Key indicators

I said this would be a key metric, and, truth be told, I did not quite expect it to move in this direction, the positive direction. But so far that is the picture that is emerging (excerpt):

"U.S. military officials said this week that Pakistan's operations in Swat and South Waziristan were already having a measurable effect on the amount of equipment and violence spilling over the border into Afghanistan."

There's a definite impact, and I think it almost can't be overstated," said Col. John Spiszer, who is the commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, a unit responsible for security operations in northeastern Afghanistan along the Pakistani border.

Spiszer said Taliban elements appeared to have concluded that they could no longer afford to send as many fighters or weapons into Afghanistan because they may be needed to fight the Pakistani army in tribal regions that the militants have used as safe havens since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among militant groups along the border in Afghanistan, "weapons are drying up. Money is drying up," Spiszer said via a satellite interview with Pentagon reporters. "There's only so many resources to go around. . . . If they're having to use them to fight against the Pakistan military and the [paramilitary] Frontier Corps, they certainly aren't of use here." "

The environment of conflict

Learning about the effects of environmental changes is important in order to become aware of the interdependencies of the global socio-politico-ecosystem we live in. It can make one realise how all of humanity could, in theory, exist in something like a world security community - even while global solidarity is not realistically likely to ever permeate all areas of our lives, organised into the sub-global-level political groups that we tend to hold more relevant for reference.

More importantly from a practical point of view, fail to take into account the impact of environmental changes and you are going to fail in truly comprehensively understanding political processes.

Three quick examples:

- South Asia's history cannot be understood without appreciating the impact of Cyclone Bhola in 1970, which killed hundreds of thousands in today's Bangladesh and contributed to the secession of what was then East Pakistan; it cannot be understood without appreciating the impact of 1970s drought and the great 1972 famine on the course of Afghanistan's history, either. (Or without the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and so on...)

- Cyclones may be a natural phenomenon, behind which few generally look for causation factors beyond acknowledging (dramatic sigh!) that nature can still overwhelm us, in spite of the technological progress we made. But of course not all natural disasters are free of political factors contributing to bringing them about or aggravating them. Usually they are not free of such factors, in fact. Famines' complex political and social context, their multifold, interlinked reasons, are now better known. The 1980s' famines in Ethiopia, for example, are widely considered as complex humanitarian emergencies which were aggravated (made complex) by the insurgencies raging in the Ethiopian countryside, in almost all corners of the country, at the time. But, in fact, the buck doesn't stop within the borders of Ethiopia. Far larger-scale changes were also responsible for the drought experienced there in those years: e.g. the phenomenon of global dimming, to which the industrialised world contributed significantly.

- This article in the Economist highlights how satellite-based forecasts can help in the prevention of epidemics as they can provide early warning of, say, the increased lifespan and the increasing geographical spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes. The narrative is interesting: the scientists are the good guys in the article; the Kenyan government is impotent at best, potentially even negligent. But no mention is made of the reasons of the changes in the weather patterns that contribute to altering mosquitoes' (and malaria's and the Rift Valley fever's) prospects. And among those reasons are the general causes of climate change. Pollution. Industry. The good life... (Those will be part of the reason why diseases like the Rift Valley fever will come to good old Europe one day, my friends - malaria will just return here as I'm sure you know).

As the latter example already showed, it is not only in order to understand the past that one has to familiarise oneself with environmental changes, but also to be able to gauge the prospects of potentially catastrophic future events. The threat of Ug99, of which I wrote here first in April 2007, is still around, and who knows what will happen if it adds to the effects of climate change in places like Sub-Saharan Africa.

Why this mini-overview here? Well, first of all, the apropos: here is a new report, out on the human impact of climate change, titled The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis. It came out on the occasion of the 2009 Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, and it is worth a read by you.

An excerpt (from page 15):

"Currently over 2.8 billion people live in areas of the world prone to more than one type of the physical manifestations of climate change: floods, storms, droughts, sea level rise. Physical vulnerability to climate change is used to mean that an individual is vulnerable if they face a medium to high risk of experiencing at least two of these events. The figure below shows the areas which are most physically vulnerable to climate change. (In Section 3 below, please note that, when secondary socio-economic factors are included, over 4 billion people could be considered as vulnerable to climate change and, of these, over half a billion as extremely vulnerable.)"

