Longer Than the Soviets

“All is not well in Afghanistan,” is how German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle modestly put it in his July 9 policy statement on the upcoming Afghanistan Conference. July 20 is the date when the Karzai government is supposed to become accountable to their foreign supporters; the foreign minister was looking for advance cross-party backing.

He was looking to ward off criticism by paraphrasing a statement made by Margot Kässmann, the head of Germany’s unified Protestant Church, who was forced to resign from her office in the wake of a drunk driving incident. Westerwelle tiptoed gingerly around the subject of a future withdrawal of German forces from Afghanistan by saying that conditions there didn’t have to be good — they only had to be good enough.

But Westerwelle also said things like, “Without human rights, without a right to education for women and girls, without freedom of movement and the opportunity to participate in everyday life, there can be no sustained stabilization in the country.” By those standards, the campaign in the Hindu Kush could last for generations.

Nonetheless, Germany continues to work toward a way to withdraw without losing face. To that end, it will increase civilian aid from the present 100 million euros per year to around 400 million euros annually. More important than schooling for women and “democratic participation,” young Afghan men, who are the source of Taliban recruiting, are looking to be able to buy food and save enough money to cover the average price of a bride. With unemployment around 40 percent, many find that impossible.

“We Can’t Stay There Another Five Years”

As Germany looks for a way out, Poland has already announced it will bring its 2,500 troops home by 2012. Even Great Britain, with 9,000 soldiers in the volatile region of southern Afghanistan, is showing signs of weakness. In the town of Sangin in the Helmand River valley, British soldiers will now be replaced by American units. Approximately one-third of the 300 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan died in Sangin.

Within the framework of the Obama-ordered troop surge, American troops have already replaced British forces in neighboring Now Zad. U.S. troops recaptured the town in late 2009 with the help of Danish troops armed with Leopard tanks. The relatively lightly armed British had been unable to control the town with their own forces. The British intend to withdraw from Afghanistan by 2015. “We can’t be there for another five years, having been there for nine years already,” Cameron said at the Toronto G8 summit in late June.

Why is it that the West is able to remain in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Union? For one thing, the motivation is different. The United States demanded revenge for the historically unprecedented humiliation they suffered in the Sept. 11 attacks, and the international community understood. China hasn’t considered America’s presence on their southern or western flanks to be a threat to their security. This time the Islamic states were ultimately forced to maintain neutrality. In 1980, more than 60 nations boycotted the Moscow Olympic Games because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Aerial Reconnaissance Has Reached New Dimensions

Another reason is that the International Security Assistance Force’s technical superiority over the tribal warriors is more significant than the Soviet army’s. Casualty figures over the same period of time have been one-tenth those of the Soviets. Western soldiers, in their helmets and vests made of special plastics and titanium, are virtually “bulletproof.”

The differences in information technology are even greater. The Soviets called the tribal warriors “Duchy,” or ghosts, because they seemed to appear out of nowhere. These days, the Western troops with their night vision goggles are the ones who give the impression of being spirits. And aerial reconnaissance has also reached new dimensions: Airships now hover over the larger Afghan cities, peering into every backyard with their sensors.

And there’s no comparison in the level of care for troops. 150,000 of the 700,000 Soviet troops suffered from typhus and hepatitis. Today, inoculations and hygiene have improved the situation, and food supplies are delivered fresh from home. Most importantly, the new Afghanistan campaign is more bearable because it doesn’t depend on military conscripts.