The Henry Jackson Society: Project for Democratic Geopolitics is a cross-partisan, British think-tank which seeks to pursue, protect and promote the principles of free and democratic societies. The Society has just released a paper that looks at the issues of the SDSR and NSS, the UK’s interests and strategic issues for the future.
It’s well worth a read although when discussing harriers and carriers it is wrong, this is only one paragraph out of many so let’s not get too hung up on it.
In all, a very good read
Click here to read and here, for comment.
Actually a pretty good doc. Especially the Harrier/Carrier piece.
We cannot predict the future; it always comes ‘out of left field’. At present, we are (as usual) preparing for a whiteness of swans, but the Black Swan is hatching, somewhere.
Defence spending should always concentrate on the development of flexible, deployable capability. We should not fixate on scenarios we think might occur. We can’t prepare for everything, but we must prepare for anything. “Stay Frosty!”
It’s a thoughtful document, although it could do with more detail. An interesting related article from the US civilian point of view is this:-
http://washingtonexaminer.com/node/154366
It’s ridiculous to describe defence as “too expensive”; the costs are piddling compared to the DSS, NHS, Educashun and the rest.
What counts is what sort of nation you want to be: one that can be relied upon to protect it’s and it’s allies interests, or one that always finds excuses to avoid the hard choices.
I see what they are getting at. Its common sense, they see British power as being much more than its application of force it also encompasses so called “soft power” and that the NSS differs from a National Strategy as the latter takes into account this “soft power” and any wider geopolitical and strategic considerations. All this makes sense.
But to actually produce such a document would be an enormous challenge and out of date as soon as it was finished and all it would do is put in writing the broadest strokes of our geopolitical options and paths and these broad strokes already exist in an intangible sense. Our interests are, fundamentally self evident – they are stability, access to energy, food and trade and the balance of power.
I can’t see a National Strategy accomplishing much other than combining what is already done in a rapidly out of date document riddled with spin and political shite.
I agree that a joined up approach to our strategy is a very good idea and there is plenty of evidence for this occurring in actual real life as opposed to yet another report. An example is our overseas aid budget which so many people whine about and our constant battle to hold together alliances and economic relations. A National Security Strategy is a far more tangible and achievable document, whilst a National Strategy, why that encompasses every single thing we do on the international stage and a huge number of things we do on the domestic stage too. It wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on, it is too intangible a concept to freeze in thought in any meaningful sense.
A National Strategy document would have to be a rational and intellectually pure document, untarnished by political considerations. But of course, such a document could never be so and this contagion would grossly distort our thinking and our actions.
Far better a mind to the timeless and obvious interests of this country in their pure, realist sense then some turgid political document that is almost impossible to properly accomplish.
When you look back at our history, no matter the political party or monarch in power, the same fundamental themes play themselves out and this proves that they are timeless and realised. And that they are so fundamental, so self evident that they often go unnoticed.
International relations is not the realm of the whims and u-turns of domestic politics and should be kept separate from such. Transient political ideas have no place in what is essentially a timeless struggle between states and other types of political entities where the same interests play out over centuries.
@ Primus Video – I have to agree; flexibility is the way to go in general and practically in uncertain times such as these.
@ Rupert Fiennes – Although I agree defence is “cheap” I disagree with the links suggestion we can’t have decent armed forces and a welfare state. I think the Butter or bullets argument is a false one. Then again, I’m an optimist :p
@ Phil – As stated on the open thread, I’m a fan of the English school. One of their core writers was Martin Wight; he believed history was made by three traditions or political attitudes – Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionalism. These can be roughly linked to state interests, interstate community, and transnational interests. Or as I like to see it the three “D”‘s – Defence, Diplomacy, and development. If we are to have a true national strategy it must combine all these traditions and blend them together; in certain operations one or two elements might take precedence (disaster relief, peer war, international conference) but all three will be present to some degree. So it makes sense (at least to me) that they should at least be coordinated if not combined in certain areas.
