, Taliban commanders. Johnson shared his findings with NEWSWEEK's Dan Ephron. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: What is flawed about our approach in Afghanistan?
Thomas Johnson: It's the same problem the Soviets had in their engagement from 1979 to 1989 … The United States, just as the Soviet Union, controls all the urban areas and especially provincial capitals and Kabul. But this is a rural counterinsurgency, just as the mujahedin's conflict against the Soviets was also a rural insurgency. And you don't win a rural insurgency from Kabul or Jalalabad or Kandahar. You win a rural insurgency by maintaining a presence and insulating the villages in the rural areas. And that's what we don't do—unlike what the mujahedin did in their battle with the Soviets and unlike what the Taliban are presently doing in Afghanistan today, where they operate on the village level on a 7/24 basis, either intimidating or winning the allegiance of the Afghan people. That's what it takes to win an insurgency and that's what it also takes to win a counterinsurgency.
So let's unpack that. You're saying we're mainly on the big bases, we're not scattered throughout the rural areas. Are there enough troops in Afghanistan to have a presence everywhere?
Yes. I believe the problem in Afghanistan isn't necessarily a quantitative manpower problem but rather a manpower distribution problem. We have between 60,000 and 70,000 international troops in Afghanistan presently and the vast majority of these spend their time in the FOBs [forward operating bases]. We have at least 10,000 soldiers, airmen, Marines and the like in Bagram for example, which is at least 150 miles away from the insurgency. And Bagram has a Pizza Hut, a Burger King and even a massage parlor. But it's not the way to win a counterinsurgency. You have to be out in the villages … When I was in Solerno last year, which is a FOB near the Pakistani-Afghan border near Khost, I estimated—and nobody really argued with me—that while there were thousands of people at this base, probably less than 5 percent ever left the wire. And you just can't prosecute a counterinsurgency with those kinds of numbers.
If you have smaller numbers of troops in compounds throughout the country, how do you protect them? How do you make sure their bases don't get overrun by the Taliban?
The Taliban up to this point have not, with one exception, shown that they have the capability of overrunning an international force of the size I'm suggesting at the district level. What I talk about is about 75 ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] personnel complemented by 50 Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police and that's complemented by an additional 25 to 45 civilian development specialists—everything from hydrologists to agro-economists and the like … In most of the districts where the Taliban are operating, they're not roaming around in groups of 500 or even groups of 50. We're talking about tens.
And what would be the main mission of the troops at this local level? Is it to provide security for the Afghans who aren't getting it from the central government?
South of the Helmand River, where the Pashtun homeland really is, there's been very little reconstruction. So first of all, these district teams will be able to pursue reconstruction and development programs but not at the whims of Kabul … You would be basically building and enhancing the types of things the people themselves are suggesting are needed. This would help to solidify the traditional Pashtun social structure that's had a very sophisticated conflict-mechanism strategy over the years, that's been basically destroyed since 1979 when the Soviets invaded. I argue that what we really want to do is to rebuild this social structure that's been very good at resolving and moderating conflicts and the like. The next thing is that, you know, there's a symbiotic relationship between security and reconstruction. You can't have one without the other, especially in this campaign. We being at the village level would also offer village elders security. We're insulating them against the insurgents, the Taliban. And I think it would eventually drive the Taliban out of these areas, much the way it's been done in some of the urban areas in Iraq through the inkblot strategy.
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Member Comments
Posted By: aliyandilawar @ 10/16/2008 7:50:07 PM
Comment: I absolutely agree with Thomas Johnson???s identification of flaws in the present US counter-terrorist strategy in Afghanistan. The security situation has alarmingly deteriorated in the country over the past couple of years and Taliban or anti government elements are much stronger today than they were previously. They are free to operate and coerce/intimidate the rural population in large areas of the country (perhaps more than the government and international forces can do it under the present arrangements). The record breaking bumper crops of opium in last two years right under the nose of 60,000 international troops and Afghan government (practically absent form rural areas) have, on one hand, fairly resolved the Taliban???s dilemma of disruption to their financial channels and on the other, seriously question the role of international forces while being in cities. With a total agreement to writer???s argument on dissimilarity of Iraq and Afghanistan, and my personal experience of the region, I think the conventional wisdom of transplanting strategy of Iraq along with General Patreus and his surge approach needs to be seriously revisited. Perhaps, US needs to make Karzai Government play a bigger role than they are playing at the moment along with de-garrisoning of international troops from cities and moving them to villages. Taking more Pushtoons (may be some moderate parts of Taliban and I guess moderates do exist) on board thorough negotiations and making a more wider-netted and harmonized government in Afghanistan may help restore the situation
Posted By: aliyandilawar @ 10/16/2008 7:47:34 PM
Comment: I absolutely agree with Thomas Johnson???s identification of flaws in the present US counter-terrorist strategy in Afghanistan. The security situation has alarmingly deteriorated in the country over the past couple of years and Taliban or anti government elements are much stronger today than they were previously. They are free to operate and coerce/intimidate the rural population in large areas of the country (perhaps more than the government and international forces can do it under the present arrangements). The record breaking bumper crops of opium in last two years right under the nose of 60,000 international troops and Afghan government (practically absent form rural areas) have, on one hand, fairly resolved the Taliban???s dilemma of disruption to their financial channels and on the other, seriously question the role of international forces while being in cities. With a total agreement to writer???s argument on dissimilarity of Iraq and Afghanistan, and my personal experience of the region, I think the conventional wisdom of transplanting strategy of Iraq along with General Patreus and his surge approach needs to be seriously revisited. Perhaps, US needs to make Karzai Government play a bigger role than they are playing at the moment along with de-garrisoning of international troops from cities and moving them to villages. Taking more Pushtoons (may be some moderate parts of Taliban and I guess moderates do exist) on board thorough negotiations and making a more wider-netted and harmonized government in Afghanistan may help restore the situation
Posted By: Sultan Ahmed @ 09/30/2008 6:44:42 AM
Comment: By force to over Afghanistan is impossible
such test has already been done
by well-armed forces of a superpower
on the contrary they lost their integrity
and now their existancy but into pieces.
eight year ago,
there is no change in the circumstances
during the period as avove-stated,the insurgency
as they described it,
has been increased and gained more power
their way of guerilla fight rural and urban areas
has afraid Nato forces
war planners are looked failed in the war game.
Now Pakistan is involved fully as a front line ally against the war ofterror
millitary opration is going on in the area called safe haven of insurgents
they are sacrificingonly for proving their loyalty friendship
inspite of having knowledge that the whole people of pakistan have not
such approach have included in the policy
regarding the fight being fought in its own trible areas.
We have reached at the end of the ecnomic destruction
and america is also coming to this fastly
as Ahmedinejad perdicted during his address
to the united nation general assembly.
Russia has gone
drom this land
passing 10 years
losing 1.05 thousand armymen
emity-handed becauise he had also believe in power
blindly use in forces but failed
the reason was that similarity with curcumstances had match.
According to the independent reilable sources
and as have seen the United states has adopted same strategy
learn no lesson from the Russian war history
in Afhganistan
and moving forward in long dark tunnal
as i am looking there is no light at the end of it.
In the very start of the war
experienced statsmaen expressed their firm opinon
which were kicked out carelessly
today they are still expressing their concerne but disregarded brutalitly.
In case,
warior president wante some good results
if warior president want peace in the reason
if warior president have desire to save america
and other nato forces
and respectfully way out
will have to involved United Nations,
Iran,
China,
and Russia in this matter
for stable solution.
Sultan Ahmed, Faisalabad,Pakistan.