gf0012-aust

The following is an editorial by one of the more prominent broadsheet defence journos. As in all mass media comments, flick the jingosim and cut to the core:

An Islamist crescent stretching from Iraq to Pakistan is no longer out of the question or within Australia's control, national security editor Patrick Walters reports
14apr07

AUSTRALIA is being slowly yet inexorably being drawn into a novel 21st-century version of the "great game" in Afghanistan as our military prepares for its most sustained fighting since Vietnam.

The upgraded Afghanistan mission promises to be long and hazardous, and Australia's defence chiefs know there is no guarantee of victory.

Our overall troop commitment is much likelier to rise than fall in the next two years as the battle intensifies to stabilise Afghanistan. But, unlike Australia's two most recent wars, in Vietnam and Iraq, the war in Afghanistan is a full bipartisan commitment from the Government and the ALP.

John Howard this week warned that Australia's national interests were involved in Afghanistan. He said the war could not be won without "renewed and increased effort" by the US and its allies. Describing Afghanistan as being at a crucial stage in its history, the Prime Minister warned of a deteriorating environment in southern Afghanistan and the threat of a resurgent Taliban and al-Qa'ida.

"But while I am very conscious of the history of Afghanistan, you can't see what is occurring there just as part of the historical continuity. There is another element and a very real element to the sort of world in which we now live," he said.

For Howard the new player in the near 200-year-old great game is al-Qa'ida and the fanatical Taliban. The risk for Australia is that Afghanistan will once again become a safe haven for terrorists as it was in the late 1990s when it was the global headquarters for al-Qa'ida and Osama bin Laden.

It is a view shared by federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd, who this week backed the Government's decision to lift our military commitment to about 1000 personnel by mid-2008. According to Rudd, the US and its allies let Osama bin Laden off the hook when they reduced their forces in 2002 to invade Iraq. This time he says we must be prepared to stay until the job is done.

When Australian special forces return to the mountain-locked Oruzgan province next month they will face a far more confident Taliban insurgency. A dysfunctional NATO command in Kabul is manifestly failing to subdue the insurgency now gripping south-eastern Afghanistan.

"It is a fundamental test for NATO and NATO will fail it. It (NATO's counter-insurgency strategy) isn't working and it isn't going to work. But there will be some local successes," says one senior Australian government source. "The only people actually doing anything hard are the US, Brits, Canadians and Aussies."

But the fighting nations - the US, Britain, Canada and, soon again, Australia's special forces - still lack sufficient combat punch and numbers to have any guarantee of success on the battlefield.

Australia's military is preparing for the possibility of a four-year assignment task in Oruzgan. But planners know successfully stabilising the south in partnership with Afghan security forces will take a decade of sustained effort.

Since the SAS and commandos returned home from Afghanistan in September 2006 things have gone backwards in Oruzgan. Less than 30 per cent of the province, one of Afghanistan's poorest with a population of about 400,000 people, is under the control of the central government.

Areas subdued by the Australians in 2005-06 such as the Chora Valley, just 15km north of their base at Tarin Kowt, have now effectively fallen back under the control of the Taliban.

Nearly six years after the overthrow of the Taliban government in Kabul, Oruzgan remains a Taliban heartland. Its inaccessible mountain valleys are a safe haven for an estimated 300-400 hardened fighters who roam freely across the mountains from neighbouring Helmand and Kandahar.

There are few roads, even fewer government services, and the opium crops are flourishing. Taliban fighters are steadily encroaching on the provincial capital, Tarin Kowt, which lies in a broad valley. They continue to threaten the main road and main supply line south to Kandahar, 120km away.

The Australians know the terrain and know the enemy but, as one senior military source acknowledges, "we will have to start from scratch again and recover lost ground".

The problem for Australia's military is that the Dutch-led forces based in Tarin Kowt have lost the initiative since they moved into the former US base in mid-2006 and established a provincial reconstruction team.

Tight rules of engagement for the Dutch special forces preclude them from embarking on major offensive operations. They are "casualty averse" in the eyes of some of their NATO allies. "Every time they have a contact they run away," one highly experienced Australian soldier observes rather unkindly of the Dutch effort in Oruzgan.

There is a real prospect that Australia's military commitment could be sharply increased late next year as the struggle to stabilise Afghanistan and NATO intensifies. With The Netherlands government politically divided over the Afghanistan commitment, the Dutch will review their deployment early next year. There is a fair chance they could scale down their 1600-strong force in Oruzgan, leaving Australia to take up the slack.

"It's not inconceivable that it could happen and it should happen, It is a logical step provided the government commitment is still there," says one senior defence source about a bigger role for our military in Oruzgan.

Taking responsibility for the province would involve more than doubling the planned 1000-strong commitment, and would include the provision of combat air power and more ground forces.