When it comes to South Asia, usually the primarily relevant region as far as this blog's interests are concerned, the report notes some paradoxically positive impacts even. Water scarcity will not necessarily become a problem as the Himalayan glaciers melt. But even this might not mean anything good if it only leads to more severe weather in the wet seasons. And overall South Asia is set to take the bulk of the complex economic damage resulting from climate change, according to the report's assessment.

This makes one sad. We are theorising over how to break the conflict cycle in places like Afghanistan, how to improve tactics in counterinsurgency, how to create the conditions for producing licit crops in the country, and so on. But, meanwhile, there are destructive forces at the work to which we are not paying so much attention as there is not all that much we can do about them, being the sideline observers of political developments in a small region of the world that we are.

Bugbots

Watch this video, and see a revolution in military affairs down the road if you like. Sure bugbots would help in COIN. And sure they will help anyone else getting hold of them further down the road.

You know, I didn't like insects all that much while they were just insects.

This after the robot dog. The time shall come when miscreants in Afghanistan cannot be sure if that camel spider that bit them was really just trying to get their hearts and minds.

Unfortunately, the evolution of science and technology is, in the end, not suited for human hearts and minds.

Teh EU Pakistan Summit

The EU held a Pakistan Summit recently, and more or less this is what came out of it.

I offered some pieces of advice to the EU in advance - see below - at the request of the Atlantic Community think tank. They asked a lot of experts, people with whom I very much like being mentioned together. What I said did not really make it into the initial summary of the survey results, but this will not ruin my pleasure :)

So, in three brief points.

1. Do not look at Pakistan policy in isolation.

Having come to the understanding that challenges in Afghanistan can only be handled in a regional approach, one should not forget that our important interests in Afghanistan can only be achieved and protected if our Pakistan policy contributes to furthering our aims there.

2. Afghanistan policy can contribute to furthering aims in Pakistan, too.

Pakistan faces a severe challenge by the Pakistani Taliban movement, and by other militant organisations across the country. To convince all key actors in Pakistan to definitively abandon endeavours to use these organisations for strategic purposes at any point in the future, one has to show strong commitment to defeat Islamist militancy on the other side of the Afghan-Pakistani border. EU countries cannot afford to show wavering in their commitment in Afghanistan, as that undermines our goals in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

3. Delink aid to Pakistan from counter-terrorism.

Aid to Pakistan is necessary. Yet it should be delinked, as much as possible, from counter-terrorism. Paradoxically, its contribution to stability would only grow as a result. A perception that it is given in order to help Pakistan deal with terrorism, or to make Pakistan deal with terrorism, is to be avoided, as much as possible. Pakistan can deal with the issues related to terrorism the most effectively if its society and its political elite mobilise against it, but they have to do so largely by themselves. Avoiding the semblance of indirectly paying for kills and captures through aid could enhance the political appeal of the EU, and it would also help to avoid providing a perverse incentive in the Pakistani setting, with regards to tackling militancy. It is also likely that such, more normal aid activity, albeit with a clearly declared and demonstrated commitment to provide aid in the long run, would be more productive, even as aid per se.

***

Meanwhile, everyone from Oxfam to Richard Holbrooke is talking about how the EU does not really pay up yet when it comes to the humanitarian crisis, i.e. the refugees from Bajaur, Malakand and elsewhere. That is what I would add now to all you see here, above. Of course, the handling of this crisis should also include reconstruction in areas that were devastated in the military operations in Swat, and that is definitely something the EU should meaningfully aid.

New header

The blog now has a new header. This is the photo which I cut to fit there:

Pakistani Taliban. A band of men wielding machine guns, mounted on a pickup truck. Business as usual; an image observers of developments in the region are all used to. But even in such a picture, interesting details can be highlighted. One of the most misplaced perceptions regarding Afghanistan is how supposedly it is tribal in the sense that tribal fault-lines would mostly be driving the insurgency, and that they would be the key to engineer a social context conducive to COIN success there. Ironically, it is the Pakistani Taliban who are arguably more tribal then their Afghan counterparts. But even the Pakistani Taliban are made up of all sorts of elements. See illustration below:

So why is that guy in the frame wearing a mask, while the others are not? Is he more camera-shy? Is he more inclined to travel across international borders? Just asking, without knowing the answer.

