New path or repeating history?
kabul — Here are some key questions about the impact of US President Donald Trump’s strategy could have in a country known as “the graveyard of empires”.
He refused to give figures or details. But the strategy appears to amount to around 4,000 new troops, largely freed from Obamaera restrictions and thus able to take on greater frontline combat roles to target “terrorist and criminal networks”.
The 8,500 United States personnel currently in-country are largely restricted to Nato’s mission of training the Afghan Army and offering strategic support on certain missions, though some are already conducting frontline operations.
The other main plank of Trump’s outline strategy was to pressure Pakistan, a move which has already been attempted repeatedly attempted by Washington.
Analysts point out that United States administrations have for years complained that Islamabad talks a good game about helping to defeat extremists, but in fact offers refuge to the Afghan Taleban in particular, and stokes the insurgency. Not on the face of it. Former president Barack Obama authorised a massive surge that saw troop numbers top out at over 100,000, a move that decreased violence but did not result in a decisive blow.
“Probably the greatest contradiction that emerged from (the speech) is the claim we will learn from history and yet none of the policies have not been tried before,” said James Der Derian of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.
Others point out however that Afghan forces are now at a point where a smaller number of advisers more strategically deployed could make a difference.
With predictable violence and from a position of relative strength, observers say.
They are likely to seek to send an early message, perhaps with a major urban attack — the like of which they proved themselves capable with a massive truck bomb in Kabul’s diplomatic quarter in May. “The Taleban and other belliger- ents are likely to respond with a new wave of violence across the country,” including in urban areas, said Javid Ahmad from West Point’s Modern War Institute.
The Taleban has strengthened in recent years, and Afghan forces, beset by spiralling casualties, have struggled to contain them since Nato ended its combat mission in 2014. A United States watchdog says Afghan forces control less than 60 per cent of the country, with the rest either in Taleban hands or being violently contested.
Unlike the war-weary United States, the Taleban has an almost endless capacity to absorb loss of life among its ranks. —