Operation Enduring Freedom

Operation Enduring Freedom is the official name used by the US government for its military response to the 11 September 2001 attacks on the country. Holding the Taliban Government in Afghanistan responsible for sheltering Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks on its soil, on 7 October 2001, American and British forces began an aerial bombing campaign targeting Taliban forces and al-Qaeda.

Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan. The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance.

The Northern Alliance, fighting against a Taliban weakened by US bombing and massive defections, captured Mazar-i Sharif on November 9. It rapidly gained control of most of northern Afghanistan and took control of Kabul on November 13 after the Taliban unexpectedly fled the city. The Taliban were restricted to a smaller and smaller region, with Kunduz, the last Taliban-held city in the north, captured on November 26. Most of the Taliban fled to Pakistan. The war continued in the south of the country, where the Taliban retreated to Kandahar. After Kandahar fell in December, remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued to mount resistance.

The Battle of Tora Bora, involving US, British and Northern Alliance forces took place in December 2001 to further destroy the Taliban and suspected al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In early March 2002 the United States military, along with allied Afghan military forces, conducted a large operation to destroy al-Qaeda in an operation code-named Operation Anaconda. After managing to evade US forces throughout the summer of 2002, the remnants of the Taliban gradually began to regain their confidence.

The ISAF is an international stabilisation force authorised by the UN Security Council on 20 December 2001. It consists of about 40,000 personnel from 34 nations. The United States military also conducts military operations, separate from NATO, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in other parts of Afghanistan. ISAF has proceeded in stages to stabilize the country. Initially, ISAF took control of Kabul and northern Afghanistan. Then, it moved into western Afghanistan. On 31 July 2006, ISAF assumed command of the restive south of the country, and by 5 October 2006 of east Afghanistan also, thus covering the entire country. ISAF’s principal mechanism for rebuilding Afghanistan is the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). PRTs, composed of military and civilian officials, are charged with extending the reach of the Afghan government by improving governance and rebuilding the economy. There are significant differences in how individual NATO governments run their PRTs.

The greatest barrier to the military’s capacity to undertake its stabilisation role in Afghanistan is a lack of adequate forces-on-the-ground.

In November of 2006, the UN Security Council warned that Afghanistan may become a failed state due to increased Taliban violence, growing illegal drug production, and fragile state institutions.9 From 2005 to 2006, the number of suicide attacks, direct fire attacks, and use of improvised explosive devices increased. Al Qaeda, Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Hezb-i-Islami sanctuaries have increased fourfold in the last year. The campaign has been significantly less successful at achieving the primary policy goal of ensuring that Al-Qaeda can no longer operate in Afghanistan. The troop strength is less than a quarter of the deployment of international troops to Iraq, whereas the rugged terrain of Afghanistan is more populated, and has an area almost 50 per cent larger than Iraq. To prevent NATO’s defeat at the hands of the Taliban, a rejuvenated NATO force is needed for Afghanistan.

The greatest barrier to the military’s capacity to undertake its stabilisation role in Afghanistan is a lack of adequate forces-on-the-ground. This has led to an over-reliance upon air strikes, leading to increased civilian casualties and lower levels of support for the Karzai Government and the West’s presence in the country. The Taliban are increasingly able to fill the political space, and once rooted within the new community, are proving impossible to remove.

The troop strength is less than a quarter of the deployment of international troops to Iraq, whereas the rugged terrain of Afghanistan is more populated, and has an area almost 50 per cent larger than Iraq. To prevent NATO’s defeat at the hands of the Taliban, a rejuvenated NATO force is needed for Afghanistan.

NATO’s ability to undertake a successful mission in Afghanistan is hamstrung by restrictive caveats. If NATO is to truly be able to project itself on a global scale, then its member states must bear the war fighting burden in equal measure, and national caveats must be lifted. The alliance is fading. The different threat perceptions among alliance members, affect the degree of willingness among the members’ publics, and their governments, regarding the appropriate conditions in which to use force among other political instruments, and to provide sufficient financial resources to support the military instrument of that mix. It is such disparities which affect public inclinations and political decisions on defense spending. Different historical experiences are critically important in understanding the attitudes regarding the propriety, threshold and utility of the use of force in international conflict in the 21st century. These differences lead to difficulties regarding rules of engagement, area of operations, and related factors in Afghanistan.