I read till about page 3 when I came across:
“Likewise, a contributing factor in Osama bin Laden’s decision to attack the United States on 11th September 2001 was his perception of American weakness.”
It’s increasingly believed now that the opposite was true; that one of the motivations was to provoke the US into war. Thus I question how much research really went into this document. To my knowledge there is almost nobody who actually believes that Bin Laden expected 9/11 to go unpunished.
“Likewise, a contributing factor in Osama bin Laden’s decision to attack the United States on 11th September 2001 was his perception of American weakness.
It’s increasingly believed now that the opposite was true; that one of the motivations was to provoke the US into war”
do the statements conflict?
I should have put the whole quote up, that’s my fault;
“Likewise, a contributing factor in Osama bin Laden’s decision to attack the United States on 11th September 2001 was his perception of American weakness. To withdraw from the front line of global geopolitics will not make the UK more secure.”
In the context of the document they were suggesting that Al-Qaeda didn’t expect a retribution from the US.
@ ChrisB
Osama Bin Laden wanted war with the USA, because he knows it will bankrupt the USA, just as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ultimately led to the bankruptcy of the USSR.
Rep Ron Paul, who is also a Presidential Candidate for 2012 said it distinctly on the House Floor this week.. “On one side of the aisle you have a party that loves entitlements (social spending), and on the other you have a party that loves War…. it will ultimately bankrupt us, not because we will not be able to send out Social Security checks, but because the Social Security checks will not be able to purchase anything, because of the inflation the Federal Reserve’s printing of dollars is creating.” (paraphrased)
Osama knew exactly what he was doing… Seriously… who has ever held Afghanistan? The USA, and if NATO had the balls… (certainly no slight to our UK allies) truly wanted to defeat Muslim terrorism, we would have to invade Pakistan… and who the heck wants to do that, because then you would have to hold Pakistan?
Pakistan is the modern day Cambodia of the Vietnam War with the one exception that it could defend itself if attacked… The entire population would mobilize to repel the invader… long bloody affair… and why?
Better a job left to India, should it have to occur?
That is the bottom line; I am afraid.
btw: When you capitalize Democratic… that means the Democrat Party in the USA… democratic.. i.e. democracy is that Greek concept of Govt. The USA is a Republic… or has been by the Grace of God for the last two centuries… just have to point that out.
Dear TD,
I’ve found the offending two paragraphs on Harriers and Carriers which you assert are wrong. I’ve appended them below – would you mind being a bit more specific?
Thanks.
Dan
“The argument that an aircraft carrier capability has not been necessary for the Libya operation belies the fact that this is only so on account of the availability of the airbase at Gioia del Colle in Italy and Britain’s own Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus. Had a similar crisis developed in a part of the world where friendly land bases were not available, the situation could have been quite different.
Moreover, sorties flown from Gioia del Colle or RAF Aktoriri – still less from RAF Marham in Norfolk – simply cannot monitor as effectively or respond as quickly as Harrier sorties flown from Ark Royal could have done, and as sorties from the French carrier Charles de Gaulle currently do. Ministers have asserted that the Tornado had to be used because it alone could deploy the new version of the Brimstone missile which Harrier – it was said – could not. This is factually wrong. It could and, ministers were plainly misinformed. Admiral Giuseppe di Giorgi explained on the record to the 2011 RUSI Maritime Conference on 6th July that Italy chose to use its own carrier-borne Harrier fleet rather than its air bases on land because the Harriers gave it vastly more flexibility, safety and precision than using its land-based aircraft. And furthermore Harrier cost 1/10th per hour over Libya the cost of Typhoon and 1/8th the cost of Tornado. The SDSR decision is therefore not only strategically incoherent and tactically riskier but also greatly more expensive.”
