The total cost of the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to the US government is around $1 trillion. To put this vast sum into perspective this conflict has cost the US more than the Korean and Vietnam war combined.
The house speaker Nancy Pelsoi said :
"For the cost of less than 40 days in Iraq, we could provide health care coverage to 10 million children for an entire year."
This got me thinking. What if this money was spent on other projects like redevelopment? Would this different approach mean victory in the region?
Let me explain my strategy.
One of the main reasons no one has ever won a war in Afghanistan is because of the terrain and the nature of gueriall warfare tactics. Due to the mobility of the Taliban and the knowledge of the terrain they posses it is very common for coalition forces to be drawn to fight in conditions unsuited to them. This leads to high casualties and therefore high medical cost and high cost on the military to replace the dead and wounded. So from a purely economic point of view this form of warfare is always going to be costly.
Instead i will borrow some of my ideas from the tactics used in the second Boer war of 1899-1902 and some of my own ideas.
Now back to the Nancy Pelsoi quote of being able to medically treat 10 million children for a year for the cost of less han 40 days in Iraq. One of the main reasons the taliban are so effective are the native people. Their ability to blend into the local population and their popularity in some areas makes it very difficult for the coalition forces to locate them. To solve this problem you need to get the local people on your side. Once this has been achieved they will be ready to point out the insurgents and this would severely limit the mobility and numbers of the Taliban.
To do this i propose a 2 step plan of action with regards to the spending of this huge budget.
1.Build small towns all over Afghanistan, each of them adequately protected by coalition troops. In these towns build schools, hospitals, infrastructure and decent housing. Spread propaganda throughout the country that anyone who wants to live there can and is promised peace and stability but have to stop supporting the insurgents.
This would gain the support of many of the locals and would alienate many potential supporters of the Taliban. However logistically this would be very challenging and potentially it would be very easy for the Taliban to disrupt supply lines if all these towns were spread around the country. This is where Boer War tactics come in.
2.The British commanders faced a similar problem. Small mobile groups of Dutch commandos were able to dusrupt communications and generally have a detrimental impact on the British capacity to make war. To solve this problem they set up reinforced blockhouses and fortifications at key sections on roads, railways, bridges etc. They housed around 10 soldiers and were designed to gaurd the immediate vicinity. 10,000 of these were built and not one bridge, road or railway with a blockhouse was closed due to enemy activity. I would suggest a similar tactic in Afghanistan as transport is one of the countrys main problems. As there are so few roads it is easy for the Taliban to disrupt these links. These proposed bloockhouses would nullify this effect if there were enough of them removing the advantage gueriall troops normally have over larger conventional forces.
The one criticism i see of this is that it would mean more troops being sent to Afghanistan, however casualty rates would be much much lower. Modern technology means that these fortifications would easily be able to withstand any weaponry the Taliban have at their disposal, most of it 20 year old former Soviet weapons.
Interested to see what people think about this strategy.
this is not a bad idea but don't you think the terrorist will just desrtroy all of the city's and do you think that the government of avganistan approve?
the terrorist will just desrtroy all of the city's
For one thing hopefully the policy would reduce the amount of taliban and for another thing the cities would be adequately protected by fortifications and troops.
As for the Afghanui government, they would welcome the aid, their infrastructure has been so poor for so long. To be honest the Afghan leader is practically in Bush's back pocket (well obamas as of january).
1.Build small towns all over Afghanistan, each of them adequately protected by coalition troops. In these towns build schools, hospitals, infrastructure and decent housing. Spread propaganda throughout the country that anyone who wants to live there can and is promised peace and stability but have to stop supporting the insurgents.
You say that but when you look at the statistics, operation Telic began in 2001 and here we are nearly 8 years and 1 trillion dollars later and we are only in control of a tiny proportion of the country. Surely ythis would be noi more costly or time consuming than the strategy currently being employed and whats more my asolution delas with the long term. Temporary occupation of an area by British forces means its only safe for a limited prsiod of time. My solution would hopefully bring long term stability.
The problem is that technology has moved on. Blockhouses were nice in a time when mortars and artillery were thousands of pounds, but to build a suitable defensive shelter in a time where explosives and more advanced weapons are lighter and not too hard to come by takes an impractical amount of time.
And you wouldn't be able to build them all over Afghanistan. Only the areas that are controlled. And as you said, the US only holds a small proportion of land there.
