The Strategic Meaning of Obama’s Surge in Afghanistan

Around the axis of Afghanistan, Central Asia has a special geopolitical advantage and has long been strategically bridging the gap between the Middle East and East Asia. During the Cold War, under the influence of the Eastern Europe and USSR military powers, Central Asia was the battlefield of the military force expansion and the arms race between the U.S. and the USSR. Therefore, the Western countries, especially the U.S., have been coveting this area since WWII, and will spare no effort to get the most out of it.

At the beginning of this year, President Obama, the new master of the White House, responded soon after his swearing in, stating that he would pull troops out of Iraq and send 17,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. On one hand, this denotes that the battlefront and the strategic center of the anti-terrorist combat is moving toward Central Asia; in the meanwhile, it also shows that the Obama administration’s troop surge strategy for Central Asia is much the same as the former Bush administration’s surge strategy for Afghanistan —namely, the enhancement and continuity of America’s Central Asia strategy. For the U.S., which is currently trapped in a financial crisis, pushing the Central Asia strategy forward seems particularly urgent.

President Obama Discloses the Draft of the Central Asia Strategy

The huge deficit (about 1.8 trillion dollars) and the U.S. unemployment rate (10 percent), along with the lagging economic recovery, have vexed president Obama greatly. He will have to make effective plans so as to turn the tide and win over the Americans people's support. After about two months of urgent consultations with military leaders, President Obama at last announced his new Central Asia strategy while at West Point. The U.S. government will continue anti-terrorist activities in Afghanistan, sending 30,000 more soldiers by the summer of 2010 and gradually withdraw from Afghanistan starting the summer of 2011.

Soon after, NATO announced a troop surge of 9,500 soldiers. The media and the White House said the main reason for this troop surge is to support the anti-terrorist combat efforts, clear the Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan and Palestine, stabilize Central Asia and make appropriate preparations for the coming withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, with anti-terrorist combat that has lasted eight years and the already well suppressed terrorist force, we may have to read between the lines to get what is really behind this large scale troop surge. For now, the U.S. and NATO have 103,000 soldiers in Afghanistan – 68,000 American and 35,000 NATO soldiers.

After the new surge, the garrison would reach 142,500. According to this trend and the request by NATO, the troop surge will continue. This is apparently a preparation and strategic deployment for another war or a rearrangement of the military disposition in Central Asia. Therefore, the so-called “troop surge with the purpose of withdrawal” is only a mask — to redeploy in Central Asia is the true intent. Controlling Central Asia would be like killing two birds with one stone.

As we can see from the above analysis, the core of the U.S. strategy in Central Asia is to be preemptive, build firewalls against China and Russia, amputate Central Asia, take control of Iran, counterbalance East Asia and finally realize the ambition of global domination. Taking geographical features, geopolitics and historical influence into consideration, President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan, with even deeper meanings, will kill two birds with one stone.

First of all, the U.S. government regards the Afghan garrison as a breakthrough point, so America can quickly take control and command ground in Central Asia and then compress the defense buffer zone in northwest China to restrain China’s rising. Meanwhile, this will stop Russia from its westward expansion, coordinating with NATO’s eastward expansion and restricting Russia in the Far East.

Secondly, if the U.S. were to completely solve the Iranian nuclear issue, it would make preparation for war likely to occur. Iran and Iraq are two major countries in Central Asia and have long been the major obstacles of the American military's eastward expansion for oil imports from the Far East. The Iraq issue had already been settled by the Bush administration, using the excuse of exterminating weapons of mass destruction; while in Iran, the religious cohesion, political conviction and military might are comparatively stronger than in Iraq. Additionally, Iran’s geographic structure and situation are also much more complicated, so it’s no easy task to solve the Iranian issue. The Bush administration had no time to continue addressing this issue so it had to be handed down to the Obama administration. President Obama’s troop surge for Afghanistan has already shown the sword to completely solve the Iranian nuclear issue.

Thirdly, as for the U.S., they think that if they can take full control of Iran, they can then take full control of the Middle East and West Asia, and hence cut the west passage of China’s energy supply. This will also boost U.S. prestige in controlling the world energy supply, pushing China into an energy bottleneck, tamping the base of America’s position as world leader and resumption of a stronger dollar. Meanwhile, once the anti-terrorist combat gets worse or the U.S. declares war on Iran, huge profits will be made by American munitions companies and the aircraft industry. As a result, everything will be easier for President Obama to carry out his plans to revitalize the American economy and improve the labor market.

And, last but not least, after eight years of anti-terrorist combat, the garrison and continuously increased number of troops in Afghanistan have been the base for carrying out the Central Asia strategy. The U.S. government will not give up control over Central Asia and will continue building its Central Asia strategy, which will become the main focus of the U.S. government, instead of focusing on being the main force in the war on terrorism. Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was founded for the purpose of cracking down on terrorism and economic cooperation between China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, is put to the test under this situation and its influence in Central and East Asia will be challenged as well.