Selling Trump a New Afghanistan Commitment: Josh Rogin, Washington Post, Feb. 26, 2017— The Trump administration is considering whether to plunge more resources and troops into the United States’ longest war — Afghanistan — as some of the president’s top generals are calling for.
Will President Trump End the 'Total Disaster' War in Afghanistan?: Javid Ahmad, National Interest, February 27, 2017— The Afghan war, now in its sixteenth year, has arguably become one of the world's most consequential conflicts.
Yemen Has Become Iran’s Testing Ground for New Weapons: Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, BESA, March 2, 2017— The ongoing crisis in Yemen, whose end is not in sight, is giving Iran an opportunity to turn Yemen into a testing ground for various weapons it is developing for the maritime and military arenas.
The Dangerous Implications of Democrats’ Obsession with Trump’s Yemen Raid: David French, National Review, Mar. 2, 2017— On Saturday, December 6, 2014, there was an American commando raid in Yemen.
Dozens Killed in ISIS Attack on Kabul Military Hospital: Ehsanullah Amiri & Margherita Stancati, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 8, 2017
Why Russia is Returning to Afghanistan: Jeffrey Mankoff, World Politics Review, Feb. 28, 2017
Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government: Carlotta Gall, New York Times, Dec. 6, 2016
How America Lost Afghanistan: Bonnie Kristian, The Week, Mar. 7, 2017
SELLING TRUMP A NEW AFGHANISTAN COMMITMENT
Josh Rogin
Washington Post, Feb. 26, 2017
The Trump administration is considering whether to plunge more resources and troops into the United States’ longest war — Afghanistan — as some of the president’s top generals are calling for. The issue pits President Trump’s commitment to end nation-building against his promise to stamp out terrorism in a conflict where a clear U.S. strategy is sorely lacking.
After more than 15 years of U.S. fighting, the war is at a crossroads. The Afghan national security forces are on their heels. The government is asking the United States and its NATO partners to help it go on offense against the Taliban, which has been taking territory with the help of Pakistan, Iran and Russia. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, has publicly testified that he wants “a few thousand” more troops there. He also says there is a need for a more “holistic review” of the mission.
As Defense Secretary Jim Mattis prepares a formal recommendation to the White House, debate has renewed in Washington on whether the United States is throwing good money after bad in Afghanistan. But as far as the Afghan government is concerned, there’s really no safe alternative. “The Taliban, while they may not be directly planning direct attacks on U.S. territory, they provide the environment for all kinds of terrorist groups to operate,” Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington, told me. “If we allow any terrorist group to succeed, it doesn’t matter what terrorist group, it emboldens all of them.”
There’s an immediate need for equipment and personnel, he said, before the start of the summer fighting season, which is sure to be bloody. If thousands more U.S. troops arrive, they would serve in an advise-and-training role, not direct combat. But the idea is to embed them in Afghan units, placing them closer to the fighting. The Afghan government is also asking for helicopters, special forces gear and intelligence assistance to fill urgent shortfalls. For example, the Afghan military’s fleet of Russian helicopters is mostly grounded, in part because of a lack of spare parts as a result of U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Mohib is optimistic that Trump’s team is open to the idea of committing more resources to Afghanistan. “The hesitation that existed in the previous administration is gone,” Mohib said. “The hesitation was that the U.S. didn’t have a good partner to work with in the Afghan government.”
Republican leaders in Congress are cautiously supportive of an Afghanistan troop increase they would be responsible to fund. But they want to make sure the Trump administration doesn’t repeat what they see as President Barack Obama’s mistakes, including setting timelines for withdrawal and failing to bring the American people along. “Arbitrary political limits make it harder to accomplish the mission,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) told me. “It is equally important that the president make the public case for our continued presence in Afghanistan. . . . President Obama never made that case, and our mission suffered for it.”
