Afghanistan not as bad as reported

Max Boot:

I have just returned from Afghanistan shocked by the depth of the disconnect between reality and reporting.

The coalition officers that I spoke with expressed confidence that with the U.S. reinforcements now flowing into the country, they will be able to score victories against insurgents who have been given free reign in some areas because of a paucity of NATO resources. But even before the 17,000 additional U.S. troops arrive, the situation is hardly critical. Kabul and the other major cities are safe, and even large swathes of the countryside are hardly infested by insurgents.

That is the reality. This is the reporting:

Here's a scary thought. The United States could be walking in the Soviet Union's shoes.... The United States went in there in 2001 to crush Al Qaeda and push the Taliban from power so Afghanistan would never again be used as a staging area for terrorist attacks.... The problem is that America is now in danger of falling short of that limited goal, and even losing the war. Sending more U.S. soldiers is not the answer.

That's the lede of Celestine Bohlen's "Letter from Europe," in the International Herald Tribune. The dateline, I note, is Paris, not Kabul, which reinforces a point for which I've seen evidence many times in Iraq -- it is easier to be panicky from afar.

Bohlen writes that "history tells us that increasing troop levels to fight an insurgency is not a winning formula. The Soviets learned this after 10 years in Afghanistan; the French learned it in Algeria, and the United States had its lesson in Vietnam."

Actually, if anything, history tells us the opposite -- that it is impossible to do good counterinsurgency unless you reach a critical mass of security forces to population. That figure is generally estimated, according to the U.S. Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, at somewhere around 1 counter-insurgent per 50 population. We have never been close to that ratio in Afghanistan.

There are currently about 58,000 foreign troops in the country. The Afghan National Security Forces (police and army) number about 150,000, but only the 80,000 Afghan National Army soldiers are considered to be reasonably effective. That's a total of about 208,000 security personnel in a country of 30 million, or a ratio of 1:144, even if you include the troubled Afghan National Police in the tally. That's well short of the 400,000 to 600,000 soldiers and police that Afghanistan will ultimately need, most of whom will be, as in Iraq, locals, not foreigners.

The additional troops don't get us to the right ratio in the country as a whole but if properly employed they will make a huge difference in key areas of insurgent activity. That is, after all, what happened in Iraq, another place where sages like Bohlen were telling us that no amount of additional troops could make any difference.

Bohlen acknowledges this inconvenient fact and tries to explain it away as follows:

Yes, the one-time infusion of 30,000 U.S. combat troops into Iraq in January 2007 succeeded in improving security in Baghdad and other cities. A top component, known as the Anbar Awakening, was a political effort to reach out to local Sunni leaders who, after three years of violence, were ready to back the U.S. against the insurgents.

But, as I and other analysts have tried to explain many, many times, the reason the Sunnis were willing to turn on Al Qaeda was because they were confident that U.S. troops weren't going anywhere. If we had been withdrawing rather than surging troops, the Awakening would have been stillborn. It's pathetic and puzzling that so many people still fail to understand this elementary fact about what has transpired in Iraq since 2007.

...

There is more including analogies to the Soviet occupation which did not really attempt a counterinsurgency strategy. Historically, Afghanistan has resisted some occupations and not others. Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan and took an Afghan woman, Roxanne, as his bride. The Mongols also conquered Afghanistan and ruled it for over a century. It was also subdued by the Muslim hoard spreading Islam.

What has been happening in Afghanistan recently is a tendency by some in the media to rely on the ame metrics that mislead them in Iraq. While the enemy tempo has picked up somewhat most of that is caused by the remnants of the same gang we already defeated in Iraq. I don't think they have gotten any better or smarter as a result of their defeat.

The additional troops will increase the force to space ratio in some key areas and thus deny those areas to the enemy. Strategically placed, these troops can make a big difference.