In the months ahead, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) will deploy thousands more troops to Afghanistan as part of its ongoing mission to “support the Government of Afghanistan in providing and maintaining a secure environment in order to facilitate the re-building of Afghanistan.” Troop levels are expected to rise from about 8,000 in January to 17,000 by the end of October. The expansion, known as Stage III, will be responsible for maintaining security in the troubled southern provinces, where most violent attacks against foreign and domestic forces have taken place. NATO’s commander, U.S. Gen. James L. Jones said ISAF could total as many as 25,000 troops eventually. British, Dutch and Canadian forces will be leading the effort to bring peace to Afghanistan through both civilian and military methods. Troops will be engaged in peacekeeping, reconstruction and, in all likelihood, open conflict – an effort Jones called “NATO’s most ambitious operation.” Despite a lack of popular support for the missions in all three of the main troop-contributing countries, international leaders have pledged to safeguard Afghanistan from both internal and external forces that would otherwise lead the country into chaos.
The expansion of NATO into the volatile southern regions of Afghanistan comes at a time when the United States is struggling to maintain its overseas campaigns. Increasing costs, both financially and in terms of human lives, have jelled popular discontent with the war in Iraq and cast doubt on Washington’s ability to balance the “war on terror” with other pressing security needs. The U.S. force in Afghanistan will be drawn down from 19,000 to 16,500 this year, although both military and civilian leaders have promised an American presence in the country for years to come.
What ISAF faces in Afghanistan is unclear. Hard-core remnants from the Taliban regime, as well as from al-Qaida, have stepped up attacks against military and civilian targets, such as schoolchildren, foreign travelers, police posts and military convoys. As in Iraq, improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks have been particularly effective, and have been on the rise. Suicide attacks, formerly rare in Afghanistan, have risen from five in 2002-2004 to 17 in 2005 and 14 in 2006. In addition, a bumper poppy crop has bolstered the illicit economy, based on opium exports to Europe and America, and damaged legitimate reconstruction efforts. The poppy-growing season also coincides with the stepped-up propaganda campaign of rebel leaders. In March, for example, Mullah Mohammed Omar, the former head of the Taliban, promised “unimaginable” violence for Afghanistan if the foreign troops were not expelled. A senior U.S. military commander said he expected a “fairly violent” summer.
The ISAF expansion is being drawn mostly from Canada, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia. Troop levels are expected to double in the period from July to October, and the soldiers deployed will accordingly enforce Afghanistan’s security against rebels in the southern regions – in what is known as “Stage III” (see "ISAF Deployment" map).
The first two stages covered the northern and western parts of the country, which have not experienced the same levels of violence as the regions bordering Pakistan. Stage III – which covers the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Day Kundi and Zabul – has been designed to prevent an increasingly dynamic insurgent movement from disrupting the development of Afghanistan’s nascent political and economic structure.
Although ISAF has been less willing to engage in combat missions and counterterrorism than the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, it is unlikely that troops will be deployed to the southern provinces without the authority to search for and engage insurgents. The focus on providing security for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) is unlikely to endure without a significant offensive capability.
Established to help promote public and private sector reconstruction, PRTs have been a cornerstone of U.S. and NATO policy in Afghanistan. The teams, numbering between 100 and 200 civilian and military specialists, initiate reconstruction projects around the country – such as building roads, schools, sanitation systems, and so on. The civilians involved are typically engineers, mechanics and other specialists, while military members are responsible for guaranteeing immediate and long-term security requirements. The PRTs promote a dynamic decision-making process, as representatives from relevant countries are encouraged to monitor and contribute to reconstruction efforts. PRTs are directed on a country-by-country basis.
The burden of expanding ISAF rests on Canada, Australia, the Netherlands and the UK. Canada already has about 2,300 troops in Afghanistan, most of them in Kandahar province. Multi National Brigade (MNB) forces, originally stationed in Kabul as part of Stage I, have been almost entirely transferred to Kandahar as peacekeepers and as support for incoming ISAF troops (only several dozen Canadian troops remain in the capital). Kabul has, for the most part, been brought under the control of Afghan forces. Canada’s troops in Kandahar and the surrounding region are currently in command of the MNB in Kandahar.
According to the Canadian Ministry of Defense, Canada’s force includes 125 Canadian Force (CF) members with the Multi-National Brigade Headquarters (MNBHQ) in Kandahar. In total, there are 250 personnel from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Romania, Netherlands, the UK, and the United States stationed with the MNBHQ. The force also includes a battle group of about 1,000 members in Kandahar, primarily from the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. A small cadre of CF instructors is involved in the training of the Afghan National Army Staff at the Canadian Afghan National Training Centre Detachment in Kabul.
The Dutch force in Afghanistan will number 1,800 by October. Despite a rancorous parliamentary debate over the commitment, the government of the Netherlands overwhelmingly approved the deployment, which will begin sometime in July.