Trump barely mentioned Afghanistan during the campaign, other than to say it was “not going well” or to compare it favorably to Chicago. The lack of campaign rhetoric gives Trump something of a free hand to choose any policy he wants. The generals supporting the plan could strengthen their case by getting NATO allies to make human and financial commitments up front. That would address Trump’s criticism that NATO doesn’t do counterterrorism and doesn’t pay its fair share. The generals might also argue that Afghanistan is a natural long-term partner for the regional fight against terrorism, which is not going away soon.
Experts mostly agree, though, that surging resources to bolster the Afghan security forces is a stopgap measure at best. Without a comprehensive strategy that deals with Pakistan’s insistence on providing support and sanctuary for the Taliban, no gains are sustainable. A new strategy also must include a plausible path to return to negotiations to end the conflict. For now, the Taliban doesn’t feel enough pressure to compromise. “An open-ended commitment with no strategy poses a very high risk of very expensive failure,” said Christopher Kolenda, a former senior adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan at the Pentagon.
Mattis, Nicholson, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. and new national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster all have deep experience in Afghanistan and understand that the military aspect of the plan is necessary but not sufficient. Selling a new U.S. commitment to Trump and then to the American people will not be easy. But if the administration is able to tune out the politics, share the burden and follow a clear strategy, the benefits of the deal will outweigh the costs.
WILL PRESIDENT TRUMP END THE 'TOTAL DISASTER'
Javid Ahmad
National Interest, February 27, 2017
The Afghan war, now in its sixteenth year, has arguably become one of the world's most consequential conflicts. The steady stream of news from Afghanistan is as relentless as it is depressing. More important, the eerie silence in Washington, DC to discuss the future course of Afghan conflict—and America’s role in it—is deafening. President Donald Trump, now the third U.S. president to lead the Afghan mission, has called the war a “total disaster,” which the United States should abandon altogether. Trump, who has claimed to have a foolproof plan to defeat the Islamic State, has not yet discussed his strategy for fighting America’s longest war. The silence, however, does not qualify as an improvement from the policy of the Obama administration, whose excessive caution while dealing with Afghanistan and arbitrary deadlines for withdrawal of U.S. troops made the Afghan campaign more challenging.
Nonetheless, the stakes are high for the United States. For one, the security conditions have exacerbated, and the emboldened Taliban now controls more territory in Afghanistan than any time since 2001. Pakistan, who is in cahoots with the Taliban, continues to provide the group with extensive sanctuaries and support network on its territory. At the same time, the Islamic State has made significant inroads into Afghanistan and has carved out a footprint in eastern parts of the country. Meanwhile, the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, who are boldly fighting the insurgency, have endured an alarming number of causalities and have suffered a 2.4 percent attrition rate every month. Civilian casualties have hit a record high with 3,498 deaths and 7,920 injured in 2016 alone, with a ten-fold increase in losses caused by the Islamic State.
Additionally, the influx of returning Afghan refugees from Pakistan and Europe, and over 600,000 people internally displaced by rising insecurity, have created a humanitarian crisis. Last year, the UN reported that one-third of Afghans (9.3 million) needed immediate assistance. Moreover, regional countries have engaged in unhelpful machinations to deepen their ties with armed groups that undermine American and Afghan interests. Among them Iran and Russia have extended their support to the Taliban, including sharing intelligence with the group, to contain the growing threat of the Islamic State. Unfortunately, these grim realities, coupled with an absence of a coherent U.S. strategy to address the terror group, have sown anxiety among U.S. allies and partners.
More vitally, Washington’s continued silence is dangerous. Earlier this month, Gen. John Nicholson, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told Congress in his testimony that the Afghan war is at “stalemate.” However, Trump has a better chance of success in Afghanistan than his predecessor, Barack Obama, a hesitant warrior who focused less on winning the war and more on not losing it. In the course, however, Washington was repeatedly reminded that the Afghan mission was broader than initially anticipated, but little was done to adjust accordingly. More crucially, by any measure, U.S. and coalition forces have won every major battle with the Taliban and other militants, but these tactical feats have not yet led to a decisive victory. This is mainly because the Taliban are free to retreat, train and regroup in sanctuaries inside Pakistan. Pakistan’s duplicity is arguably the greatest contributor to international failure to achieve stability in Afghanistan.