Cooperative kingpins and lilywhite purity

I just ran into this video report, and it is a must-see, even while I have my problems with it (more on these problems later on).

Mark Corcoran is an award-winning journalist who received much praise for his 2002 reporting from Kandahar, where he covered how Haji Bashir Noorzai was a vital king-maker with his 10,000-strong militia behind Gul Agha Shirzai's becoming governor there, right in the wake of the post-9/11 intervention.

In this video which I am just linking to, Corcoran now follows up on his story. Seven years down the road, Haji Bashir Noorzai (of whom I wrote at this blog quite a lot) is in a U.S. prison, sentenced to life for his role in the drugs trade (he was lured to the U.S. with false promises and then trapped there). Gul Agha Shirzai, in contrast, is Nangarhar's governor now, praised for his counternarcotics successes by some. (And, let's not forget, then-presidential candidate Obama visited him first last year, on his trip to Afghanistan, even before he would have met Hamed Karzai.)

I was most interested to hear about Haji Bashir Noorzai. I find his story fascinating for the dilemmas it can be used to illustrate. The Pentagon was working with him, then the DEA and the State Deparment got their way to put him on a wanted list. A key provider of intelligence he was, and yet he ended up arrested in a Manhattan hotel, which of course did nothing to stop the flow of heroin from Afghanistan. Now Corcoran's report delivers some more details regarding the background of the case, making the Pentagon's (or rather its political leadership's) role look more complex, with the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz duo's role highlighted behind Rosetta Research, a contractor that handled contacts with Haji Bashir Noorzai for a while.

It's all extremely interesting, although the way the Western discourse evolves tends to push my blood pressure a little. Example: What do you think Thomas Schweich (former U.S. ambassador for counternarcotics in Afghanistan) gets wrong when he says "You can't look for lilywhite purity in Afghanistan; it doesn't exist by our standards"? Nearly everything, of course. This statement would need to be modified a little bit: "You can't look for lilywhite purity in Afghanistan, either; it doesn't exist." (And just simply drop the collectively self-glorifying "our standards" from the original phrase.)

My main point of criticism regarding Mark Corcoran's otherwise extremely interesting report is: what's your position, Mark? What should the "U.S.," the unitary actor that it isn't (and your report shows this), have done? You surely can't coherently blame it for everything and its opposite... You say "the wildly swinging moral compass of the U.S.," but it isn't clear what's going on with your compass? You seem to suggest one should work with people like Haji Bashir Noorzai, rather than dupe them, but then what's that score playing all the time in the back, making the spectator feel like "Afghanistan" is shorthand for "the world of despicable, purely evil crime"?

Having criticised so many for so many things, here's some criticism of my own analysis. The other day I was mocking an article in Dawn for talking about "sophisticated front companies" of the Taliban, and their "regional investments." But in the video highlighted above Haji Bashir Noorzai is mentioned as having handled hundreds of millions of dollars for mullah Omar. So...

Get some!

A lot of interesting stuff is made available at Jihadica now.

I picked this paper to start with:

Anne Stenersen

"Foreign fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11"

I found it interesting, although, as to one of its main conclusions, I don't see that much tension between statements that al-Qaida, after the failure of the Iraqi franchise, redirected its focus to the Afghan theatre, while the Afghan theatre was always important to it.

Back in 2003, bin Laden said, "Get the Americans in Iraq before they get us here." They won four years, and Afghanistan lost four years "in the mean times." And then the ball was bouncing back in Afghanistan again.

But the paper (actually, rather the transcript of a presentation, unfortunately without references) is well-written, and Anne Stenersen, armed with the required language and analytical skills has sorted through a hundred "martyr-biographies," of fighters who died since 9/11 in Afghanistan.

If this much wasn't enough to get you to make your move, here's an interesting excerpt:

"...a large majority (about 70%) was physically present in Afghanistan at the time of 9/11, and chose to participate in the fight against the US invasion before withdrawing to Pakistan. This means that the foreign militants who managed to flee the US-led invasion in 2001 also became the core of the new contingent of fighters that have been active in the area after 2002 - at least up until 2006. Today, many of these foreign fighters have of course been killed, and the question is to what extent they have been replaced with new militants. Since I am only using open sources in my studies, it is too early for me to tackle and discuss this question."

