[R-G] Think tank: Surge now needed in Afghanistan

[Anthony Fenton]

Think tank: Surge now needed in Afghanistan
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/army_afghanpolicy_080129w/
By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Feb 1, 2008 11:26:22 EST

The American Enterprise Institute, the think tank that came up with  
the “surge” strategy for Iraq, has just completed a re-evaluation of  
U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and concluded that another  
surge of U.S. forces is required, this time into southern Afghanistan.

AEI gathered at least “two dozen” experts for three days of  
discussions that finished Sunday, according to a Washington source  
familiar with the proposal. The AEI team was headed up by resident  
scholar Fred Kagan and included “many of the previous participants”  
from the discussions that preceded AEI’s Iraq surge proposal,  
including retired Army Gen. John M. “Jack” Keane, the source added.

In a telephone interview, Kagan said AEI did not conduct the study at  
the administration’s request. While a “core group” of AEI employees  
worked on both studies, along with a small number of retired Army  
officers, “otherwise the personnel were [experts on] Afghanistan  
instead of Iraq,” Kagan said.

“Our goals are just to take a look at this obviously very important  
issue, understand it and make recommendations about what should and  
should not be done,” he added.

The Iraq strategy of surging some 30,000 additional troops to conduct  
counterinsurgency operations in the Baghdad area, implemented by the  
administration early in 2007, closely tracked the recommendations  
made in a paper authored by Kagan and titled “Choosing Victory – a  
Plan for Success in Iraq.” The paper was based on the work of an ad- 
hoc collection of experts gathered by AEI and called the “Iraq  
Planning Group.”

AEI is referring to the Afghanistan policy experts who met over the  
long weekend as the “Afghanistan Planning Group.” Kagan said he  
planned to publish a report based on the group’s findings in March.

The Bush administration has given signs recently that it is becoming  
increasingly concerned about security in southern Afghanistan, where  
North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies provide the bulk of the  
coalition’s combat power. A Jan. 16 Los Angeles Times article quoted  
Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticizing those allies — without  
naming them — for not following proper counterinsurgency approaches.

But the White House has apparently come to the conclusion that trying  
to shame the allies into providing more troops and fighting harder is  
not working, and that more drastic steps might be required, according  
to the Washington source.

“They’ve finally woken up to the fact that all is not well in  
Afghanistan, and that brow-beating NATO is not really going to do the  
trick,” the Washington source said. “Then there’s the NATO  
ministerial [meeting] coming up in April. Basically what you come  
down to is that this was the moment for contributing good ideas as  
the administration tries to figure out what to do.”

Driving the process, according to the Washington source, is the fear  
that the Taliban’s recent gains in Afghanistan have imperiled the  
parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 2009.

“The forcing function really in Afghanistan is the ’09 election,” the  
Washington source said. “It is the judgment of all knowledgeable  
observers that conditions in some parts of the country are not safe  
enough to conduct an election in 2009 of the sort that we had in  
2005, and that the failure to do so would be a huge strategic setback  
on a variety of fronts.”

The Afghanistan Planning Group made the following recommendations,  
according to the source:

• Deploy an extra U.S. brigade into Kandahar and a Marine battalion  
into Helmand in 2008 and maintain that force level through 2009. Some  
28,000 U.S. troops are now in Afghanistan, about half the total  
coalition force there.

The administration has already announced plans to deploy an  
additional 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan, including a battalion to be  
stationed in Helmand.

• Deploy two extra brigade combat teams into southern Afghanistan in  
2009.

• Expand the Afghan National Army more quickly than currently  
planned, using U.S. money if necessary.

• Provide NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban are  
strongest, with the necessary “enablers” such as engineers, aviation,  
surveillance and command and control assets.

• Use Commander’s Emergency Response Program money to build forward  
operating bases for Afghan National Army units in eastern and  
southern Afghanistan.

Overall, the group concluded that a “surge” of three additional  
brigades was required to secure southern Afghanistan: one brigade in  
Kandahar province, one in Oruzgan province and a third split between  
Helmand province and the mission to establish border patrols,  
according to the Washington source.

The group also proposed a complete overhaul of the U.S. strategic  
approach to Pakistan, the source said.

“You have to go through a pretty rigorous not only internal Afghan  
but regional geopolitical assessment in order to be able to sort out  
what’s essential from what’s inessential,” the source said. “Part of  
the problem is we’ve never had a really consistent, clear, long-term  
strategic idea for Afghanistan, let alone for Pashtunistan or  
Pakistan.” Pashtunistan is the name sometimes given to homeland of  
the Pashtun ethnic group, which straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan  
border.

The AEI study participants concluded that al-Qaida and its allies  
have established a major safe haven in Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal  
areas that border Afghanistan. This threat demands a sophisticated  
strategy aimed at the entire region, not just Afghanistan, the  
Washington source said.

The Afghanistan Planning Group recommended a series of U.S. policy  
measures aimed at Pakistan, including:

• Threatening the Pakistanis with unilateral U.S. strikes into  
Pakistani territory unless the Pakistanis take the initiative to  
clear al-Qaida’s safe havens themselves.

• Making U.S. military aid to Pakistan — which is largely aimed at  
bolstering Pakistan’s conventional forces that are focused on the  
perceived threat from India — contingent on the Pakistani government  
asserting itself throughout the Baluchistan and the North West  
Frontier Province, as well as in the Federally Administered Tribal  
Areas, which have traditionally enjoyed autonomy.

The view of the Afghan Planning Group was that Pakistan was allowing  
the Taliban to enjoy a safe haven in Quetta, a city in Baluchistan  
because it had long seen the Taliban as allies, according to the  
Washington source.

AEI will brief government officials in the days ahead, the source  
said. But he declined to go into detail about which government  
officials had requested the study or which specific individuals were  
scheduled to be briefed. “This thing is extremely delicate,” he said.  
“The sensitivity of this is pretty high.”

Spokespersons at the Defense Department and the White House could not  
be reached immediately for comment.