Afghanistan - Commander's calls for reinforcements fall on deaf ears
Afghanistan - Commander's calls for reinforcements fall on deaf ears
By Daniel Dombey and Stephen Fidler
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 13 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 13 2006 03:00
When General James Jones, Nato's top military commander, returned from a visit to Afghanistan last week, he decided he had no time to lose.
"It was an eye-opening trip," said an official who travelled in the Nato entourage. One incident that made a particular impression was a briefing by General David Fraser, the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, on the bitter fighting between Taliban insurgents and his troops.
"When the Nato ambassadors saw things for real on the ground, it was a shock for them," said one person close to Nato's operations in Afghanistan. "That made Jones realise that the moment had arrived when he should tell it as it is . . . We are being forced to operate in a way that is unnecessarily risky and makes us less aggressive and bold than we could be. It is going to take us longer to achieve the success we could."
At the heart of the problem is that Nato, and particularly the British and Canadian soldiers in the southern Afghan provinces, are fighting to put down an insurgency with insufficient troops, say military analysts.
"When you are fighting a counter-insurgency, you need very large numbers of boots on the ground," said Charles Heyman, editor of the annual Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. "The more you use, the less you lose," he said, citing an adage from the British second world war army commander Viscount Slim.
If Nato was operating in the south without reserve troops, as it appeared to be, "we are not talking about military operations but a game of chance", Mr Heyman said.
So pressing did Gen Jones believe was the need for reinforcements that, within hours of his return, he had made a very public and high-stakes call for Nato to send hundreds more soldiers to provide a reserve battalion and air support.
He did so in the knowledge that attempts over the previous 18 months to provide the battalion had failed.
Yesterday it looked as if Gen Jones had lost his bet. An emergency Nato meeting is being held today to obtain pledges for the Afghanistan mission - but officials agree there is little chance of garnering the 2,500 troops the Nato chief has requested.
Gen Jones was always facing daunting odds with this ostensibly modest request. Nato has had a long-standing problem in providing the easily manoeuvrable, combat-ready troops he was seeking. His desire to deploy the new soldiers before the snows of winter end the fighting season was never going to be easy to fulfil.
Crucially, many of the likely contributors were already overstretched, most recently by commitments to the new United Nations force in Lebanon to which Italy and France have committed 3,000 and 2,000 troops respectively, and Spain and Turkey about 1,000 apiece.
A series of highly publicised casualties in unexpectedly fierce fighting against the Taliban in the south has added to the difficulties of finding troops, as has an escalating controversy about whether the tough tactics adopted to fight the insurgents are appropriate.
The result of Nato's troop drive is set to be a messy one. The likely disappointment of today's meeting will be followed by another attempt to win troop commitments when Nato foreign ministers meet at the UN next week, and a further push when defence ministers gather the week after that.
At present, the mainly Canadian fighters in Kandahar are being helped out by companies from the US, the Netherlands and the UK on an ad hoc basis. Canada is already gearing up to provide some more men and tanks. UK officials acknowledge that Britain may end up providing the bulk of the reserve battalion.
However, now the call for reinforcements has been made so publicly, the issue has become larger than Afghanistan. It concerns the strength of the western alliance.
"It simply isn't fair that it is always the same nations who have to contribute," said one Nato official. "This is supposed to be an alliance of 26 countries."
By Daniel Dombey and Stephen Fidler
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
Published: September 13 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 13 2006 03:00
When General James Jones, Nato's top military commander, returned from a visit to Afghanistan last week, he decided he had no time to lose.
"It was an eye-opening trip," said an official who travelled in the Nato entourage. One incident that made a particular impression was a briefing by General David Fraser, the commander of Canadian forces in Afghanistan, on the bitter fighting between Taliban insurgents and his troops.
"When the Nato ambassadors saw things for real on the ground, it was a shock for them," said one person close to Nato's operations in Afghanistan. "That made Jones realise that the moment had arrived when he should tell it as it is . . . We are being forced to operate in a way that is unnecessarily risky and makes us less aggressive and bold than we could be. It is going to take us longer to achieve the success we could."
At the heart of the problem is that Nato, and particularly the British and Canadian soldiers in the southern Afghan provinces, are fighting to put down an insurgency with insufficient troops, say military analysts.
"When you are fighting a counter-insurgency, you need very large numbers of boots on the ground," said Charles Heyman, editor of the annual Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. "The more you use, the less you lose," he said, citing an adage from the British second world war army commander Viscount Slim.
If Nato was operating in the south without reserve troops, as it appeared to be, "we are not talking about military operations but a game of chance", Mr Heyman said.
So pressing did Gen Jones believe was the need for reinforcements that, within hours of his return, he had made a very public and high-stakes call for Nato to send hundreds more soldiers to provide a reserve battalion and air support.
He did so in the knowledge that attempts over the previous 18 months to provide the battalion had failed.
Yesterday it looked as if Gen Jones had lost his bet. An emergency Nato meeting is being held today to obtain pledges for the Afghanistan mission - but officials agree there is little chance of garnering the 2,500 troops the Nato chief has requested.
Gen Jones was always facing daunting odds with this ostensibly modest request. Nato has had a long-standing problem in providing the easily manoeuvrable, combat-ready troops he was seeking. His desire to deploy the new soldiers before the snows of winter end the fighting season was never going to be easy to fulfil.
Crucially, many of the likely contributors were already overstretched, most recently by commitments to the new United Nations force in Lebanon to which Italy and France have committed 3,000 and 2,000 troops respectively, and Spain and Turkey about 1,000 apiece.
A series of highly publicised casualties in unexpectedly fierce fighting against the Taliban in the south has added to the difficulties of finding troops, as has an escalating controversy about whether the tough tactics adopted to fight the insurgents are appropriate.
The result of Nato's troop drive is set to be a messy one. The likely disappointment of today's meeting will be followed by another attempt to win troop commitments when Nato foreign ministers meet at the UN next week, and a further push when defence ministers gather the week after that.
At present, the mainly Canadian fighters in Kandahar are being helped out by companies from the US, the Netherlands and the UK on an ad hoc basis. Canada is already gearing up to provide some more men and tanks. UK officials acknowledge that Britain may end up providing the bulk of the reserve battalion.
However, now the call for reinforcements has been made so publicly, the issue has become larger than Afghanistan. It concerns the strength of the western alliance.
"It simply isn't fair that it is always the same nations who have to contribute," said one Nato official. "This is supposed to be an alliance of 26 countries."
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