What Manpower Gets You

There's some understandable skepticism about the idea that sending more troops to Afghanistan is the right way to go, but stories like this one about how a newfound desire to avoid civilian casualties is curbing the use of airstrikes over there highlights why additional troops might be useful. Fewer civilian casualties is a good thing on its own terms, and it's strategically smart to boot. And to reduce civilian casualties you do need to reduce airstrikes.

But commanders don't ask for air support for no reason, they do it because firepower is useful. Troops on the ground can, however, provide firepower with a great deal more precision and discretion, sparing civilian lives and keeping the population on the side of our efforts.

Comments

Just a follow-up to your last post, Matt:

The buzz began Monday when the columnist Robert D. Novak posted an item saying that sources close to the McCain campaign were "suggesting" he would announce his selection this week. On Monday night, en route from Buffalo to Manchester, N.H., reporters went to the front of Mr. McCain's plane to get a response.

Mr. McCain's initial reaction was not encouraging. "What do you want, you little jerks?" he asked, using what his staff members say is a term of endearment.

Awwww! Isn't that "endearing"?
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Posted by Grand Moff Texan | July 23, 2008 12:44 PM

according to our studies, 1 billion civilians have been killed in Afghanistan.

Posted by Lancet | July 23, 2008 12:47 PM

I recall a Jane's Defense article about 10 years ago criticizing the US Air Force's decision to scrap the A-10 warthog and use fighter/bombers to provide close air support. I think this is indemic of the Air Force's inability to provide the sort of close air support that is necessary to win these sorts of "counter-insurgency" fights. This is costing a lot of money and resources in Afghanistan.

Posted by freddiemac | July 23, 2008 12:49 PM

Oh look, it's an idiot troll trying to pretend that Bush's brutal assault on the Iraqi people has been good for them.

Is that you Mixner? You seem to love your sock-puppets. Usually you wait until someone has asked you for evidence though. I'm surprised to see you just starting out this way.

Posted by Not as stupid as Mixner | July 23, 2008 12:51 PM

IIRC, the A-10's all need new wings, so the AF is balking at the cost of keeping them in service.
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Posted by Grand Moff Texan | July 23, 2008 12:53 PM

The best way to avoid causing civilian casualties would be to both remove ground troops and stop air strikes.

I understand the political appeal of putting more resources into the conflict in Afghanistan. But I haven't heard a convincing strategic rationale. How long are we supposed to be actively involved there?

Posted by Jim W | July 23, 2008 1:09 PM

Here's a question: why is Afghanistan a country?

If part of the problem there is the lack of ability of a centralized government to control its own territory and provide security, which instead is provided by local tribes and warlords, then is there any reason for it to be a single nation-state rather than some sort of confederation or even individual states?

Part of the problem in the Mideast and Central Asia as well as Africa is that today's states are often artifacts of past empires or colonial divisions that bear little resemblance to demographic, ethnic, cultural or linguistic realities. Would Afghanistan be better off if it splintered into Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek states, etc., or even was subsumed into its neighbors? Can it ever be centrally governed with its current borders or is it doomed to ultimately dissolve like the Austrian Empire, Ottoman Empire or Yugoslavia?

Posted by TH | July 23, 2008 1:24 PM

In my view you haven't heard "a strategic rational" because there isn't one, Jim. Adding another couple of combat brigades will have a negligible effect on the war in Afghanistan, which unlike Iraq, has a nearly negligible impact on our national interests.

Adding combat troops to Afghanistan while reducing them in Iraq is primarily a campaign gimmick to innoculate Obama against charges of being "weak".

Posted by robert powell | July 23, 2008 1:26 PM

Here's a question: why is Afghanistan a country?

If part of the problem there is the lack of ability of a centralized government to control its own territory and provide security, which instead is provided by local tribes and warlords, then is there any reason for it to be a single nation-state rather than some sort of confederation or even individual states?

Part of the problem in the Mideast and Central Asia as well as Africa is that today's states are often artifacts of past empires or colonial divisions that bear little resemblance to demographic, ethnic, cultural or linguistic realities. Would Afghanistan be better off if it splintered into Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek states, etc., or even was subsumed into its neighbors? Can it ever be centrally governed with its current borders or is it doomed to ultimately dissolve like the Austrian Empire, Ottoman Empire or Yugoslavia?

Posted by TH | July 23, 2008 1:28 PM

Those lost souls still skeptical of Les Roberts's studies of Iraqi mortality rates published in the Lancet would be well served by taking a break from reading Free Republic and spending six or eight minutes familiarizing themselves with epidemiology and statistical analysis.

Posted by Toady | July 23, 2008 1:47 PM

In that Canadian and US troops are the main forces confronting the Taliban, what is their strategy that ultimately leads to so many civilian deaths?