In his testimony, Nicholson told Congress that “it is very difficult to succeed on the battlefield when your enemy enjoys external support and safe haven,” and called for a “holistic review” of U.S. relations with Pakistan. Pakistan has repeatedly shown through its actions that any chaos it can manage in Afghanistan is better than a noncompliant regime in Kabul. In the past, concerns about Pakistan’s sincerity have even prompted suggestions that the United States engage in unilateral action against militants inside Pakistan. Pakistan uses “good” militants as proxies not only because they are expendable and low-cost compared to deploying military forces, but also because it offers Pakistan a plausible deniability.
More significantly, Pakistan has bolstered Taliban’s two-pronged approach in Afghanistan: to stoke fear by inflicting maximum damage and to undermine the Afghan government by temporarily seizing key provincial districts across the country. In doing so, Taliban has targeted district governors, police chiefs and provincial leaders. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s leadership council, or the Quetta Shura, has been steadily moved from the city of Quetta in Baluchistan province to the northeastern city of Peshawar. Key Taliban leaders are reportedly hosted by Pakistan army officials in military garrisons in Peshawar. More vitally, the Taliban’s has gradually moved from their guerrilla hit-and-run tactics into more conventional military methods in the battlefield. Among the group’s new tactics are conducting large-scale coordinated raids and sabotage activities, such as planting land mines and IEDs across major roadways to block the mobility of Afghan forces and starve them for resources.
Furthermore, Taliban fighters reportedly have access to advanced weaponry, including night-vision goggles, sniper rifles, sophisticated communication equipment and drones for reconnaissance and propaganda purposes. Additionally, the group has significantly improved its human and open-source intelligence gathering capabilities, including operating robust informant networks, which collect and disseminate information in a decentralized structure. Access to these resources and the change in battleground tactics exceeds beyond the Taliban’s traditional capabilities and suggests that it is propped up by a support network.
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
YEMEN HAS BECOME IRAN’S TESTING GROUND FOR NEW WEAPONS
Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall
BESA, March 2, 2017
The ongoing crisis in Yemen, whose end is not in sight, is giving Iran an opportunity to turn Yemen into a testing ground for various weapons it is developing for the maritime and military arenas. The Houthi rebels, who have taken over parts of northern Yemen including the capital, Sana’a, are getting ongoing assistance from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), mainly via Hizbullah trainers, in the use of missiles and rockets along with an ongoing supply of other weapons such as drones, explosive devices, and battlefield materiel…
On February 10, 2017, Abd al-Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Houthis in Yemen, said that they were beginning to manufacture drones and other airborne weapons, including surface-to-air missiles that can intercept the Saudi-led coalition planes as well as missiles “that can hit Saudi territory and beyond.” Since the beginning of the year, the Houthis have increased their missile fire, including Scuds, from Yemeni territory at different targets in Saudi Arabia, including airports and civilian infrastructures, along with missile fire at coalition targets in Yemeni territory. Hizbullah advisers are taking part in some of the missile launches.
Since the beginning of 2016, the Houthis have been using drones for intelligence-gathering missions, and also, according to some reports, to attack the Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen. Sheikh Abdulmalik Mikhlafi, deputy prime minister of the recognized Yemeni government, said that a Houthi drone intercepted by the Yemeni army had a missile-firing capability, a fact that points to Iran’s growing involvement in the crisis in Yemen. Notably, the Qasef attack drone is very similar to previous drone models manufactured by Iran in the Ababil series. The other models, too, have similar features to drones deployed by Iran.
Along with the use of drones in the aerial domain, the Houthis have been increasingly active in the maritime domain in the Bab el-Mandab area. In addition to the occasional launch of Iranian-supplied anti-ship cruise missiles, the Houthis have begun to deploy, apparently with Iranian assistance, unmanned remote-controlled maritime craft. Sources in the U.S. Navy believe the January 30, 2017, attack on the Saudi frigate Al-Madinah near the Yemeni port of Hudeida was carried out by an unmanned and guided boat. Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan, U.S. Fifth Fleet commander, said, “Our assessment is that it was an unmanned, remote-controlled boat of some kind.” According to a report by the U.S. Naval Institute, the naval craft was provided by the navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (the IRGCN).
