President Obama has set out his plan for our withdrawal from Afghanistan, one with which his military chain of command is not pleased. I intend to start tracking this withdrawal in a serial article updated as I get new information. I began my effort on June 24, 2011. Click here for 2011 report.
__________
2012 Report
US-Afghan working post-2014 deal
SecDef Panetta said on February 14, 2012 that he expects an agreement between the US and Afghanistan on a post-2014 mission for the American military there to be worked out “within the next few weeks.” A NATO Source rep or of february 20, 2012 suggests that the negotiations involve maintaining as many as 15,000 US troops beyond 2014, most of whom would be special forces to “hunt down militants, and provide air cover, intelligence, logistical support and training for Afghan forces.” (022012)
Afghan transition about to begin by sending five “reconfigured brigades”
The Army is beginning its Afghan transition for 2013 from combat to advisory by identifying five brigades it plans to send to Afghanistan between April and August 2012. But the brigades will be only 50 percent manned and their mission will be to “generate, employ and sustain” Afghan forces, to wit, advise. The reconfigured Army brigades that will deploy starting in April are the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, from Fort Campbell, Ky.; the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, from Fort Stewart, Ga.; the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo.; the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, from Fort Bliss, Texas; and the 162nd Infantry Brigade from Fort Polk, La. Each brigade will deploy only with officers and senior NCOs along with some DoD civilians. Once in Afghanistan, they will operate as 18-person teams in a train and advise role. As these teams deploy, a total of 28,000 troops now there will leave as part the plan to get to 68,000 left by the end of September 2012. (021612)
Exit route from Afghanistan creating concerns
The French have expressed concerns about how to get its forces and equipment out of Afghanistan. The route through Pakistan is deemed insecure at present. The other option is known as the Northern Distribution Network, the NDN. The NDN begins in Latvia then goes to Russia, Kazakhstan, and into Uzbekistan. NATO also uses an air base in Dushanbe, Tajikistan and the U.S. uses the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan. The US is said to be paying $500 million per year to use the NDN, which the French consider too costly. Negotiations are underway with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Russia has already offered to use its routes. But Uzbekistan could be a problem. Afghanistan is landlocked, with Pakistan on the east and south, Iran on the west. The map reflects the routes collectively known as the NDN. Traditionally and historically, the US has used Karachi as a main port of entry and exit, used heavily during WWII when it was part of India. (021112)
Afghanistan challenge ripe with multiple interwoven issues hard to track and assess
The American announcement that it will convert from combat to advisory roles in 2013, and French announcement of perhaps withdrawing in 2013, have given rise to all manner of complicated issues and questions about what the future holds for Afghanistan and the US. In looking at just one day’s headlines, you will get the feel. US advisory teams are expected to start arriving this year. The US has been warned it will not be able to organize the Afghan people into any coherent whole. CIA is likely to have a large clandestine operation in Afghanistan after US forces leave. Afghan President Karzai is a main obstacle to negotiations with the Taliban. All kinds of questions emerge around what happens to Afghanistan when US troop-associated dollars leave. Talks, not negotiations, have been underway with the Taliban for years, filled with so many conditions and provisos that one’s head would spin in confusion. Afghans are now forced to hedge their bets regarding on which side to stand. As an aside, Russia has said it would help withdrawing US forces by letting them use Russian territory when they leave. Deep-seeded arguments persist at high levels and among he troops in the fight over how the war is going. (021012)
US has political mess deciding what to do about Afghanistan
The recent flurry of announcements about switching from a combat role to advisory role in Afghanistan in 2013 and the potential for an early French withdrawal have exposed a jumble of differing positions within the US government, executive and legislative, over what to do about Afghanistan. Anthony Cordesman, a respected analyst of military affairs, has said that the US has never had a real strategy for Afghanistan, especially with regard to what it hopes to achieve there. Accusations are emerging that President Obama has moved to this 2013 action in order to ready position himself for the presidential election. However, General David Petraeus, DIRCIA, has explained that a major transition would have to start in 2013 in order to get out by the end of 2014. SecState Clinton has decided to stay above the fray, at least publicly, saying, “I am not going to go into any details about what we are or are not prepared to do, because we are just at the beginning of this process of exploration whether or not there is an opportunity to bring about an end to the conflict through a political solution … There will continue to be all kinds of speculation about what is or is not happening.” Complicating all this now is that a military officer has openly challenged the civilian and military leaderships’ handling of the war. Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis wrote in the Armed Force Journal, "I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level… I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn't want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government … From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency."(020612)
Afghan deployments remain as scheduled, but …
For the moment, schedules for troop deployments to and from Afghanistan remain firm, but SecDef Panetta’s accelerated timetable for terminating combat in favor of advising could impact this downstream. Congressional members seem a bit miffed by his comments, and the administration does so as well. So it is hard to gauge what the plan is in Afghanistan, which is not unusual. Word on the street is there is a major political divide within the administration regarding Afghanistan. One of the more serious problems is, unlike Iraq, the enemy will still be fighting against our forces as they leave, to wit, our forces may have to fight their way out. (020312)
Something significant is happening in Afghanistan and near environs