Neutral aid

I checked out the EU's official briefer about what the Commission is involved in, in Pakistan, in the wake of the military operations in Malakand. This is what I found.

I will pick on one sentence in there.

"The Commission’s support is provided strictly in accordance with the principles of neutrality and impartiality"

Impartiality, that's fine. We don't want to give aid only, say, to Sikh residents of the Swat valley. That is practical.

But could somebody explain to me what "strict neutrality" means in this context?

Could somebody explain what the European Commission is trying hard-hard to communicate there?

So why Lashkar Gah?

For certain reasons, I will not link to the place where recently there was a discussion about why on Earth (I mean, in Afghanistan) the U.S. should focus on Lashkar Gah? Something that was recently advocated in a CNAS report. Another thing, remarked at the same place, about the same report, was that it keeps mentioning Taliban, just Taliban all the time. Why?

Well, here is an AP report, where some words could be highlighted (in capitals) to give a tentative answer.

"Some 7,000 of the new U.S. troops ordered to Afghanistan are fanning out across the dangerous south on a MISSION TO DEFEAT THE TALIBAN INSURGENCY and to change the course of a war claiming American lives at a record pace.

The marines represent the first wave of 21,000 troops ordered to Afghanistan this summer by President Barack Obama.

Most of the marine buildup will occur in HELMAND PROVINCE, THE WORLD'S LARGEST OPIUM POPPY-GROWING REGION and Afghanistan's most violent province. Helmand borders Pakistan, WHERE THE TALIBAN'S TOP LEADERSHIP IS BELIEVED BASED."

I know this doesn't sound that sound. I know.

At least the Lashkar Gah-mania one could read out from this doesn't stem now from damned past dam projects and wishful thinking concerning some latent loving for America hiding deep there in the people's hearts, as it once used to be after 2001.

Reminds me, I've just read an article in Dawn about the different Taliban movements' sources of financing... How would you agree with this assertion below?

"Then there is the Afghan Taliban and their earnings from the drug trade in Afghanistan and their more sophisticated front companies that make investments regionally and internationally and plough some of the money back into insurgency-related activities in Fata."

Sophisticated front companies of the Taliban? Making regional investments? I tend to disregard the second half of the sentence. What remains is "earnings from the drug trade." Some commanders taking percents, sure. A toll. Sure. Organising the trade themselves? Not so sure.

Let's see what else the article mentions. Emerald mines. Kidnappings. Robbing banks. A slice of the earnings of timber maffias. (Let me straighten this out: so in the author's view the Taliban are not the timber maffias themselves? Are they Pakistani offshoots of the drug maffias on the other side of the border, and as such taking a slice from the timber maffias? Confusing...)

OK, even if Taliban in all of Durandistan profit (to a degree) from crime, this all looks so fussy, doesn't it? I mean, imagine if you were them. You want to shoot millions of rounds a year, and you would really want to do that by shooting some more in the world of crime? Of course the article begins not with these sources of financing. It also mentions support coming from supportive people, to the Taliban. Which is not very revolutionary, you could say, but tends to work quite well in many contexts.

So what's your bet? Would focusing on eliminating the "drugs" agro-industrial sector of Helmand's (rural) economy give you calmer nights in ("urban") Lashkar Gah? We shall see. I would love to be pleasantly surprised. It's just that I'm a little uncomfortable seeing how the answer to the above question is a seed from which different things could grow, while I don't have much that is reassuring available from the sources at my disposal.

Update (at 22:53):

For dramatic effect I will extensively quote here myself from November 16, 2008.

