Debunking Trump's recent policy announcement on Afghanistan, and cooperation with India

[Yossarian]

Carl von Clausewitz observed, “There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.” As Secretary of Defense James Mattis prepares to dispatch more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, the Trump administration needs to consider how, as military scholars have written, “Logistical considerations will account for the feasibility of entrenching on a given piece of ground.” What policies will enable those troops and their supplies to get there and allow Afghanistan to develop the resources to entrench its own forces?

Military and economic access to landlocked Afghanistan depend on transit through Pakistan, Iran, or Russia — all of which some in the Trump administration and Congress seem bent on confronting simultaneously. The only alternative, a path that snakes from northwest Afghanistan to Turkey through Central Asia and the Caucasus via the Caspian Sea, lacks capacity and is vulnerable to both Russian and Iranian pressure. Afghanistan’s forbidding location poses obstacles to overextended U.S. ambitions. No matter how great President Donald Trump makes America, he cannot win the war on geography.

Geography, if not politics, would enable the United States to supply Afghanistan through Russia via Central Asia or by way of Iran. These countries provided indispensable logistical, intelligence, and diplomatic support to the United States during the 2001 campaign against al-Qaeda and the Taliban and have benefited from U.S. efforts there. When Pakistan closed the border to U.S. military supplies in 2011, Moscow facilitated U.S. military air and ground transit to Afghanistan through what Washington called the Northern Distribution Network. This network relied on the U.S. Transit Center on Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Air Base (closed under Russian pressure in 2014) for air transit, and on Russian and Central Asian railroads for ground transit.

On June 15, however, the Senate passed a bill that would step up sanctions on both Russia and Iran. The bill would for the first time impose sanctions on the Russian railroads that formed part of the Northern Distribution Network. Both Russia and Iran have supported the Afghan government, but they have also established some cooperation with the Taliban. Their interests and the Taliban’s converge in preventing the United States from establishing a long-term military presence in Afghanistan and in fighting Islamic State. However improbable it sounds to American ears, some in Moscow and Tehran also believe Washington seeks to use the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Afghanistan to pressure Russia and Iran over Syria and other issues.

Encouraged by the lifting of sanctions resulting from the nuclear agreement, India and Iran agreed on a major expansion of Chabahar in May 2016. Since Trump’s inauguration, however, concern about the escalation of U.S. sanctions on Iran has caused Chabahar construction to grind to a halt. Companies have declined to bid on tenders, and banks will not commit to financing. Sanctions against Iran thus risk repeating the “axis of evil” precedent, perpetuating U.S. and Afghan dependence on Pakistan.

Despite Trump’s apparent sympathies for Russia, there is no prospect of Congress relaxing sanctions on Moscow as long as the issues of Ukraine and interference in the U.S. election remain unaddressed. Presidential recalcitrance may instead lead Congress to insulate legislative sanctions against national security waivers. U.S. relations with Iran seem headed toward confrontation, which would likely lead to escalation of tensions between Iran and Afghanistan. Simultaneous increase of pressure on Pakistan could lead Islamabad to block transit again, perhaps including overflight rights. The United States risks provoking a blockade of its own forces.

https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/the-war-in-afghanistan-and-considerations-of-supply/

And the icing on the cake:

Perhaps Trump will so restore American might and prestige that Washington can compel Pakistan’s military to change its perception of existential threats; spark the Iranian masses to overthrow the Islamic Republic and replace it with a pro-American democracy; persuade Vladimir Putin that Ukraine, Crimea, and Syria are not worth sacrificing rapprochement with the United States; and leave the Taliban with no choice but to abandon their principal objective, the expulsion of foreign troops from Afghanistan. Barring such good fortune, what Clausewitz called “considerations of supply” dictate more modest objectives.

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The above article was written in July 2017, many weeks before Trump's announcement. And yet Trump still went ahead.

 

[JaDed]

I don't understand why is America still bothered about Afghanistan,makes no sense to me personally maybe someone can clear,I get Iraq coz oil plus keeping an eye on Iran but Afghanistan has almost nothing,it's just like some American base.

 

[Snak3eye5]

I don't understand why is America still bothered about Afghanistan,makes no sense to me personally maybe someone can clear,I get Iraq coz oil plus keeping an eye on Iran but Afghanistan has almost nothing,it's just like some American base.

America started the war there and can't just leave until some semblance of victory is achieved. They will not be able to justify the millions lost to the families back in Us if they just leave. Also the title of another war where they got involved in and failed to do what they set out to do will ring too close to what happened in Vietnam all over again. So they're essentially stuck. They are also not helping themselves by pissing off Pakistan with the speech they made recently who is the only country that's been helping them on various levels on this front.

