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Foreign Policy Articles Kabul Conundrum
Rand
H. Fishbein, Ph.D. If Afghanistan is anything, it is inhospitable. Just ask the British, who tried on three occasions to conquer what they called the North-West Frontier and found the task virtually impossible. The English soldiers were among the finest the empire could muster, but even they were laid low by the region’s rugged mountains, harsh weather and fierce warrior clans. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tamberlaine and a succession of Mughal kings, Persians and Russian czars tried to subdue Afghanistan and failed. It’s a grim story. Even the Soviets, all too familiar with brutality in war, found the fearless, fanatical tactics of the Pathan tribesman more than they could handle. Despite their sophisticated helicopter gunships, armor and artillery, Moscow lost the war along with an estimated 50,000 casualties, 14,500 of whom were killed. Veterans of the campaign speak of the savage mutilation of prisoners, torture and endless skirmishes with no conclusive victories. In such wars, there are no rules. As the Bush administration struggles to define its military options in Central Asia, it would do well to recognize the limits of its own abilities. To be sure, technology is an essential component of modern war. Yet, technology alone does not win wars, particularly in unfamiliar and remote lands. Moreover, it provides no risk-free solution to the problem of terrorism. The same can be said of conventional armies. In distant places such as Afghanistan they can be the agents of their own demise. Large, ungainly, slow to respond and difficult to supply, they have little ability to stalk the lone sniper or outwit the small-unit tactics of seasoned guerilla fighters. Just as those who faced down Castro, Kenyatta, Mao, Crazy Horse or the Viet Cong. A cunning, highly mobile enemy such as Osama bin Laden can strike hard in an instant and then just as quickly fade into the countryside. Supported by a network of caves, safe houses, buried weapons caches, rampant smuggling, a sympathetic populace and a nearly impenetrable social order, they can survive for years with no obvious supply lines. Blackjack Pershing learned as much when he led a force of 10,000 soldiers into the rugged mountains of the Sierra Madre in a failed campaign to capture Pancho Villa and his small band of outlaws. By the same token, a scorched-earth policy is of limited value. Years of fighting and civil war have left the region in a state of near total collapse. In a land where chaos rules, the people of the country have grown adept at surviving under the worst conditions of war and famine. Targeting them in an indiscriminate and disproportionate manner would be counterproductive. It would surely engage the sympathies of Muslims around the Middle East while serving no meaningful political or strategic purpose.
American Special Operations forces are trained for these kinds of missions. However, they have little familiarity with the specific terrain, culture or towns where they now are expected to fight. Their success will likely depend upon rapid infiltration and exfiltration, real-time intelligence, well-coordinated command and control, and the cooperation of local insurgents, particularly the Northern Alliance, which has been warring against the Taliban since its rise to prominence in the early 1990s. Massive firepower, so much the characteristic of the Gulf War, will have little utility here. Under these conditions, victory will be neither quick nor easy. It will be measured not by the taking of ground, but by the slow and deliberate grinding down of bin Laden’s organization, the elimination of its ringleaders, its operational centers and the governing Taliban elite. Fear will have to play a large part in strategy. Clerics who preach anti-Western violence, media personalities who encourage resistance, tribal chieftains who shelter the terrorists, all must be targeted. The same is true for the fathers and brothers who aid their terrorist sons and the larger family network that gives them shelter and support. At the end of the day, the war against terrorism, like the war against drugs, must be fought on many levels. Fickleness on our part will only stiffen resistance. Central Asia is no stranger to unconventional fighters such as bin Laden and will continue to produce them regardless of what we do in the present campaign. The goal then must be to demonstrate through our resolve and lightning-fast military action that we can visit upon the instigators of terrorism and their supporters the same level of social dislocation as they seek to inflict upon us. That means more than seizing money or property. It means disrupting blood lines, humiliating or killing clan leaders and choking off international political support. This new war will require that Washington marshal the forces of competing religious authorities against those who advocate terrorism against the West as an instrument of political warfare. To do anything less is to condemn our soldiers and our society to the specter of unending terrorism. To lose this fight is to have the United States follow in the footsteps of those who once tried to conquer Central Asia and left only their footprints in the sand. Rand H. Fishbein, Ph.D., is president of Fishbein Associates Inc., a public-policy consulting firm in Potomac, Md.(www.fishbeinassociates.com). He is a former professional staff member (majority) of the U.S. Senate Defense Appropriations and of the Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittees. Dr. Fishbein also served as a foreign policy/intelligence analyst on the Senate Iran-Contra Investigating Committee and as special assistant for national security affairs to Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/10/10/194522.shtml |