"The question could then be if more soldiers are useful in Afghanistan? Of course they would be. Again, this is something I put down in the past. Populated areas need to be secured so that ideally no combat take place there. Then and only then it will mean something positive if other units can draw fire from the guerrillas in areas where countering harrassment mortar fire with small arms, artillery and air strikes causes less damage and less loss of innocent life.
This is not enough, however, if guerrillas commute to Afghanistan from the other side of the border with Pakistan. As long as that is possible, and with the extreme terrain of eastern Afghanistan, this war can very much be sustained by those who wish so.
A "surge" could be useful with troops positioned very-very carefully along these sections of the border, to man more speed-bumps against infiltration. All the routes that are passable by but one man or a donkey have to be mapped and known, and defending units' position optimised accordingly. That would take a huge effort, and in fact more strikes at targets of opportunity against guerrilla units organising for infiltration along and around the infiltration paths, anywhere around the border. This would help in areas of Afghanistan further away. Yes, the neo-Taliban insurgency in the south has probably more of a local constituency, but even so it is reinforced significantly by anything and anyone coming from the east. Supplies and fighters. The impact of closing down the eastern border more effectively could be marginally significant in the south, even while the Afghan-Pakistani border is no less infiltratable from Baluchistan. Baluchistan is less of a home ground for the infiltrators than, say, Bajaur is."

In other words. Holding on to the Korengal valley more firmly wouldn't make sense for l'art pour l'art counterinsurgency'ing (pardon me for the verbal abuse) the Korengal valley's population (although NOT occupying the local insurgent leader's saw-mill to have you a combat outpost there could kind of make sense from all sorts of perspectives). Holding on to the Korengal valley (not just heroically trying with too few men) - and holding on to other similar transit corridors as well - would make more sense from a strategic POV. Controlling Helmand would make more sense from an election security perspective.

Pakistani peoples party?

News of some massive re-adjustment going on in the ranks of the Pakistani middle class. The survival strategy of the day is no longer being understanding towards the hordes of armed men who had descended onto the Swat valley, amidst rants about U.S. policies (which, do not misunderstand me, did seem like a rational approach for those who could not be entirely sure if no Taliban ever came to their house one day). Now that the monsters are gone (back to the mountains), relief can be expressed freely.

Forward-looking observers, such as Asad Hashim, are warning that

"Pakistan’s defence secretary, Syed Athar Ali, has claimed that the operation in Malakand division ‘is 90 per cent complete’, which is a foolish boast, one feels, because all it implies is that militants have been pushed out of settled areas into their hideouts in the mountains. The military is going to have to pursue them there, on their home turf, and attempt to dislodge them permanently. Or else all this: the deaths of over 4,500 militants and soldiers (if Mr Ali is to be believed), the destruction of Mingora and other cities, and, above all, the suffering of the internally displaced people across Pakistan will have been for nothing.

And then? Well, Waziristan. Here’s hoping that our man Zardari has a ‘plan’ for that one, too."

By plan, Asad Hashim is referring ironically to how lucky Pakistan got, after the release of Sufi Muhammad in April 2008, and the Nizam-i-Adl agreement. These were all done in appeasement rather, but these measures have taken some of the wind out of the Tehrik-e Taliban's sails, and let the people see them more for what they really were.

Of course, nobody can be entirely sure that there are indeed thousands of militants among the dead buried under the rubble. As to the internally displaced, they are not only suffering, in some places they are also receiving some aid along with ideology, in one package, just like the victims of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake used to.

Here's an outline of the general health conditions:

"Pakistan's health care system is loaded with grim statistics, beginning with an annual budget of less than $150 million this year. The government says it plans a 56 per cent increase next year, bringing the budget to $300 million.

By contrast, Pakistan's defence budget last year came to $3.45 billion, and is expected to reach $3.65 billion next year.

More grim statistics: A new doctor to the government service is paid $120 a month, with an additional $16.50 housing allowance. There are only 12 doctors to every 10,000 people in Pakistan and 10 hospital beds to every 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That compares to 22 doctors and more than 30 hospital beds in the United States.

Khan says international charities have provided medicines and field hospitals in refugee camps. But only about 20 per cent of the two million refugees are in camps."

Thus there is no rabies vaccine in the camps, for example, while dog bites are frequent.

In the end, the greatest concern was not that the Taliban would end up occupying Islamabad or Karachi in a continuous expansion out from the FATA. It was rather a gradual spread of their ideological appeal in the rural areas on the one hand, and the generally bad consequences of the growing extent of areas within Pakistan affected by the fighting.

The big question is if the Taliban's latest (not the first) adventure in the Swat proves to be a wave-breaker, with their ideological appeal significantly hurt. But in any case, the consequences of the fighting are now severely serious for millions of people. And if just 1 percent among them think that it is not the Taliban to be blamed for this, that is not so good.