Regarding what Afghanistan has in terms of minerals and oil, I refuse to believe Us is there to get some economic benefit.

 

[Varun]

'India' is literally mentioned once in the entire article - and in passing, yet it seems to be the highlight of the OP.

India is a feeble, toothless nation in the grander scheme of things and cannot walk whatever talk it makes, if it does any talking in the first place. Shed your insecurities and see the situation for what it is - a Pakistani - Afghanistani problem with the United States poking its nose in in typical fashion to everyone's detriment.

 

[JaDed]

America started the war there and can't just leave until some semblance of victory is achieved. They will not be able to justify the millions lost to the families back in Us if they just leave. Also the title of another war where they got involved in and failed to do what they set out to do will ring too close to what happened in Vietnam all over again. So they're essentially stuck. They are also not helping themselves by pissing off Pakistan with the speech they made recently who is the only country that's been helping them on various levels on this front.

Regarding what Afghanistan has in terms of minerals and oil, I refuse to believe Us is there to get some economic benefit.

Afghanistan war is already a failed one,not sure how much more can they spin it,Iraq war similarly,the like about WMD has been exposed multiple times.

USA trying to spin Afghan war as successful is in line with it's father British trying to prove colonialism was for greater good,no one will believe such crap anymore.

 

[Syed1]

I don't understand why is America still bothered about Afghanistan,makes no sense to me personally maybe someone can clear,I get Iraq coz oil plus keeping an eye on Iran but Afghanistan has almost nothing,it's just like some American base.

If you were the bully of the world and you got an opportunity to keep an eye on your two closest contenders for bully-ism (Russia and China) while also keeping in check a troublesome Muslim country with nukes (Pakistan) wouldn't you be interested in it?

 

[Yossarian]

'India' is literally mentioned once in the entire article - and in passing, yet it seems to be the highlight of the OP.

India is a feeble, toothless nation in the grander scheme of things and cannot walk whatever talk it makes, if it does any talking in the first place. Shed your insecurities and see the situation for what it is - a Pakistani - Afghanistani problem with the United States poking its nose in in typical fashion to everyone's detriment.

I don't understand why is America still bothered about Afghanistan,makes no sense to me personally maybe someone can clear,I get Iraq coz oil plus keeping an eye on Iran but Afghanistan has almost nothing,it's just like some American base.

2 reasons.

1. Look at a map. Or better still a globe. Now look at the position of Russia. Notice how the only way Russian warships and commercial shipping routes to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and beyond are via the North Atlantic, Eastern Siberia or the Bosphorus (through the middle of Istanbul) from the Black Sea? And how easy these routes will be to block off during conflict/war with the West?

For centuries Russia has had ambitions to have a military base at a deep water 'warm sea port' that could not easily be blocked off during a war, and with a land route to it from Russia. Now look at the map again, and you'll notice that the only possible options are at the locations of the Iranian port of Chabahar and the Pakistani port of Gwadar.

And that means going through Afghanistan, and a short sparsely populated piece of territory, which is partly in modern day Pakistan and partly in Iran.

That's why, historically, Afghanistan has been important strategically to Russia / USSR / Russian Empire. And in turn, the British Empire, and now the USA (and even China).

2. Afghanistan has immense untapped reserves of key minerals worth $trillions.

 

[Napa]

https://warontherocks.com/2017/07/the-war-in-afghanistan-and-considerations-of-supply/

And the icing on the cake:

)

The above article was written in July 2017, many weeks before Trump's announcement. And yet Trump still went ahead.

Here are three points. Do you deny any of them?

1) US provides Pakistan multi-billion dollars as military or other aid.

2) The Haqqani network kills US soldiers.

3) The Haqqani network is cultivated by the Pakistani Military/ISI which regards it as an asset?

 

[Yossarian]

Here are three points. Do you deny any of them?

1) US provides Pakistan multi-billion dollars as military or other aid.

Absolute cr*p. The money is for transit fees, transports costs, security etc. for all the food, fuel, armaments etc. that gets unloaded at Pakistani seaports and is delivered to American forces in Afghanistan.

2) The Haqqani network kills US soldiers.

3) The Haqqani network is cultivated by the Pakistani Military/ISI which regards it as an asset?

Presumably the authors of the article know a lot more than you do on that subject, and decided that it was not a factor one way or the other in the points they're making.

Besides, lets for arguments sake assume that's true, and has been the case for years. It hasn't made one jot of difference to the issues facing the USA that are mentioned in the article.

Did you actually understand the gist of the article?

Because basically the article is saying that the USA is stuffed in Afghanistan without Pakistan's cooperation.