Build small towns all over Afghanistan, each of them adequately protected by coalition troops. In these towns build schools, hospitals, infrastructure and decent housing. Spread propaganda throughout the country that anyone who wants to live there can and is promised peace and stability but have to stop supporting the insurgents.
Completely impossible. The costs would be tremendous. Not only that, many Afghans are nomadic and want nothing to do with the US.
2.The British commanders faced a similar problem. Small mobile groups of Dutch commandos were able to dusrupt communications and generally have a detrimental impact on the British capacity to make war. To solve this problem they set up reinforced blockhouses and fortifications at key sections on roads, railways, bridges etc. They housed around 10 soldiers and were designed to gaurd the immediate vicinity. 10,000 of these were built and not one bridge, road or railway with a blockhouse was closed due to enemy activity. I would suggest a similar tactic in Afghanistan as transport is one of the countrys main problems. As there are so few roads it is easy for the Taliban to disrupt these links. These proposed bloockhouses would nullify this effect if there were enough of them removing the advantage gueriall troops normally have over larger conventional forces.
The Taliban don't use roads. They use mountains.
Modern technology means that these fortifications would easily be able to withstand any weaponry the Taliban have at their disposal, most of it 20 year old former Soviet weapons.
Wrong-o! AK-47's can put huge holes in walls and stingers can take down helicopters with ease. The weapons are still very powerful to this day.
Maybe we should just let the Afghans take care of themselves.
We are spending far too much money we don't have on others. We should put the majority of our resources towards getting our own house in order before we start going around helping anyone else.
However when you take into account that we have spent almost 8 years in Afghanistan and have spent 1 trillion dollars then this makes this invalid. If this money and time was invested in this way then i doubt it wouuld take much longer or cost much more.
Two rights don't make a wrong. Perhaps if we started the blockhouse plan early, it might have worked, but adding more to our deficit when we already have a big one is not good. It's like being in a sinking boat and just punching another hole in the floor because it's already filling up anyway.
One of the main reasons the US is so unpopular in Afghanistan is that after the billion dollars they invested in training and weaponry of the muhajadeen in the 80s they didnt give them one cent to help them rebuild their country.
I'd say this is actually quite true. In fact, after the Russians pulled out, there was a civil war there that ended with the Saudi Arabia/Pakistan/UAE-backed Taliban taking control. Perhaps if we had intervened, the Taliban might not have gotten control. We often speak of the Mujahideen as a single group, but in fact there are multiple Mujahideen groups, some of whom support us in Afghanistan.
Time and cost are the two most important considerations for blockhouse building. Remember that the Russians were defeated by hit-and-run attacks. This, coupled with the long time it takes to build a strong blockhouse, would make it very difficult to protect it before it is completed.
Two rights don't make a wrong. Perhaps if we started the blockhouse plan early, it might have worked, but adding more to our deficit when we already have a big one is not good. It's like being in a sinking boat and just punching another hole in the floor because it's already filling up anyway.
Perfectly valid point. I just came up with this idea with the benefit of hindsight. Its not like we can take back those 8 years and that trillion. Perhaps i should rephrase myself slightly. I belive that my strategy could have worked better if like Parsat said, it had been employed from the beginning, not now adding even more money then it could have worked.
Time and cost are the two most important considerations for blockhouse building. Remember that the Russians were defeated by hit-and-run attacks. This, coupled with the long time it takes to build a strong blockhouse, would make it very difficult to protect it before it is completed.
Bearing in mind these blockhouses would be built radiating outwards from an epicentre, not all starting all over the country at the same time. This would enable coalition forces to concentrate their defence on a specific area and as the blockhouses are built these troops could be moved on to the new perimeter. Of course this would take a long time, but if the US dministration is serious about stabilising the region for the long term then this would not be a massive cost to them.
I would say that the first wrong was 9/11, and the second wrong is invading Iraq and Afghanistan on the grounds of "OSAMA!!!" and "WMD'S!!! NOT THAT WE HAVE NONE, BUT THEY COULD USE THEM LIKE THAT ONE OTHER COUNTRY THAT USED THEM, THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD! YOU KNOW THE ONE!" And for those who dont know who it is, chances are your living there right now.
Feel free to say what you want about how you feel about the causes of this middle eastern affair, but not in this thread. I consciously made the descision to concentrate the topic to the solution not the causes so the debate i was seeking for didnt get derailed. The causes of the Afghanistan conflict have nothing to do with the strategies being employed there.