The new CNAS report many are blogging about

Authored by a number of CNAS fellows, including fellow-blogger Andrew "Abu" Exum, there is a new report out on how to do triage in Afghanistan and Pakistan (I mean, if somebody reading this hasn't yet noticed). Here are my critical remarks - some in the form of questions.

Some remarks:
- The civilian surge sells and works better if it is done in order to prepare the ground for channeling more aid through the Afghan government. If there is no commitment to that... (Wait, is that state-building we are doing there?)
- Also, take into account that corruption in Afghanistan is not really an independent variable (as much as you can objectively measure it). Prospects and pay matter at least as much as people. By the way the "people" in this equation are generally the B team that are not working as officers, drivers or interpreters for the IGO/NGO crowd.

Some questions:
- How can it be guaranteed that the Pakistani police get the aid that is meant for them?
- How can it be expected of them, even with better equipment, to take on seasoned fighters of the Tehrik-e-Taliban, who are aided at times by elements within Pakistani intelligence, as well as other state institutions?
- How could Pakistani police become a "bolstered" force in under a year?
- What is the relationship between the two key metrics named for Afghanistan? Can territory be ceded to avoid air strikes? Does territory have to be defended at all costs (thinking of Chora, Arghandab, Zhari, Panjway, Musa Qala etc.)? Is there a readiness to take more casualties among troops to avoid ceding territory, without air strikes?
- Do Pakistani civilians all crave for an end to the Taliban when many perceive the U.S. more of an enemy? Consequently, is it Pakistani "civilian control" that is tested when we measure cooperation with the U.S. "in Pakistan"? You know, a test of this could as well be how many totally anti-American articles appear in Pakistani dailies (not just the English-language ones of course).

Some more remarks still. If Afghan elections are to be held, a truly disruptive surge of insurgent activity needs to be avoided. Any attempt at that may need to be contained. For such an attempt, the resources would have to come in across the border. So a key metric in these upcoming months is "any kind of cross-border insurgent activity." And of course not just in the east, adjacent to the FATA, but on the Baluchistani border as well.
Caveat - for a little break in the midst of all this seriousness, with much more seriousness coming still. Here is the sort of cross-border movement you don't need to pay attention to - movements of a natural insurgent named Bayad, pictured in the right/lower corner...
Some more possible metrics - for Pakistan: number of registered IDPs; number of operational training camps in Pakistani territory (intel).
For Afghanistan: number of compounds destroyed by coalition fire, CAS, artillery, else (a negative metric, just like civilian casualties - as Jari says, screw up less); number of pro-government mullahs assassinated (again, a negative metric, something Alex Strick van Linschoten keeps emphasising a lot from his Kandahar vantage point, understandably); number of Afghan police killed (again, a negative metric); number of schools actually working (positive); number of rural health clinics working (positive); IED tip-offs; weapons cache tip-offs; durably IED-free districts/provinces.

Of course, I'm not trying to suggest the report doesn't have its merits. For example, we're in full agreement over the need for population-centric counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Those who think ISAF should just imitate Sri Lanka's example: look at how well that works in Swat against this kind of insurgency - not at all the LTTE kind of insurgency, you know...

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan can only work in the long run, however. So all the search for metrics may be in vain. You need some indicators of progress that may look good only ten years from now. Or later.

When it comes to Pakistan, one key to change there would be stopping treating that country like a 5-year old. "You're in terrible danger! Can't you see? I'll make you see it! Here, I will feed you my aid! Even more aid than before! EVER!" You know what I'm getting at... Key actors there might know there are dangers. Their job is made more difficult if other key actors are offended by being told what Pakistani interests are and that they have to act accordingly, on the double; if others want to wait till the cash-floodgates open before doing anything; and if some may be just looking to "privatise" some of the money. And so on... Places like the Swat are their responsibility.

Overall, regarding both countries: this is partly a ghost war, partly one in which difficult trade-offs may need to be made. One cannot really talk very openly about strategy in this sort of context.