At first, Saudi Arabia claimed the attack had been carried out by boats bearing suicide bombers, and the Houthis claimed they had fired a shore-to-sea missile (at the moment of the strike there were shouts in the background of a video of “Allahu Akbar [Allah is the Greatest]! Death to America! Death to Israel! Curse upon the Jews! Victory to Islam!”). It later turned out that it was an unmanned naval drone ship. Such vessels pose a new threat to civilian maritime traffic, open a new page in the clashes between Iran and Saudi Arabia in this sensitive arena, and could reach other Iranian-supported terror organizations in the world.
Iran is constantly developing its capabilities for asymmetrical maritime warfare. The aim is to contend with the United States’ superior maritime capabilities, including by attacking U.S. ships with swarms of manned and unmanned speedboats. The attack on the Saudi frigate offers a good example of Iran’s offensive unmanned-warship capability. The attack reflects the Iranian combat doctrine of using asymmetrical means against enemies that have a technological advantage. In that way, the Houthis have managed to firmly hold their ground against Saudi Arabia and the Arab-coalition forces for several years. Recently, the fighting has also spread to the maritime sphere.
During President Obama’s tenure, small IRGC craft often flaunted their power very close to the U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf, threatening them; U.S. reactions were minimal for fear of a clash. Iran would also send drones over U.S. vessels and photograph their activity. The aim was both to prepare for a possible confrontation with these ships and to disrupt their ongoing activity in the area. In the naval maneuvers Iran conducts from time to time, like the recent one in which it revealed a new shore-to-sea missile, it practices the sinking of large U.S. vessels including aircraft carriers.
The continuing conflict in Yemen, which is being waged both at sea and on land, gives Iran an opportunity to test some of its capabilities and military doctrines “for real.”…Iran’s active involvement in the conflict in Yemen, including the various weapons it is introducing and testing in the arena has implications for the Palestinian terror organizations’ and Hizbullah’s future rounds of warfare against Israel. Hamas and Hizbullah are already deploying unmanned aerial and naval craft manufactured by Iran, or built with Iranian know-how, in the struggle against Israel. Unmanned warships like those the Houthis used in Yemen would pose a new kind of threat both to Israel’s navy and to its natural gas rigs in the Mediterranean. The longer the conflict in Yemen continues, the more experience Iran and Hizbullah will gain in using this weapon. Iran already has a record of testing weapons in different places and deploying them in different arenas. Explosive devices were used against the IDF in Lebanon and the U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, and the Houthis are now deploying them in Yemen.
THE DANGEROUS IMPLICATIONS OF DEMOCRATS’
OBSESSION WITH TRUMP’S YEMEN RAID
David French
National Review, Mar. 2, 2017
On Saturday, December 6, 2014, there was an American commando raid in Yemen. As reported by the New York Times, special forces attacked a village in the southern part of the country in an effort to free hostages, including an American journalist, held by jihadists. But instead of accomplishing what it set out to accomplish, the raid “ended in tragedy”: Terrorists killed two hostages, including the American, and in the ensuing firefight, a number of civilians died. That’s not a scandal; that’s war.
Fast-forward to late January of this year. Donald Trump, just nine days after assuming the presidency, ordered a raid into Yemen that had been planned during the Obama administration and endorsed by James Mattis, the new secretary of defense. During the attack, American forces encountered tougher-than-expected resistance, Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was killed, and civilians died in the crossfire. At the end of the attack, American and allied forces took possession of intelligence that may or may not (reports conflict) be valuable to the war against jihad. That’s not a scandal; that’s war.