Figuring out what is going on in Afghanistan and near environs is a dangerous business, but something significant is happening. NATO is meeting in Brussels on February 2-3, 2012 to discuss the future in Afghanistan of ISAF. France has announced it wants NATO to leave in 2013 vice 2014. US SecDef Panetta has announced the US will transition from a combat to an advisory role in 2013 vice 2014. The 2013 date is clever --- it leaves two more fighting seasons in the winter when the Taliban would prefer not to fight, periods when NATO makes major advances against the Taliban. Negotiations in one form or another with the Taliban have been underway for several years, and the Taliban will open an office in Qatar so long as it renounces global jihad. The US is considering letting some jihadists at Gitmo free. A classified NATO report was “leaked” that suggests that the Taliban will take over the Afghan government when the US leaves, and Afghans and others at all levels are playing both sides to save themselves. The US is exposing Pakistan’s duplicity, and even the Afghan government’s duplicity, but understands why this duplicity is taking place. The US is advertising its military as an expeditionary force, not an invasion, occupation, or large land war force. To that end, the Marines are being withdrawn to return to their expeditionary role rather than fighting a lengthy ground war, an Army job. Naval and Air Force forces are being preserved and defined into an expeditionary role, focused in the main on the Pacific. Additionally, the US is going to beef up its special operations capabilities. At the same time, the US is working preserve relations with Pakistan and to help that is making mud pies with India. Furthermore, the US wants Russia involved because the US knows the Russians fear an uncontrollable rampant spread of Islamic jihad to her borders. Finally, it appears the US is willing to live with Taliban governance in some form so long as it does not harbor people who mean to attack the US or its interests. Hold on, this is going to be quite a ride, especially for our combat forces still in the fight. Their efforts will direct much of the future negotiations and define how the US will transition out with honor and a situation with which it can live. We will hear a lot of talk, but we need to be careful about what all the talk means. (020212)
France wants NATO to leave Afghan during 2013 vice 2014
NATO defense ministers meet later this week in Brussels and France is going to suggest that NATO forces leave Afghanistan during 2013 vice 2014. For the moment, the NATO secretary-general has said NATO will stick to end of 2014. French President Sarkozy has said publicly his country will withdraw its forces by the end of 2013, but it is not sure how serious he is. This would cause a split within NATO and US authorities are urging the alliance to hold together. (013112)
Poles turn over Ghazni District to Afghans
The Polish Army turned over responsibility for the Ghazni District to the Afghans on January 12, 2012. It has been a very volute region. (011412)
National Intelligence Estimate of Afghan grim, differs with military assessment
Stars & Stripes, Ken Dilanian and David Cloud, report, “The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment (National Intelligence Estimate - NIE) that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan.” They say the military disagrees and has objected to the report’s findings. The problem is the NIE represents the consensus view of 16 US intelligence agencies. It projects the Afghan government cannot survive as the US withdraws. It brings into question whether the US can withdraw by 2014, or conversely, gives a picture of complete Afghan breakdown if the US does withdraw. I have seen other reports indicating the Taliban is almost sure to regain power after the US leaves. (011212)
Army turns over FOB Lion to Afghans
On December 28, 2011, the Texas National Guard’s 321st Civil Affairs Brigade officially turned over FOB Lion to the Panjshir Provincial Governor. Panjshr has been viewed as a model province. The Afghans intend to convert the FOB to a women’s college. (010612)
The logistics of withdrawing from Afghanistan a major challenge
US Army authorities are challenged by the many difficulties of withdrawing all their equipment from a landlocked Afghanistan bordered by nations hostile to the US, such as Iran, or fickle about the US, such as Pakistan, Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union. This withdrawal will not be easy and will not be cheap. A senior official said, "We have had 10 years of bringing things in, with none of it leaving.” At the moment, as most know, Pakistan is not allowing anything to come in and could do the same for things we want to take out. Moving the kinds of heavy equipment that have to be moved by air is prohibitively expensive, though planners could reduce costs by simply getting the material flown out to the nearest friendly port for shipment by sea. Withdrawal from Afghanistan will be far more difficult and dangerous than the withdrawal from Iraq. We are talking in terms of tens of thousands of vehicles, at least twice as many containers, and all kinds of equipment needed to support some of the more high tech systems like the surveillance blimps. There are also questions about whether Afghan roads can handle some of our more heavy equipment, like the MRAPs. Bases that cannot be used by the Afghan military must be returned to prairie to prevent hostile forces from using them. I will also add that centuries ago, when the British invaded Afghanistan, they lost as many or more troops leaving than they did coming in. Ambush attacks are most worrisome, and significant covering forces air and ground will be needed to protect the convoys moving out. Withdrawal by air requires far more time than by road, and units will be hard pressed to give up equipment they feel they need to protect themselves while such a slow withdrawal is underway. (010612)
US talking to Taliban
US diplomats and military leaders have been secretly talking with the Taliban, searching for a solution to the Afghan war. This has been going on for at least a year. The Taliban says it has made and agreement with Qatar to open an office in Doha. At the moment, it seems that most of the discussions, if not all, have been bilateral, leaving the Karzai government out. (010412)
The Marines continue to prepare to leave Afghanistan
The Marines continue to prepare to leave Afghanistan in very large numbers this year. You’ll have to learn some new lexicon. The Marines report the drawdown preparations this way:
“Over the last three months, Marine and Sailors of the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) have accounted for, sorted, cleaned and processed several millions of dollars worth of gear and equipment in support of Operation Clean Sweep aboard Camp Leatherneck and Camp Dwyer.
“This operation is part of Regional Command Southwest’s plan for redeployment and retrograde in support of reset and reconstitution (R4), which is a four-part term commonly used to refer to the concept of how the Marine Corps will most efficiently and effectively leave Afghanistan.” (010412)