Venus vs. Marsh in northern Afghanistan

I find myself at agreement and disagreement with Jari Lindholm, at the same time. Is the U.S. bidding farewell to its allies? Jari is asking. His assertion that Germany, and Scandinavian (and several other) European countries are growing tired of the fight in Afghanistan is not contentious. But while I wouldn't deny it, there is some qualifying needed... it is of course not so much the "fight" that these "countries" are getting tired of - it is rather the political elites of these countries getting tired of being associated with the fight, to which these countries' soldiers come closest mostly when attacked by IEDs and suicide bombers. They are also getting tired of spending a lot of money on a presence in Afghanistan that they know is not about working for too great changes there. Call that Venus vs. Marsh in northern Afghanistan...

What does not necessarily follow from this, seeing an "Americanisation" of the Afghan campaign (which had started long before General McChrystal was appointed) is (i) that the mentioned European countries will withdraw troops from Afghanistan soon; (ii) that there will be an exposed flank as a result, in the north.

Proposition number two may be criticised in that, as much as this is possible with the generally inconducive social context (mostly only bubble spaces of Pashtun presence), there is already an exposed flank, and insurgents are making inroads there.

Regarding proposition number one, there may be both pros and cons, of course. First the pros.

The anniversary NATO summit brought only much going-through-the-motions. One the eve of the French reintegration into the military half of NATO, Sarkozy promised that the time of empty talk has now ended, and then... mostly failed to follow up on this when it came to Afghanistan. No major non-U.S. troop contribution came with the Summit - certainly no readiness to realistically gauge the true requirements of the Afghanistan mission.

Also, a couple of months ago (at the end of January) I noted here a vague impression of mine, that key ISAF countries' intention now may be just

"to make the election times tolerable, and provide a sort of false feedback as to what we should want in Afghanistan. And it may not be enough for that in the first place. But even if it is, it's no good for NATO and Afghanistan strategically. For one thing, certain members of the Alliance, who are already deep into the COIN laboratory down in the south, are feeling the fatigue. Meanwhile, others staunchly refuse to think in strategic terms, and see it as ideal Afghanistan policy to field "peace-keepers" in Afghanistan and then bring back from there as many as possible, with essentially no other objective whatsoever. Therefore, if the going gets tougher despite the minor upcoming surge, many will cry Doomsday. If the going gets temporarily easier, some will say that's the right moment to exit. Whatever happens, the discourse may continue to turn into the same direction..."

On the other hand, NATO just doesn't (not) work so that the countries concerned could (or even would) just leave behind their area of operations when there is no clear answer to the question of who will be "covering America’s ass in the north," as Jari put it.

Now, for the least important counter-argument, which is to do with ethics (no, don't laugh), of course it is not really appropriate to complain about the "Americanisation" of the mission when there was never a genuine readiness to "Europeanise" it, never a readiness to even balance it... So is it now supposed to be de-Europeanised as a punishment for Americanisation? Wouldn't Europeans leaving be about Europeans bidding farewell?

If something similar still comes to happen in the upcoming years, one should add that aid money could go a long way to keep insurgents out from the northern areas. Aid in general, as well as aid to Afghan security forces. European countries spent a HUGE amount on Iraq. If they would spend on a similar scale in Afghanistan, with military costs decreased, that could even be beneficial in some countries' cases.

I know, I know... I didn't offer much linear argumentation in this post. Only much if-this-than-that-or-not. The problem is I can't help this...

Pakistan IDPs: An ICG policy brief

A key excerpt from the new ICG brief (from pp.7-8.), to show the importance of what a post at this site already dealt with in last November. It's worth the attention, with 3.3 million IDPs now, and TTP fighters on the way out, in several directions, from Malakand.

"More overtly militant groups are also actively assisting the IDPs, most notably, the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT)’s latest reincarnation. (...) (It) has reportedly sent 2,000 workers to provide food aid and transport to IDPs in three camps in NWFP. (...) the group claims to have provided roadside camps with 24-hour kitchens that, by mid-May 2009, had fed 53,000 people. It also claims to have made available 23 minibuses and seven ambulances
to transport residents and the injured to camps and hospitals. A FIF camp in Sher Gur in Mardan is reportedly well funded and organised and appears to be delivering assistance far more effectively than the government. (...) radical Islamists even offer the jihadi equivalent of studyabroad programs. Reports of jihadi indoctrination in Al-Khidmat and FIF camps and schools are widespread."