Rush ‘n Attack
You probably won’t see anyone describe it in these terms, but the proposal for a city-focused campaign in Afghanistan reported by Thom Shanker, Peter Baker, and Helene Cooper in the New York Times strikes me as mighty similar to what the U.S.S.R. eventually settled into in Afghanistan:
At the moment, the administration is looking at protecting Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters, officials said. The first of any new troops sent to Afghanistan would be assigned to Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual capital, seen as a center of gravity in pushing back insurgent advances.
You probably won’t see anyone describe it in those terms because it sounds bad, but as I’ve said before I think the right way to understand the Soviet experience is to see that the United States could probably make this work. It sort of worked for the Soviets, and they were a much weaker and poorer country facing people who were getting much more extensive external support than our adversaries. But of course you’re still left with the fact that commanders in the region want more resources and would probably keep agitating for more even if you implemented this semi-limited strategy:
But military planners are also pressing for enough troops to safeguard major agricultural areas, like the hotly contested Helmand River valley, as well as regional highways essential to the economy — tasks that would require significantly more reinforcements beyond the 21,000 deployed by Mr. Obama this year.
Politically speaking, if you’re the President what you want to be able to say is that there’s some relatively restrained military policy that’s also “the best” policy. Realistically, though, it seems like a cheaper policy (let’s not worry about the Helmand River valley) actually has some drawbacks relative to a more costly policy. That is, of course, generally the way policy choices work. More generous subsidies make a health care mandate work better, but they cost more money. But it’s a bit alien to a lot of the way we talk about national security policy in the United States. Part of the iterative process between military professionals and civilian political leaders is that the political leaders need to reach conclusions about the importance of proposed ventures relative to other possible priorities. How much does the Helmand River valley really matter to the United States?
18 Responses to “Rush ‘n Attack”
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October 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
How much does the Helmand River valley really matter to the United States?
Not much.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
How much do Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad and a few other village clusters matter to the United States?
October 28th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I miss that video game.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Was there anyone who didn’t think the name of that game was “Russian Attack” as a kid?
October 28th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Wow, “Rush ‘n Attack.” That’s a hardcore reference.
In spite of all the errors, these kinds of references keep me coming back.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
“How much does the Helmand River valley really matter to the United States?”
Well, it’s the opium motherload, and the Taliban makes a lot of it’s money* there. (This is assuming we still see preventing a Taliban resurgence as key to national security, vis a vis preventing the return of an AQ safe haven.)
*albeit, not most, FWIH
October 28th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
If I understand correctly, the USA has tried various of its Vietnam strategies in Afghanistan and they haven’t worked. So now we’re going to try the USSR’s Afghanistant strategy. What next if that doesn’t work, try the South African approach of herding the tribes into Bantustans? The French, or at least deGaulle, seemed to learn something between Indochina and Algeria.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
We’re fighting the war in Afghanistan not to lose rather than to win. We should define winning as denying Al Qaeda a safe haven and preventing the production of Opium. We should abandon the thought of nation building and focus on killing the bad guys. We don’t need several thousand troops for that. We need good intelligence, a quick strike capability and a few well motivated professional soldiers. We should view the Taliban and Al Qaeda as a hunter views it’s prey. We have predators and other high tech weapons, let’s use them on a massive scale. More troops equals more targets for the opposition. Let them shoot at the sky as they await the arrival of a well place hellfire missile.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
sherifffruitfly: You can get your fix here: http://www.nescafeweb.com/game.play.php?gameid=147
October 28th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
“How much does the Helmand River valley really matter to the United States?”
The answer to that question depends on two others:
– How much does the Helmand River valley affect the outcome in Afghanistan?
– How much does the outcome in Afghanistan affect the situation in Pakistan?
Everyone agrees that what happens in Pakistan is important to our security. If Afghanistan goes to hell in a hand basket, what’s the impact on the struggle in Pakistan? If it’s negligible, than not only should we not worry about the Helmand area, but we shouldn’t worry about Afghanistan at all.
If it’s significant, than Obama should give McChrystal everything he asks for and then some.
Again, though, Obama needs to shit or get off the pot. You don’t send 20,000 men to fight and die in Helmand for six months and then start dithering about whether it’s important or not; you should have made that determination before you sent them.
October 28th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Focus on the Afghan Army, Police and Government. The rest will come with the requisite pressure and money.
I figure a dead Soldier/Marine costs about $1,000,000 (training and death insurance/processing/transportation). $1,000,000 @ $10/day will hire us a 100,000 Afghans. Do the math.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Freddie … I did.
And that game was fundamentally flawed. Contra was its superior in every facet, particularly the spread gun and laser (the latter of which could knock out the end bosses in just two or three shots).
Bonus points for the first person to give me the code to get 30 men …
October 28th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Danceswithgoats,
What you describe was the strategy in Iraq circa 2004. It’s easy to hire soldiers and police, but harder to hire and mold effective ones (and harder still in such a backward and illiterate country as Afghanistan). And in the meantime, someone needs to keep the bad guys from slitting your recruits’ throats, since your $10 recruits will not be able to defend themselves effectively.
October 28th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The last census of Afghanistan was in 1979. A census planned for 2008 was postponed until 2010 because of security concerns.
At the time of the 1979 census:
October 28th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
[...] our security. This is a fact that is slowly coming to light in the ongoing debate about Afghanistan. Matthew Yglesias over at Think Progress wrote today that, “Ppolitical leaders need to reach conclusions about [...]
October 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I guess the pingback software included my link to Matt’s post automatically in the comment above.
Matt’s definitely got a point about the need to do cost benefit analysis when looking at the Afghani issue. I’ve done some thinking about cost-benefit analysis in foreign policy in general, and I think we can learn a lot from how cost-benefit has been incorporated into the debate on health care.
For a worked out version of the argument, visit: http://jointstock.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/fp-cost-benefit/
October 28th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Wasn’t it Kissinger’s idea that (in Viet-Nam) you could try to protect 100% of the country 60% of the time or 60% of the country 100% of the time.
The more things change….
October 28th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
[i]The French, or at least deGaulle, seemed to learn something between Indochina and Algeria[/i]
If nothing else, they learned not to go back to Indochina when Johnson tried to get people on board.