Stratfor

Credibility, Diplomacy and Military Reality 2220 GMT, 011016

Summary

As the U.S. air campaign shifts to attacks on Taliban troops, Washington is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain both broad international support and cooperation from the various factions on the ground in Afghanistan. While the former requires the United States to dial back on the air war, the later requires credible evidence that Washington will remain committed to the battle at hand. Balancing these coalition-building needs with the military realities of Afghanistan leaves Washington with few good choices.

Analysis

As the U.S. air campaign shifts to attacks on Taliban troops, the Bush administration finds itself increasingly trapped between its grand strategy of international coalition-building, its internal Afghan strategy of energizing anti-Taliban forces and a complex and difficult military reality. The easy part of the war is over for Washington; the hard part is starting.

Coalition-building is the foundation for all American warfighting in Eurasia. It is partly driven by America's desire to position itself as the leading power of a broad international movement opposed to a particular nation -- be it Iraq, Yugoslavia or Afghanistan.

This desire is driven by more than sentiment. Whenever the United States goes to war in Eurasia, its forces automatically and overwhelmingly are outnumbered by those of the country it is fighting. Even if the adversary is technically primitive, numbers still count. The United States needs to bolster its forces with allies for military as well as psychological reasons.

Should things go badly and reinforcements be required, other, closer nations would be in a position to supply them before the United States could do so. In a sense, the United States is always in search of sufficient numbers on the ground to supplement its air power, logistics and technology. This was true in World War II, during the Cold War and today.

The United States is creating two different coalitions. On the one hand, it is trying to build a coalition of nations -- particularly Islamic nations -- to share the warfighting burden, or failing that, to allow the United States to wage war from their territory. Failing even that, they could at least provide moral support. On the other hand, Washington is trying to build a coalition inside Afghanistan to stand and fight the Taliban. Indeed, the administration hopes to split off elements of the Taliban itself for inclusion in the coalition.

Each of these coalition partners is now demanding completely contradictory things. Key Islamic countries are publicly calling for an end to the bombing of Afghanistan. These countries -- including Saudi Arabia, which is important to U.S. warfighting -- think the air campaign is excessive. They accept the notion that the United States has a right to pursue al Qaeda. They will even accept the notion that the Taliban regime is a legitimate target. But the general bombardment of Afghanistan, which will inevitably result in civilian casualties, puts them in a difficult position.

These regimes, having broken ranks with another Islamic government -- in this case the Taliban -- face serious potential problems at home if they are seen as supporting the American attack on a Muslim population. Thus, several key allies have either publicly called for a cessation of bombing or have privately pressed the United States to end the attacks.

For Pakistan in particular -- and Pakistan is the most important of all the allies -- the bombing has a double edge.

First, it generates serious opposition to the regime of President Pervez Musharraf from Taliban supporters in Pakistan, as well as from those who cannot side with a non-Muslim nation attacking Muslims. Second, and of equal importance, the fact that the bombing pattern is shifting to attacks on Taliban troops north of Kabul is particularly worrisome. If U.S. bombardment breaks the back of Taliban resistance, the Northern Alliance will be able to attack and seize Kabul. Pakistan intensely dislikes the Northern Alliance and would be appalled to see it increase its power.

Clearly, keeping the international coalition together while bombing is going on is extremely difficult.

The United States has exactly the opposite problem inside Afghanistan. Many of the tribes and factions that Washington is trying to recruit into an anti-Taliban coalition recall the United States less than fondly. The United States supported them with weapons and supplies from Pakistan during their war with the Soviets. Once that war was over -- coinciding with the collapse of communism -- the United States lost interest and left them to their own devices. One result of this is, of course, the Taliban government.

The Afghan opposition remembers quite well what they see as a betrayal. They also remember that the United States was prepared to fight to the last drop of Afghan blood. The U.S. supplied training and perhaps some support inside Afghanistan but would neither commit forces to the battle nor absorb casualties. From the Afghan viewpoint, this was one reason the United States could withdraw and lose interest so easily: It simply didn't have much skin in the game.

Inside Afghanistan, the current bombardment appears to be more of the same. The United States has, thus far, carried out a bloodless campaign, at least from the American side. Not only has the air campaign not cost American lives, but it also has not -- at least thus far -- offered the prospects for a sustained ground campaign. U.S. airpower has consisted of three elements: cruise missiles, strategic area bombardment and carrier-based aircraft. All of these are extremely useful. None of them satisfies the needs of a ground war.

What the Afghans want to see is close air support, delivered by tactical fighters and helicopter gunships in sufficient numbers to provide meaningful support and in sufficient proximity to provide real-time intervention. Strategic air power and naval air power are not useful for close air support at the ranges involved. When a firefight breaks out, close air support needs to be minutes away. Right now it isn't, and the Afghans know it. U.S. dollars are undoubtedly buying support from chieftains and warlords around Afghanistan, but no amount of money can generate confidence as military commitment can.

The Afghans certainly know that they will have to carry the bulk of the fighting if they go to war with the Taliban. They also know many of their engagements will be without air support. What they are not sure of is whether the United States is utterly committed to this war. The United States has a huge credibility problem in Afghanistan among the people it wants to induce into its coalition.

In order to hold its international coalition together, the United States is under pressure to cut back or halt the bombing. In order to create its Afghan coalition, the United States is under pressure not only to increase the bombing but also to shift to a type of aerial warfare that is more intimate with the terrain -- and therefore more risky. Taking risks builds confidence inside Afghanistan. That confidence will be the precondition for a successful coalition.

Washington has now offered a limited show of such a commitment, bringing an AC-130 gunship into play over Kandahar Oct. 16. The United States will need to show very clearly that this was not a one-time affair. Further, it will have to demonstrate an ability to bring in more time-critical aircraft, planes that can respond to events and intelligence on the ground in tens of minutes.

The problem is that deeper U.S. involvement -- for which the United States is certainly prepared -- requires cooperation from neighboring countries other than former states of the Soviet Union. In other words, it needs Pakistani cooperation. Substantial close air support has to be land-based, and the closest place for quick-response times is Pakistan. The same is true for ground forces. But it is not clear that Pakistan or any of the United States' Islamic allies can tolerate an intense and extended war in Afghanistan.

In other words, the precondition for building the internal Afghan coalition is that the international coalition must permit the United States to do things the international coalition can't tolerate. Thus, Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Pakistan in hopes of inducing a change in Islamabad's core posture. If that proves unsuccessful, the United States will pound the Taliban fighters as hard as it can, throwing everything but the kitchen sink at them -- while trying to minimize causalities. The hope, which may well be realized, is that the strategic bombardment coupled with non-time-critical, tactical air attacks (such as those involving F-18s and AC-130s) will break the back of the Taliban quickly.

If not, winter is coming. Strategic air power might be enough to give the Northern Alliance the road into Kabul. The United States will be able to end the campaign in November with a non-trivial victory and months to work on its coalition problems, inside and outside of Afghanistan.

But Islamic countries remain the key. If they simply cannot buy into a sustained war, the United States will have trouble building its coalition inside Afghanistan. The solution would be for indigenous Afghans to go public with their support for the U.S. attacks, making their own struggle that of the Islamic world. That might get the Saudis and Pakistanis off the hook. Perhaps.

-- Anonymous, October 16, 2001