Dan, I didn’t really want to get into another carrier and harrier debate
but
The responsiveness angle is sometime overplayed because of the nature of the actual operations, we were in general not responding to targets of opportunity but preplanned targets so responsiveness becomes rather a moot point
Being able to ‘monitor effectively’ is about endurance, so I would venture that a twin seat aircraft with very large range/endurance trumps a single seat aircraft with very short legs, even accepting it is closer, pretty much all of the time
The point about friendly land bases is a good point but looking back over the history of naval aviation you will find a very thin layer of operations where friendly land bases have not been available
Brimstone, was not cleared for Harrier although with the right amount of cash could have been but the reality is, at the start of Ellamy, Brimstone could not be fired by Harrier
If I can end with a question of my own, can anyone please explain how a Harrier flying off an aircraft carrier is more safe, flexible and has greater precision than a Tornado flying from a land base. Also, can anyone explain how they derive the costs for Typhoon, Harrier and Tornado
I am waiting for Gabby to turn up and tell us about transit times, times on station etc.
And we need to Mark to tell us how relaxing sitting in a cockpit for over 4 hours whilst whizzing along at a good few hundred kts.
“The point about friendly land bases is a good point but looking back over the history of naval aviation you will find a very thin layer of operations where friendly land bases have not been available”
Yeah, little and puny issues like Turkey saying no to the US in 2003 for Iraq ops causing a major rethink of the plan, Saudi Arabia also staying out of it despite the huge amount of money the US had poured into preparing bases in the kingdom, or like the war in afghanistan which was fought by TLAMs and naval fighters practically alone plus a puny number of heavy bomber sorties from Diego Garcia.
Or the Falklands.
Or even Suez, in which the FAA to RAF ratio in sortie generation was 2 to 1, and other conflicts.
In the meanwhile the RAF can go and make observations such as
‘We are routinely flying 6-hour sorties, several sorties per day.’
‘The fact that to launch from GDC to get to the coast of Libya is a similar distance as from London to Monaco. And that’s just to get there. And then we’ll refuel twice or three times to support the task we need to achieve over Libya.’
http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/archive.cfm?storyid=CBDD478F-5056-A318-A8B2B542BDC0DD9F
Impressive accomplishments, but they also stink of “we are doing it wrong”.
Two or three AARs for mission. And no less than 2 hours out of six gone just for going and returning. Cost-effective? No. Not to talk about the delivery of six Storm Shadow from Marham via an 8 hours mission which burned 60 tons of fuel, 10 tons for each missile delivered, and required 3 AARs on the way out and one on the way back. How many TLAMs could be financed with the money squandered on this small-scale imitation of the old “Global Power” exercises the USAF at times do?
I cannot restrain from noting that if there were 800+ TLAMs and 65 Storm Shadows instead of 65 TLAMs and 800+ Storms, the situation would be better.
As it stands, USS Florida with its over 60 TLAMs launched on the first night of Odyssey Dawn, is the main hero of the Libya war, and probably will remain unmatched.
The distance means, as i read in an italian publication, that NATO as a whole is flying on a schedule of around 60 sorties a day, equivalent to just 4 orbits with on-station time of 3-4 hours.
“we were in general not responding to targets of opportunity but preplanned targets so responsiveness becomes rather a moot point”
The question is: is it a good thing? Or does it happen because there’s no capability to do differently?
Between 31 march and 29 april, the targets hit by NATO were:
220 armored vehicles (37%)
200 ammo depots (33%)
70 SAMs and AAA systems (11%)
with around 1200 PGMs of all kinds.
Between 30 april and 30 may
HQs, radars, depots and other structures 359 (59%)
75 artillery targets (12%)
61 armored vehicles (10%)
55 vehicles (9%)
45 SAMs and AAA (7%)
9 vessels (1.5%)
6 infantry formations (1%)
5 airplanes on the ground (5%)
With an average of 54 sorties per day and roughly the same number of PGMs used.
There’s who’s observed, and i’m tempted to agree, that we are striking the kind of targets (HQs, depots, radars and other structures) that you hit prior to an invasion, but achieving little effect against the actual forces in the field. While this is also in part due to ROEs (i read of planes striking a single vehicle in the artillery battery and allowing the rest to flee, which i contest as not wise), to the fact that Gaddafi forces more often than not hide along civilians and into urban areas and everything, it is also due to:
-Recognized insufficient recce, ISTAR and intelligence
-inexorably, it is also due to the fact that the NATO coverage is an holed umbrella. Gaddafi forces hide into heavily urbanized area, then go out after the sortie is over, and at times launch a strong (and generally successful) counterattack that recaptures terrain or whole towns.