In an attempt to prevent the Taliban from gaining control of the countryside outside the fortified US and Canadian bases, they set up outposts in the countryside that are often close to Afgani villages which the Taliban use as bases of operations. In the battles that ensue, the Taliban occasionally have the numerical advantage to the extent that there is a serious possibility that the US or Canadian bases will be overrun. It is then that the air support is called for and the indiscriminate bombing of the villages occur, resulting in the deaths of Afgani civilian noncombatants.

In that these isolated outposts are indefensible against superior numerical Taliban forces without air support and consequent civilian deaths, what long-term strategy other than massively increasing the number of US and Canadian forces can have any hope of success?

Posted by chet | July 23, 2008 1:52 PM

Thank you Toady, would you like to subscribe to our newsletter?

Posted by Lancet | July 23, 2008 2:49 PM

"which unlike Iraq, has a nearly negligible impact on our national interests."

So winning the "war on terror" isn't in our national interests? Fascinating.

Posted by freddiemac | July 23, 2008 3:26 PM

John Paul Vann:

This is a political war and it calls for discrimination in killing. The best weapon for killing would be a knife, but I'm afraid we can't do it that way. The worst is an airplane. The next worst is artillery. Barring a knife, the best is a rifle -- you know who you're killing.

Posted by croatoan | July 23, 2008 4:29 PM

Apparently the ambassador of Iraq disagrees with the assessment of pre-eminent scholar robert powell. Oh brilliant robert powell, please refute the dastardly Iraqi who claims al-Qaida fighters are leaving Iraq for Afghanistan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080723/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/al_qaida_afghanistan

Or is this war only about oil?

Posted by freddiemac | July 23, 2008 9:48 PM

Another Yglesias post on Afghanistan, another opportunity for me to wonder (joining Jim W and robert powell) why we are still there after 7 years.

Give us time and we'll have been there longer than the Soviets were! I really don't see an upside to this ...

Posted by yave begnet | July 23, 2008 11:21 PM

"Here's a question: why is Afghanistan a country?"

Afghanistan was the buffer state between the Russian and British (India) empires, being the territory that neither country was able to conquer.

Other than that, there is nothing the various people living in Afghanistan have in common, note there is no "Afghani" language. However, the place has always been something like a no-man's land.

This raises the question about whether the idea of making sure there were no Afghanistans, ie no place on Earth far enough from a western-aligned central government that terrorist groups could hang out there, was a fool's errand. The Europeans came really close to doing this before World War I, but one of the few places they couldn't control was Afghanistan.

Posted by Ed | July 24, 2008 2:56 AM

freddiemac--
We invaded Afghanistan for one reason only--under the Taliban, it was providing a nation state platform for Al Qaeda. That problem was solved handily in 2003.

If we had to pick a place for AQ refugees to hide out that made it more difficult for them to damage our vital interests, Afghanistan would probably be second only to Antarctica. Besides, nearly all the professionals working this problem acknowledge that Pakistan is far more significant as an AQ hangout. The "global war on terror" is a sham on the same level of counterproductive grandstanding as the "global war on drugs". In fact, there's considerable overlap. If we really wanted to support Afghanistan and hurt AQ and the Taliban, we'd buy up the opium crop and donate it to the WHO.

In terms of actual threat to the US, by far the largest resides in the major cities of our European allies. There, radicalized Muslim young men are sheltered by a generous welfare state, liberal legal guarantees, and a politically correct atmosphere. Moreover, they are able to travel visa-free to the US on their British, French, or German passports. The 9/11 attacks didn't come from Afghanistan. They came from Hamburg.

Posted by robert powell | July 24, 2008 5:06 AM

The reason why the US relies on air power is simple: they don't want any US soldiers to die. US lives are worth infinitely more than anyone else in their view.

In other words, US soldiers are cowards, not warriors. They have no concept of the warrior mentality, as represented by actual warriors in other cultures over the centuries.

They're "cannon fodder", but it's politically not expedient to treat them as such as much as, say, the Soviet Union used to with its troops (order the men forward, shoot anybody who doesn't obey.) Mostly because the Pentagon has to keep up the sham that the US is run by its electorate rather than criminal organizations, and thus allowing the electorate's relative to die in pointless wars for the benefit of those criminal organizations is not politically feasible.

What Matt is stupid about in this post is the notion that more boots on the ground will result in fewer civilian casualties. That's not clear at all, based on the Iraq and Vietnam experiences. The more boots on the ground, the more targets for the Taliban, using IEDs and ambushes as in Iraq - such tactics are massively on the increase in Afghanistan.

The result of such tactics is the same as Iraq - the US soldiers shoot everything that moves. The experience of the Marines who mowed down everybody for miles after an Afghan ambush some months ago, which resulted in that whole unit being transferred out of Afghanistan, is illustrative.

Matt needs to realize that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to "win" - or even stabilize the situation - in Afghanistan any more than there is in Iraq. And even less so in Pakistan.

If you're in favor of pulling out of Iraq because there is no way to win, then you really have to support pulling out of Afghanistan because it goes double there. There isn't even any oil for the Washington Post to justify being there.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 24, 2008 5:18 AM