The Way Forward

Counter-insurgency operations have been anathema to the American military establishment for at least three decades. It appears that the US has a greater propensity to destroy than to build societies in Asia. Reliance on their strength in technology rather than massive manpower have led US military forces to lay down rules of engagement that are wholly inappropriate to the situation at hand. In the first instance the campaign is not a war on terror but a counterinsurgency effort.

Insurgencies are enormously stressful and frustrating for forces combating them. The use of improvised explosive devices, booby-traps, snipers, by an adversary who hides among civilians, creates a vicious and explosive environment to the point where most soldiers forget that non-combatants should be treated with dignity and respect. Given such attitudes, preventing future incidents is extremely difficult despite all efforts. The conflict for Afghanistan should, therefore, focus upon the following:

In effect, the insurgents have an unfair advantage. The government can lose if its forces lose on the battlefield, but the government does not necessarily win if its forces win on the battlefield.

Treat the conflict as a counterinsurgency campaign and not an anti-terror war. Terrorism is a tactic, which contributes to an insurgent aim. An insurgency is an armed revolution against an established political order, which is sustained by external support. The struggle against insurgents is protracted against the central role of the insurgent political infrastructure, the subsidiary role of insurgent military forces, and their use of guerrilla tactics. All these issues need to be addressed in tandem. Without question, rebel military actions play a primary role in an insurgency. But the success of rebels on the battlefield is not crucial to the success of the insurgent movement. Insurgent forces can lose virtually every battle and still win the war. In effect, the insurgents have an unfair advantage. The government can lose if its forces lose on the battlefield, but the government does not necessarily win if its forces win on the battlefield.

The counterinsurgency force should establish secure areas. It should focus upon bringing security to a densely populated or strategically important town, enabling non-military agencies to undertake developmental projects in a secure environment. It requires one set of troops to be engaged in static security tasks, with a strong forward mobile presence aimed at preventing the insurgency from disrupting the development work.

Reduce the use of air power to strike at civilian targets. One of the most controversial issues today is the role of airpower in counterinsurgency operations. While no one advocates the use of force except when truly necessary, killing insurgents…cannot itself defeat an insurgency. Bombing, even with the most precise weapons, will cause unintended civilian casualties and its euphuism of “collateral damage” turns people against the military and government and provides insurgents with a major propaganda victory. Even when justified under the law of war, bombings bring media coverage that works to the insurgents’ benefit.

Reintegration of ‘marginal insurgents’. A significant proportion of the Taliban are fighting for economic as opposed to ideological reasons. Establishing viable, sustainable alternative income sources in secure environments will deprive the movement of their support.

As difficult and long as this process may be, it will be the only way to get trustworthy information from an insurgency that relies on human relations to operate.

A greater emphasis be placed upon intelligence, in particular, human intelligence. Intelligence gathering is a key factor in the implementation of a successful counterinsurgency strategy. Insurgents are exceedingly difficult to find and engage in battle, a fact which places more emphasis on superior intelligence operations. Additionally, the identification and destruction of the covert insurgent infrastructure requires criminal intelligence operations (identification, correlation, tracking, and apprehension). It is imperative to operate at the grass-roots level, establishing a relationship of trust with the locals, who are historically suspicious of any outsiders. As difficult and long as this process may be, it will be the only way to get trustworthy information from an insurgency that relies on human relations to operate.

Electronic intelligence, overhead imagery, and other technologically sophisticated techniques often are not very useful in finding soldiers who make minimum use of electronic communications, move in very small groups on foot, and are difficult to distinguish from the general population. The same holds true for the identification of members of the covert infrastructure-the problem is to separate the wheat from the chaff, a task not well suited to technologically-sophisticated intelligence-gathering means.

The intelligence task is much more difficult if population movement is not tightly controlled. A key ingredient when working against the infrastructure is the knowledge of who is who and identifying aberrations to the pattern.

The military has a central role to play in supporting the activities of development agencies. As such, it should be tasked to deliver aid to ravaged areas of the south and east, and be granted control of development aid budgets. Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) mean well but are not the right channel to provide assistance in strife-torn areas, where insurgencies are raging.