The rebels would arguably be more advantaged by a NATO capable to timely destroy targets of opportunity, in the form of armored vehicles and moreover artillery, and ideally also infantry.
They would greatly benefit from an improved coverage and CAS, instead of being left vulnerable to counterattacks in the periods in which NATO aicrafts simply aren’t in the area.
Targeting HQs is good when you are preparing an invasion. During a civil war, and with the communications in Libya already weak before the start of the war, i highly doubt that there is much in terms of centralized direction. Probably, the situation is kind of chaotic, and it depends more on the decisions of the unit commanders in this town or that town than on what Gaddafi says back in Tripoli.
We are fighting Libya on a small-scale Iraq 2003 Air Strike plan, without recognizing (or recognizing but being incapable to do anything about it) that it is a different conflict that we are fighting, in which a different choice of targets would work better to achieve the desired aims.
I remain overall favorable to retiring CVS and Harrier, only due to their respective limits, and only as a temporary sacrifice until the proper carrier come.
But Libya is just strengthening my conviction that carriers are and remain essential. And i really cannot agree with your easy way of saying that everyone who argues in favor of carriers is “wrong”.
I refuse to be drawn in
Are you unanimous in that TD?
Bitch
Chris in Virginia
Hear Hear. Afghan invasion; (either ours or Russians) = Stupidest war since Jenkins Ear.
This was always going to happen… US is going to bankrupt itself trying be world policeman.
I don’t want to draw anyone anywhere. In fact, i might well say that i’m the one who gets drawn and lured into these ideological wars by bold statements of carriers being “wrong” regardless of who, what, when, where and why.
@ Gabby
Well I think you do a splendid job. You shame many of us Brits with your knowledge.
@Gabby
If TD is upsetting you then simply note that while historically air bases have been available that is no reason to suppose they will be in future, historically the US has been the world’s largest economy but we can be quite sure that it will not continue to be.
But also by the same token historically very little damage has been done to carriers post the Second World War, that does not in any way indicate that with new cruise missiles and new nations with satellite capability that we can expect damage to remain a low threat.
Historically there has been no or little evidence that compromising software can defeat an armed force, looking to the future we know that it is a real possibility and yet there is no advantage to ignoring computers and being out performed by better military technologies.
There are some threats from the past that hold good in the future, there are some that are declining and there are some that are increasing, most problematic is that we struggle to understand how they combine into a scenario that we can plan and equip for.
@TD
The scay bit about Libya is that NATO are running out of targets. They are now hitting C2 nodes for a second time. Far more missions are being designated against dynamic targets. At this stage the UK and French AH are doing vital work and I suppose that Harrier type aircraft flown from a few miles offshore would be very useful.
Hi TD
Awhile back i’m certain that we had dropped bombs on the rebels cause they had advanced into Libyian Gov. troops positions before our aircraft had taken off to attack those Gov. positions.
How anyone can derive costs is a complete mystery to me, especailly as depreciation of assets (actual cost of an aircraft), is somehow factored in by the nutters at the MoD. (i call that “making stuff up”)
Is there anyone who likes and understands accountants?
On afghanistan, if the USA hadn’t got distracted by the alure of an easy peasy war in Iraq things might have been different.
At the time, to me, it seemed that they wanted to wreak vengence on someone, anyone, for that atrocity on 11/9.
oh god, more echos from people who are repeating themselves RE carriers and harriers; whats happened has happened, no need to look back and argue about what has been, hindsight is a wonderful thing. We should really be talking about how best to use what we have/will have/can afford to have.
Carrier/s will be built, so dont worry x and gabbs c:
But for now we have to deal with what we have… and that aint much.
