The Afghan War Is Harder to Fight than the War in Iraq

After Obama became the president of the United States, he decided to end the Iraq War within a specific time in a bid to counter the Bush administration’s erroneous policies, and to turn the U.S.’s focus on the War on Terror to Afghanistan. It is estimated that the strength of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will increase from the present 34,000 to 66,000 in the next one or two years.

Why did the U.S. turn its attention to fighting the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, despite not having won the Iraq War after six years of fighting? It is because it was only today that the policy-makers in Washington realized that the terrorists’ lairs and Bin Laden’s bases are not in Iraq, but in Afghanistan. If the U.S. is not able to eliminate these forces in Afghanistan, the whole of the Middle East and West Asia region will never have peace, and the U.S. and beyond will not be safe either.

According to Mr. Obama’s plans, the U.S. will increase its number of troops in Afghanistan to twice its current strength. With the additional troops from other member countries of NATO, the combined forces will reach 100,000 men. This is considered a lot for a mountainous battleground (Ed: At present, NATO forces stand at about 30,000 strong).

However, not only do the 100,000 strong troops have to fight a war, they would also have to guard their bases and stores, maintain logistical supply routes and clear the passage of strategic channels, as well as seal off the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan to prevent Bin Laden’s forces from passing through. A diluted 100,0000 strong army will be too little to last a long battlefront such as this.

Lessons from Russia and Britain

Years ago, the strength of the Soviet Union’s troops when it invaded Afghanistan was more that 100,000. Yet, when they fought the Afghan guerrillas, the Soviet forces still had difficulties in coping.

In order to learn from the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan 30 years ago, the United States Special Operations Command (U.S.S.O.C.) has recently invited Soviet veterans who fought in Afghanistan to train U.S. troops who would be going to the frontline in Afghanistan. They advised the U.S. to reinforce the sealing off of Afghanistan’s southwestern border and to join the Afghan government forces’ operations in squadron and platoon formations at the same time to achieve the “battle nucleus” effect.

But can the experiences of the defeated Soviet army help the U.S. army win the battle?

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, it mobilized 1.5 million troops and countless aircrafts and tanks over the course of the war, and paid a heavy price of $40 billion in military expenses and a body count of 15,000 troops. The war had nearly exhausted the Soviet Union of its finances and national power. Every foot soldier used up up to 90 kg worth of resources at the frontline every day. The food, ammunition and equipment that more than 100,000 soldiers needed every day were transported by tens of thousands of vehicles.

One of the Soviet army’s most famous battles was when it mobilized a mechanized infantry comprising of more than 300 tanks and armored vehicles to suppress the Afghan guerrillas on May 12, 1980. In the end, they were fiercely attacked by the guerrillas in the steep Panjshir Valley between the Salang Pass. The entire Soviet army fell within an hour.

This undoubtedly repeated the 19th century British colonial army’s history in Afghanistan. On June 1, 1842, an armed uprising broke out in Kabul to resist the British colonial rule. The 4,500 defending British troops in the city were incapable of suppressing the uprising and all they could do was only flee with 1,200 civilian staff and their families to Jalalabad 90 miles outside of Kabul.

In the end, when they reached the Kurdish mountain pass, they were ambushed from every side. The British troops scattered and their families suffered from hunger and cold. Only one doctor out of the 15,000 survived. The Afghans allowed him to live so that he could return home to relate the massacre.

In his book “Notes on Indian History,” Karl Marx recorded this incident: “On Jan. 13, 1842, the sentinels on the city wall of Jalalabad saw a man in British military uniform from a distance, scruffy and tattered, riding on the back of a horse. That man was Dr. Brydon. He was the only fortunate one of the 15,000 British who escaped from Kabul to survive. He was on the verge of death due to starvation.”

The sleeping mountain kingdom that resists powers

From ancient times, Afghanistan had been a mountain kingdom that was cut off from the rest of the world. The country was covered with lofty ridges and towering mountains; its soil was barren and its weather atrocious. About 600 B.C., the revered monk Xuan Zang passed by an ancient kingdom which was then known as Tochari in the Hindu Kush mountain regions.

The over 3000 tribes in Afghanistan had always been self-governing, and the village chiefs and religious elder held the power; the central government was weak and powerless. The majority of the population, the Pushtus, were a transnational people who were spread all over the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This mountain kingdom, closed up, economically backward and culturally unenlightened, seemed to be still lying in deep sleep in the 18th and 19th centuries and was very far from the modern world. The entire country and its people made their living from planting poppy flowers. Globalization, information explosions and modernization had totally nothing to do with them.

The Afghans, however, have always been a tough and unyielding people, and they have always had a tradition of resisting foreign powers. The characteristics formed from the above geographical, historical, cultural and religious factors became the hotbed for the rise of the Taliban.

The violent activities of the Taliban have now reached its highest degree since its fall in 2001. The United Nations issued a warning that the situation in Afghanistan will likely worsen this year.

I have pointed out in writing years ago that Osama bin Laden was hiding in the villages at the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He had very deep dealings with the chiefs of the villages on both sides, and so the U.S.’s $25 million bounty on him was useless. No matter how the U.S. reinforced its troops and how sophisticated their intelligence-gathering methods were, it would be very difficult to dredge him out from the countless mountains and caves of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has different conditions from Iraq. Iraq is not a mountain kingdom; it has wide and flat plains that are convenient for traffic, which is the ideal ground for the U.S.’s display of its modern military prowess. In Afghanistan, there are only 30 persons per square kilometer. The majority of the population lives in the Hindu Kush mountain region. The annual average temperature in the capital city of Kabul is -3 degrees Celsius.

Afghans have very strong nationalistic sentiments. Whether it is the common folks, the Muslim clerics, the village chiefs, or even the Taliban insurgents, their common point is that they want to be the master of their own country and their own land. They will not allow foreign powers to dominate and control their country.

At the same time when Mr. Obama announced reinforcing troops in Afghanistan, he also declared that he would carry out a new “pull out from Afghanistan” plan. Judging from the various situations mentioned above, the Afghanistan War is obviously harder to fight than the Iraq War.

Whether American troops who have turned their attention to Afghanistan will be able pull out from it after winning the war or perish in this faraway land lies in the hands of fate.