Meanwhile, on May 4, the UK formally assumed control of ISAF in a ceremony transferring command from Italy’s Lt. Gen. Mauro del Vecchio to Lt. Gen. David Richards. The UK’s 3,300-troop contribution to ISAF – in addition to troops already stationed in the north – is expected to have “full combat potential” by the end of July, bringing the total British force to 5,700.
Some U.S. military leaders have admitted that Stage III of ISAF’s mission in Afghanistan will likely involve some of the fiercest fighting yet witnessed in Afghanistan, in part because insurgent forces have been allowed to grow in strength as well as numbers in the south. The security situation has generally deteriorated and there has been an upsurge in suicide bombings, attacks on schools, roadside bombings and other violent assaults on high-level figures and military targets (see CDI’s “Afghan Updates” for specific cases and trends). In a traditional sense, the MNB is winning: it has control over the major cities, it has overwhelming air and ground superiority, and it has suffered few casualties. Yet the country’s tribal structure arguably affects identities, allegiances and interests in a way that impedes effective control over the entire territory. The central government, though strong in some parts, suffers from a serious lack of credibility in remote provinces. And although the economy has begun to grow in some sectors, living standards remain abysmal, the illicit economy is thriving and reforms have been slow to take hold in anything but the major cities. The expanding presence of rebels in the south indicates major security threats are still far from contained.
The arrival of more ISAF troops is expected to ease the burden on U.S. soldiers. So far, Canada has not suffered nearly as many losses as the United States, and its troops are more often patrolling the streets and offering “assistance” to local authorities than engaging in open conflict with an identifiable enemy. Yet any foreign soldiers remain targets, as fighters from other parts of the Arab world are reportedly traveling to Afghanistan to expel what they consider to be hostile foreign powers occupying Islamic lands. One provincial governor said his forces detained an insurgent traveling from Iraq who claimed thousands more were en route.
The pullout of about 2,500 American troops from the southern region would seem to run contrary to the worsening security situation there. Operation Enduring Freedom has primary responsibility for counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations. ISAF, on the other hand, is a peacekeeping force that, according to NATO spokeswoman Sue Eagles, “will not carry out counterterrorism operations.” In a fighting season expected to be particularly harsh, the replacement of combat troops with peacekeeping troops might appear an odd choice of timing. The missions of ISAF and OEF may contain overlaps in terms of overall goals, but their core operations have major differences. OEF consists of soldiers trained in offensive counterterrorism tactics, and is primarily responsible for rooting out the “enemies of Afghanistan” – Taliban loyalists and what is left of al Qaida. The role of ISAF is to “support the government of Afghanistan, to extend security and stability and the rule of good governance and the rule of law,” according to Eagles. It is possible that the effort to achieve parliamentary support for the new ISAF deployments required the promise of an easy and bloodless mission. However, the transition back and forth between high-combat peace enforcement and lower-combat peacekeeping is seldom as smooth or easy as Eagle’s comments imply.
It is difficult to say that ISAF troops are not in a combat role, yet it is also inaccurate that they only engage in open conflict. On one hand, they patrol streets, help distribute aid, advise the central government and try to suppress the booming drug trade. On the other, they man checkpoints, operate tanks and other heavy machinery, and train Afghan soldiers. Canada’s secretive Joint Task Force Two, a counterterrorism unit, participates in the fighting, which indicates Canada’s military policy includes an offensive posture towards insurgents. Indeed, Lt. Gen. Richards said he “will not hesitate to use appropriate measures against those disruptive elements opposed to democracy and the rule of law in Afghanistan.” Any forces engaged in “security enhancing” must be prepared for open conflict, whereas “peacekeeping” represents something between combat and police-type work. The U.S. military, meanwhile, has been reluctant to engage in an all-out counter-insurgency in the southern region because of strategic and tactical disadvantages such as unfamiliarity with the terrain, limited intelligence capabilities, the insurgent practice of blending with the population and, most importantly, the difficulty of engaging the enemy across the border with Pakistan. If ISAF forces decide to “protect” the PRTs without the willingness to act pre-emptively against militants, both military and civilian efforts to bring real, broad-based stability to the southern regions will be severely hampered.
Recent reports in The New York Times indicated that the Taliban is growing in strength in the southern provinces of Afghanistan – particularly Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul, Ghazni and Paktika. “Large groups of Taliban” are said to be moving freely throughout the countryside, the first sign that the summer fighting season has begun. This trend comes just as more ISAF forces are arriving in the country. An American general claimed recently that he anticipates more fighting in the months ahead. Whether the fighting will actually lead to increased security – or the rooting out of terrorists – is anyone’s guess. In any case, militants roaming throughout the provinces and a booming illicit economy threaten to undermine Afghanistan’s delicate peace – such as it is. Only the most committed military force will be able to keep Afghanistan on track towards military and economic independence. In this sense, NATO is indeed facing one of its most challenging and ambitious missions to date.
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