We should be thinking hard on what to use, we cant look at past ops for 100% reflection since the equipment, ROE and much more has changed (obviouslt things are WAY more politicised now than 20 or 10 years back) and we need to take that into account with future issues and operations we may take.
Afghanistan is landlocked; and if neighbouring nations deny over-flight rules for armed strike aircraft? Now thats something to think about!
Politicians are the same;
Indeed! No more good targets to hit other than personell…something which is really a helicopter job :/ especially with the demise of air-deployed anti-personell/area weapons.
There were a series of bold claims (more precision, safer etc) in that report that had more than a whiff of pttsharekeynomics which always gets my spidey senses tingling. Have I ever said carrier based fast air is cack, no, have I ever said being 20 miles off a coast creates anything but shorter response times, no, but I get hacked off with people thinking carriers are somehow the cure the cancer, most of it is ridiculous hyperbole that doesn’t stand up to any kind of analysis.
The challenge for the RN and RAF is now to worry about preservation of capability, how they are going to fund F35C, how they can integrate a very much reduced carrier strike capability into the wider force structure, how they can square the CTOL v helicopter/amphib ops circle and more importantly, how they are going to afford the changeover by filling the various gaping holes in their cost models or in other words, eliminate risk
I’ve hesitated to mention Mary Kaldor the author of a book I found interesting “ The Baroque Arsenal” published in 1982 which seeks to understand why projections at that time were for military production lines of only one ship, or plane by the year 2000ish.
Which given the 3 ship DDG and 3 boat sea wolf productio runs are good predictions by military analysts.
These predictions were being made by analysts but she wanted to understand why this was happening, she is now a professor at the LSE and comments on the role of governance in reducing conflict.
She has a talk online but it’s really quite long, (I warned you)I think its worth the time because she is one of those academics who has bothered to understand the military machine even if she is not impressed by its culture or results.
The posts on this site have some similar conclusions so I wonder how well her views will be received.
Try Martin Van Creveld too, wrote a book circa 1990 called On Future War here and something else in the States. Interesting read. All his books in fact are very interesting reads. I particularly recommend On Logistics. It will open your eyes…
@ Mike re overflying rights
When you start digging into IR as a field it is surprising how on occasion a lot of diplomatic effort is invested or perhaps better still how much diplomatic capital is spent to get stuff done. And then at other times little is required. Relations between states sometimes have more in common with the playground than the something formal and grown-up. As I keep saying anything that increase our independence to act by even a slight margin is something which should be invested in. The disadvantage is that steel and FJ and crews can be costed and treated as an expense. While the less tangible freedom of action cannot be easily costed; even though the benefits it brings may repay the cost of the platform many times over.
“While the less tangible freedom of action cannot be easily costed; even though the benefits it brings may repay the cost of the platform many times over.”
Very much agreed X.
Thanks TD, Gabby and x for your comments – sorry if you didn’t want to go there this time – but that’s what is so good about this site!
So please keep it up.
Personally I’m slightly amazed that they only allocated 2 paragraphs of a 46 page document to the carriers and harriers issue.
I think that demonstrates what a hyper-sensitive topic it has become and if you’ll forgive the pun, why it is being tip-toed around, even in this paper.
@ Dan
Well the case for carrier is so blindingly obvious it only needs 2 paragraphs.
Your politicians must be crooked… what is the quid pro quo for stripping you military, only to purchase a plane that is only stealthy head on, and carries half the payload of other less expensive aircraft?
“The challenge for the RN and RAF is now to worry about preservation of capability, how they are going to fund F35C, how they can integrate a very much reduced carrier strike capability into the wider force structure, how they can square the CTOL v helicopter/amphib ops circle and more importantly, how they are going to afford the changeover by filling the various gaping holes in their cost models or in other words, eliminate risk”
On this there’s no doubts at all.
@X
Thank you very much.
“Indeed! No more good targets to hit other than personell…something which is really a helicopter job :/ especially with the demise of air-deployed anti-personell/area weapons.”
In 2003 in Iraq were launched over 9000 “dumb” iron bombs: they are good to hit personnel or light-armored vehicles out in the open.