But don’t tell that to the Democrats, to the Trump administration’s most committed critics, or to multiple members of the media, including some who should know better. Suddenly, there is an odd new standard for success or failure in military operations: Special-forces raids are scandalous unless they 1) yield exactly the intelligence or other assets they sought; 2) do so without encountering unexpected resistance; and 3) do not cost any American lives. By that standard, my own deployment to Iraq was one scandal after another. Even though we had boots on the ground, a consistent presence in our area of operations, and access to intelligence from a wide variety of sources, we still encountered surprises and ambushes. Multiple raids “failed” in the sense that we didn’t seize our targets or obtain the information we had hoped to find. Our intelligence “failed” sometimes, with inaccurate assessments of enemy capabilities or intentions leading to deaths. But none of that was scandalous; it was all war.
I’ve written at length about the Yemen raid before, but it’s vital to revisit the issue again. In part because of the profound moment in Trump’s address to Congress when he honored Carryn Owens, Ryan Owens’s widow, and in part because of his clumsy and inexcusable effort to deflect blame for Owens’s death to his generals, the Yemen raid is back in the news. And it’s thus vital to establish standards for evaluating and reporting the Trump administration’s military efforts.
First, do we really want presidents — especially those with exactly zero military experience — ordering individual raids in the context of ongoing military operations? Obama famously agonized over “kill lists,” reportedly even viewing the faces of targets before issuing his orders. Elevating strike authority to POTUS himself risks not only slowing down military operations, but also placing the decision in the hands of a person with less information and less experience than a professional military trained to identify and destroy our nation’s enemies.
Obama’s moral dilemmas made for good newspaper copy, but did they result in the best application of American military power? The rise of ISIS and the spread of jihad suggests that they did not. Second, should Americans really have zero or near-zero tolerance for casualties? It’s a simple fact that the less we risk American forces, the less effective they are. For many good reasons, we’ve delegated much of the fight in Mosul to local allies, but that carries a cost, too. Parts of the city are still in enemy hands, and progress is slow. How much could we speed up the fight (and perhaps capture and kill more enemy fighters) if we put American soldiers closer to the action or empower them to engage the enemy directly?
When soldiers enlist, they trust their commanders (including the commander-in-chief) not to throw away their lives carelessly or recklessly, but they know that they could die in the line of duty nevertheless. Americans are allegedly “war-weary” (a strange term for a nation in which only the tiniest fraction of citizens have fought), and we’ve already suffered thousands of casualties abroad, but so long as the enemy still seeks to do us harm, we’re crippling our national defense if we unilaterally decide to fight without loss.
Third, when terrorists use civilians as human shields, who’s to blame for the civilian deaths that result? By adopting a near-zero tolerance for civilian casualties (as the Obama administration often did), we incentivize violations of the laws of war, extend combat operations, and risk American life. When jihadists hide behind women and children, they bear the legal and moral responsibility for civilian deaths…
[To Read the Full Article Click the Following Link—Ed.]
Dozens Killed in ISIS Attack on Kabul Military Hospital: Ehsanullah Amiri & Margherita Stancati, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 8, 2017—Islamic State fighters disguised as doctors fought elite government forces inside Afghanistan’s largest military hospital on Wednesday in a seven-hour battle that left at least 30 people dead and 50 others wounded, Afghan officials said.
Why Russia is Returning to Afghanistan: Jeffrey Mankoff, World Politics Review, Feb. 28, 2017—n his speech to the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in February 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev described the war in Afghanistan as the USSR’s “bleeding wound.” Gorbachev would order Soviet forces out of Afghanistan two years later. During the subsequent three decades, Soviet and subsequently Russian leaders sought to steer clear of the country that many likened to Moscow’s Vietnam.
Saudis Bankroll Taliban, Even as King Officially Supports Afghan Government: Carlotta Gall, New York Times, Dec. 6, 2016—Fifteen years, half a trillion dollars and 150,000 lives since going to war, the United States is trying to extricate itself from Afghanistan. Afghans are being left to fight their own fight. A surging Taliban insurgency, meanwhile, is flush with a new inflow of money.
How America Lost Afghanistan: Bonnie Kristian, The Week, Mar. 7, 2017—Some 16 years in, the war in Afghanistan is the longest in the history of The United States. It is also our most disproportionately ignored, and — with a new president in office after an election in which Afghanistan was barely mentioned — perhaps our most uncertain major intervention going forward.