The allegiance of the overwhelmingly Pashtun tribes in Oruzgan is yet to be won by the faltering central government led by Hamid Karzai. While some progress has been made under the Governor, Maulavi Abdul Hakim Munib, an ex-Taliban official, corruption is rife in the provincial government and police and local farmers are completely reliant on their opium crops for cash.

NATO estimate the number of Taliban fighters in the southern provinces at about 10,000. Many of these are mercenaries and opportunists who will switch sides if they sense the momentum is slipping away from them.

With the Taliban leadership holed up in Quetta, Pakistan, and newly trained fighters crossing freely into Afghanistan, NATO is facing a far more resilient enemy fully prepared to test the resolve of the US and its allies.

The Taliban and al-Qa'ida are constantly evolving their tactics in confronting NATO forces in the south.

NATO casualties were up four-fold in 2006 and are expected to soar again this year as the Taliban goes all out to reassert its authority.

NATO troops are already seeing more sophisticated attacks using powerful improvised roadside bombs as well as suicide bombers, sniper attacks and missile assaults on aircraft. The Canadians in Kandahar province lost eight dead and six wounded in the past week as the Taliban mounted carefully prepared ambushes.

In Oruzgan, Australia's SAS, ably supported by commandos, will aim to quickly regain the tactical initiative, limiting the insurgents and freedom of movement and cutting off their support bases and disrupting supply lines.

The aim will be to create fear and uncertainty in the minds of the Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters, mounting clandestine patrols, all the while trying to gain the confidence of local Afghan elders and villagers.

"You need good intelligence and trust in local leaders. Movement in time and space is your greatest defence," says one military veteran with long experience of the SAS.

This time the special forces will stay for at least two years and have the opportunity to really make a difference. But the Australians will need more help to do the job effectively, particularly helicopter support in combat operations. The army's refurbished Chinooks won't return to Oruzgan until early next year, leaving Australian forces totally reliant on NATO aircraft during the next nine months.

In the south, NATO forces led by the British are gradually overhauling their command and control systems, and Britain is expanding its troop numbers to about 7000 with a divisional headquarters in Kandahar. But the steady flow of insurgents across the border from Pakistan continues to threaten the whole counter-insurgency effort in the three southern provinces.

Far more effort will have to focus on training Afghan security forces. The Afghan army is nominally about 30,000 and the US has aimed to train a standing force of 70,000. But only about 15,000 troops are considered combat-effective.

In 2002 Australia extricated the SAS from Afghanistan, justifying its exit on the grounds it had another war to fight, in Iraq. Now the success of Australia's military commitment is inextricably tied to the unwieldy NATO-run International Security Assistance Force.

But NATO still lacks a clear long-term plan to break the Taliban-led insurgents and enable a successful transition to an Afghan army and police service, alongside an eventual exit from the country. Australia's well-meaning efforts in Oruzgan may prove to be only a transitory success in a long painful march out of Afghanistan.





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gf0012-aust

No mate.

5th generation australian. northern chinese aust born maternal grandfather, southern chinese aust born maternal grandmother, scottish aust born paternal grandfather, irish aust born paternal grandmother. chinese came out as gold miners, the scots came out as copper miners. we still own one of the original gold mines (not exactly functioning, only a few "yards" a year though!)

apparently there is some english and canadian mixed in 2 centuries ago as well. never been able to confirm that though as those relatives links are uncontactable.

gf0012-aust

Another link for OoE. As usual, ignore the nationalistic polemic as Sheridan is one of those linked to the conservatives side of politics and patriotism. (ie close to republican/tory philosophy). Sheridan is also "connected". He would qualify for what we euphemistically called a "tame journo" - ie a journalist who we would feed privileged comment so as to get a particular message out.

There is a heavy lacing of political correctness re Govt comments on Pakistan. Not sure how immersed you've been in a Federal Govt type role, but the subtle politness that some would think is being displayed in these comments are actually the equiv of a stand up argument. It is heavily laced with message. The average news reader unfamiliar with diplomatic language would just see it as a luke warm editorial - its not by a long shot.

Ray

Gfaust,

Thanks.

Just asked since you seem to know a lot about India.

I have a whole lot of Anglo Indian and Indian school mates who are now Australians!

Could we have the link to the article you posted?

__________________


"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

gf0012-aust

Ray, I've done a fair bit of work with some major Indian companies, and had relatives who were attached to the Aust consular staff in New Delhi. They were the principal Liaison Officers so were also in regular contact with Indian counterparts.

I also managed a Security division when in Fed Govt with direct responsibility to some Cabinet Ministers. I've also had some dealings with various Indian Mil-Liaison Officers/Defence Attaches over the last 7 years.

Just as an aside, a substantial number of division heads in the DSTO (an australian equiv of DRDO) are Indian born australians or naturalised Australians. Most of the senior scientists in kinetic weapons, maritime warfare and electronic warfare areas are of Indian heritage.

Link to article:

Rules of war | The Australian