Over 300.000 rounds of 30 mm Avenger gun were fired by A10s, and over 200.000 rounds of onboard gun (mostly 20 mm due to the majority of US planes having it) while in Libya all this is missing.
And only so much it depends from targets being in urbanized areas.
Besides, Libya is not really urbanized. Which makes me wonder what the hell we’d be doing if it was…
“Afghanistan is landlocked; and if neighbouring nations deny over-flight rules for armed strike aircraft? Now thats something to think about!”
Well, in that case we would have been screwed, simply. The closer land air bases for the operation were in Oman, and the only contribute of land based aircrafts other than tankers and support were the B1s, B2s and B52s taking off from Diego Garcia. They would have been just as screwed as naval aircrafts.
Interestingly, as a side note, even the B52 needed AAR to go from Garcia, bomb and make it back.
The rest was all TLAMs and naval aircrafts.
Without overflight permission, planes would have had to try and sneak undetected through Pakistan’s air space (as done for the Abottabad raid on Osama) or simply accept that the operation couldn’t be done.
Stealth planes are made to sneak past undetected. Maybe the US Navy was thinking on these lines, other than “survivability in contest airspace” when it decided it needed its own stealth capability.
@ Chris in Virginia.
Please, spare us your sanctimonious American perspective.
Your politicians are just as crooked as anyone else’s and exploit the defence budget for their own ends as much as any other in the world.
Have a look in your own backyard before smugly spouting off from your high horse. I can list several defence programmes in the US that were shut down or extend purely because of political lobbying in Congress with the decision having nothing to do with military necessity.
And besides, the days of pork in the DoD budget are also about to come to an end. If the interminable political wrangling that goes on in your country can ever come close to a clear path to do it that is.
Well, I’ve been nice and ill the last couple of days (food poisoning) and I’ve missed all the fun. I’m not gonna get involved in another back and forth over carriers (literally don’t have the energy) but I have to laugh at some of the back slapping, “good job old boy” stuff over some of the arguments that are a little bit ridiculous.
For example, there seems to be an unreasonable amount of scorn over things like air to air refuelling? I don’t understand this. Navy aircraft partake of air to air refuelling, but I guess its only a criticism when the aircraft are land based? And if air to air refuelling was such a pain in the arse, why does anyone bother with it?
Anyway, re Osama Bin Laden;
It had nothing to do with bankrupting the US. One of Al Qaeda’s stated aims is to try and build a new Islamic Caliphrate, a middle eastern powerhouse. It is believed that they hoped by drawing America into a middle eastern war that it would unite muslims against the US and against Israel etc.
chris in virginia, when the US air force bigwigs and boffins selected the airbus tanker, who blocked it and then moved the goalposts for the new bids, in fact wasn’t the man kicking up the most fuss from chicago?
kettle calling pot, please send colour state, over.
@ Phil & Paul G: If I am so in the bag for my corrupt politicians, & military chieftains, why do I bash the F-35? I have criticized my own GOP party here in Virginia for not allowing one of our CVN’s to be stationed in Mayport Florida… i.e clustering them in Norfolk, VA as the only Eastern Seaboard port invites a nuke, or other port denial attack there…
I am saying that your politicians.. poli (of the many) tics (bloodsuckers) are akin to ours.. just didn’t say that in the comment above.
Furthermore, your corrupt politicians set your services against one another over funding, and I think it is akin to treasonous in the terms of National Defense. When the Shiite hits the fan, it will always be the Anglo Coalition that responds…
@Chris B, the Caliphate is in the works as the Middle Eastern Nations populace rises up… such as in Egypt, Syria, Libya… and it gains numerical population via the birthrate in Old Europe… and even in Russia. We have a real demographic time bomb on our hands, and the Press certainly isn’t going to talk about it.. and for goodness sakes.. the french are the worst!
The West is ignoring the real threat. Osama Bin Laden set in play the USA as the real Satan killing Muslims, that heretofore was carried out by Israel… Now Americans/UK/Canadians/Australians have done the bloodshed. Now Muslims are not monolithic in thinking, but who always gets killed in wars? The poor.. who are the populace of the Middle East by Muslim design.
It is a dangerous game handing Iraq over to the Shiites… with Iran close at hand.
Yet, I will say it again. 90% of USA oil is coming from Canada, Mexico, Crazy Hugo, domestic production, and soon from Brazil.
I am with the carrier crew.. defend the Falklands, and work out a revenue sharing deal with the oil fields there…. You can not trust the USA to always fight for your interests… ala today’s current events in a certain north African nation?
I think the uprisings in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and Tunisia are seriously misunderstood, thanks in large part to the media (surprise, surprise) and their insistence on using that bloody term “Arab Spring”.
The uprising in Egypt is vastly different to the one in Syria and none of these uprisings look likely to produce anything along the lines of the kind of harmonious democracy that Western politicians are hoping for.
@ Chris B.
You are exactly right… Until the populace is educated to a functional level… you will always have jihad.
Another thought. The current Afghanistan Conflict has the parallel with the Vietnam War in that the bad buys are using Pakistan as a sanctuary (Cambodia, Laos & North Vietnam itself) that we could not move troop formations into (politicians). Without the ability to kill the enemy, and destroy their supplies in their bases, and an enemy with an unlimited supply of willing bodies to fight the war… It’s unwinnable short nuclear devastation of your opponent?
Now another lesson here is that only attacking North Vietnam with air power… and the USA unleashed air power on them…. what makes anyone think that air power could bring Libya to heel? Tried the same with the Serbs didn’t we, and still have ground troops there today.
“Without the ability to kill the enemy, and destroy their supplies in their bases, and an enemy with an unlimited supply of willing bodies to fight the war”
There isn’t an unlimited supply of bodies willing to fight. The recruiting pool of the Taliban is very varied and mostly consists of ten-dollar Taliban or more often than not local thugs and gangsters which we label Taliban for convenience but actually have little in common with the organisation.
There are actually surprisingly few tier one Taliban and they are getting killed very rapidly with the result that their replacements are getting younger and younger and in a society that values maturity and age they are sorely lacking legitimacy with the result that their tactics are getting more and more desperate and they are alienating more and more normal Afghan folk.
Comparing Afghan to Vietnam is a boorish and lazy argument against operations there.
The problem with Afghanistan is that it does not matter if the people we are fighting are 15 year old kids or veteran Taleban fighters. They are Afghanis fighting against what they see as a foreign invasion that has enforced a massively corrupt puppet regime on them. They will simply wait for us to get fed up and leave, replace Karzai with whoever they feel like and life will return to normal.
APATS
No, most are thugs, gangsters, arseholes, the unemployed and the desperate all exploited by tier 1 Taliban. The motivations for fighting are very varied and localised and more often than not are the same motivations as someone joining a gang – fun, excitement, peer pressure, greed, sense of belonging, money, power and respect.
These “Taliban” are also fighting the ANP/ANA and the ALP which belies any notion that a foreign invasion is a primary motivator to fight. That is a massively oversimplified argument.
Most Taliban don’t deserve the name. They are thugs and their leaders, the most competant fighters, are getting killed in droves and their legitimacy is weakening and weakening.
There is no broad based support for the Taliban in Helmand.
“These “Taliban” are also fighting the ANP/ANA and the ALP which belies any notion that a foreign invasion is a primary motivator to fight. That is a massively oversimplified argument.”
They fought foreign invaders in 1839-1842 1878-1880 1978-1988 and they are again. The fact that the local/national army/police set up by the invaders are also fighting against them(sometimes) is merely an extra motivator. They do not see them as true Afganis but an extension of outside interference, puppet regime.
The only certainty is that when we pull out, Karzai will not remain in power and things in Afghanistan will return to what they see as the norm. We will have spent billions of pounds and suffered hundreds of casualties.
CHRIS IN VIRGINIA
Yep always going to happen that way…
In many ways the only difference between Afghan and vietnam is that there’s less jungle, and the soundtrack is not as good.
You do realise that ISAF are there at the invitation of GiROA right?
“They do not see them as true Afganis but an extension of outside interference, puppet regime.”
I’m sure there are some tier 1 Taliban who do think this. But the majority of their cannon fodder fight for far simpler and timeless reasons which I have listed above. And as we raise the ALP in Helmand that argument is being eroded further and further.
“In many ways the only difference between Afghan and vietnam is that there’s less jungle, and the soundtrack is not as good.”
Rubbish. Utter rubbish. A comparison rolled out by lazy people who rely on its emotive connotations as a substitute for a real understanding and facts.
Phil,
It does not matter who we train to and put in place. History demostrates that they seldom survive the pullout of their masters.
The GoROA are busy filling up swiss bank accounts
to ensure they do not need to stay post pull out.
It does not matter who we train?
So when we train local people to defend their own compounds and their own families from acts of Taliban violence and punitive and illegal taxation they’re just going to vanish into thin air when we leave?
It does matter who we are training as the ALP directly and fundamentally undermines a large ideological reason for a lot of Tier 1 Taliban to fight and undermines a lot of their recruitment spiel to the young and disaffected.
It is very hard to recruit cannon fodder and persuade them to directly shoot at their families especially when those doing the pursuading are young and inexperienced and therefore lack legitimacy in the eyes of Afghan society.
Fact is Karzai is in power, he will wish to remain in power and in order to stay in power he will have a large standing army, a large standing police force and a local militia of ALP to ensure he and his cronies stay in power. And they will face by 2015 a weakened, localised, fragmented insurgency, ineffectually led, isolated from the populace and needing to fight their own families whilst simultaneously having a large motivating factor for Tier 1 Taliban undermined by us leaving.
The regime knows which side its bread is buttered on. We’re never going to make a democracy out of Afghanistan for a number of generations but we are perfectly able to bring some stability to the region, some notion of plurality in Kabul and a government that knows we will NEVER tolerate GiROA being benevolent toward terrorists.
Phil
Lets do a check list..
Vietnam
1)Govt totaly lacking in support of population.
2) Govt funded by forign power intent on imposing their version of ‘democracy’ on a people with no knowledge or esperiance of it.
3) Strong idiological core of resisitance,
4) A people that have fought ‘foreign’ occuopation for centuries.
5) safe havens accross the borders for training resupply etc.
6) Seemingly Independant funding for resisitence
7) A layer of corruption and duoble dealing miles thick covering all of the above
8) A war started without any concept of history and likley response by the people being ‘saved’
9) Freindly fire civilian casulties of the famous
‘In order to save the village it was necessary to destroy it’ type
10) credibility of occupying forces destroyed by civilian casulties from air strikes and torture – maltreetment of prisoners
11) Under funding, under rescourcuing, under manning of allied opperations, caused by requirements elswhere.
12) Much equipment not suitable for the terrain.
13) We trained up an army of locals to fight when we declared victory and went home..
Now lets do a check on afghan …
OH ………..
Not every counter insurgency or war is vietnam but some are.
We are off in 2015 onwards within 2 years after we leave Karzi is off (probably with family friends and national treasury).
We are allready talking to the taliban for the exit strategy..
Oh and how are we persuading them to negotiate – by bombing them to the negotiating table – no vietnam paralles there then.
The regime knows which side its bread is buttered on. We’re never going to make a democracy out of Afghanistan for a number of generations but we are perfectly able to bring some stability to the region, some notion of plurality in Kabul and a government that knows we will NEVER tolerate GiROA being benevolent toward terrorists.
When we are gone we are gone, the US will never put ground troops in there again.
IXION
But we will leave them with a stern warning not be benovelent towards terrorism!
We should have a game called Western Intervention bingo. Libya(yes) Syria(no) Iraq(yes) Yemen(no) Afganistan(yes) Bahrain(no).
If I hadn’t lost mates it would be hilarious in it’s hypocrisy!