Defence of the Realm.
http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/
As we left our continuing romp though the history of Afghanistan, we had seen the death of the "Iron Amir", Abdur Raḥman, in 1901. From his bloody reign, we see the continuation of the tribal rivalry, the oppression of the Ghilzai by a Durrani ruler from the "new" capital of Kabul, bolstered by Tajik and other northern tribes.We also see the enforced resettlement of Ghilzai Pashtuns north of the Hindu Kush, areas which have now become... FULL STORY
The duplicitous British
In our previous piece, we looked at the influence of Afghan history on the current conflict. We concluded that there were three elements which were relevant.Firstly, the war is a continuation of the tribal rivalry between the two major tribal groups, the Ghilzai and the Durrani/Barakzai, which effectively started in 1709 when the first Ghilzai dynasty was founded. Secondly, the movement of the capital from Kandahar to Kabul in 1775 positions...
With due respect to Lt-Col Gus Fair DSO, the CO of the Light Dragoons battle group, this officer has lost the plot. That is one of the comments to his piece in The Daily Telegraph, where the Lt-Col tells us that our soldiers' sacrifice in Afghanistan "will be worth it". The progress he has seen "proves that we can win the war and help create a better society." And the commentator is not wrong. Lt-Col Fair cites as his primary evidence...
As the Afghan conflict continues to exert its bloody effect, we have been exploring further the prospects of success of what is fashionably called a "counterinsurgency" campaign, in which the target is the people, the aim being to protect the people from the insurgents and to convince them to support the government.Although we have already looked at some of the historical background to the conflict, it seems that its roots stem not from...
When rumours of a major incident in Nad-e-Ali started circulating yesterday, from which we learned that five British soldiers had been killed, the limited details available indicated that this might have been an ambush by tribesmen disguised as Afghan police.As such this would have been an alarming development, but nothing particularly new. Even back in April 2007, CNN was reporting incidents of US patrols being attacked by Taliban donning...
Adam Holloway MP is possibly a disappointed man. Having produced an excellent CPS pamphlet on our adventure in Afghanistan, the response of the media has been to "cherry pick" one small section from it, where he discusses the shortage of helicopters.As for the broader themes entertained in his pamphlet, sub-titled "Towards realism in Afghanistan", there has been only one taker, the Press Association. No other media organisation (so far)...
Developing almost into a ritual, we get a "media scoop" revealing one or other failures in equipment provision – in this case the shortage of helicopters - which is then followed by ministerial statements and the top brass, weighing in to defend the status quo. The affair is batted about for a few days, there may or may not be Questions in the House and the occasional portentous leader and then the issue dies … until the next time.So it...
The Daily Mail is running a piece today which reveals that Lt-Col Thorneloe wrote a secret memo, a month before he was killed by an IED while riding in a Viking, complaining of the shortage of helicopters.On June 5, reports the Mail, he had chillingly predicted the circumstances of his own death in his weekly report to the Ministry of Defence. Headed "'Battle Group Weekly Update", it reads: "I have tried to avoid griping about helicopters...
After three weeks of media exclusion, the Pakistani Army lifted a corner of the veil on Thursday, flying in a group of journalists to a barren hilltop in deepest South Waziristan, to explain how swimmingly well the campaign was going.It was duly rewarded with favourable headlines, such as is in The Guardian, which carried title, "Pakistan hails progress in Waziristan", slightly marred by the addition: "But will it stop the suicide bombers?"The...
A serious topic of conversation in Indian political circles is the very real possibility of Pakistan breaking up, the tenor of the discussion being not "if" but "when".If it happens, it is felt that a key element will have been the proliferation of Taleban groups beyond the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and into the Pakistani heartland. This issue is discussed in a recent edition of the Hindustan Times, where it was noted that the...
The Times leader is taking Obama to task for "dithering" over Afghanistan, contrasting his lack of action unfavourably with sentiments expressed by David Miliband, recently highlighted in a New York Times op-ed.While Obama havers, torn between the Biden-inspired "counter-terrorism" approach and McChrystal's brave new world of "counter-insurgency", there is no such irresolution from the British foreign secretary. When asked if the mission...
Predictably, the media are giving heavy coverage to the "Nimrod Review" into the wider issues surrounding the loss of Nimrod XV230 in Afghanistan on 2 September 2006, commissioned by former defence secretary Des Browne on 13 December 2007, and delivered yesterday by Charles Haddon-Cave QC.The piece by Michael Evans, in The Times is, for instance, headed: "Nimrod report is most devastating in living memory". It reports that the accident...
From "Snatch Land Rovers" to Grand Strategy, we have been on a five-year virtual journey, from the deserts of Iraq to the hills of Waziristan, following two "wars" which have cost the lives of thousands of soldiers, injured many more, and cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.Broadly, we were supportive of the war in Iraq, and felt the counter-insurgency there "winnable". Having invaded the country and deposed its ruler...
The high-profile attack on its embassy in Kabul earlier this month (pictured) briefly brought to the attention of the Western media the Indian presence in the Afghan capital. Yet, apart from when Indian assets are attacked, very little notice is taken of what is a major factor in the Afghan "insurgency". India stands accused of using the Afghan conflict to destabilise its old enemy, Pakistan, part of a wider regional effort that includes...
If the aim of our intervention in Afghanistan is to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qaeda in that country, writes Mehdi Hasan in The Guardian, then we have already won. There is no longer any al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.Hasan relies for his information of Dr Marc Sageman, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, who recently testified to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist, sociologist...
An article in The Sunday Times by the peripatetic Stephen Grey gives much food for thought, and some considerable cause for alarm.Grey is back in Afghanistan, not in Musa Qala where he was last time, but much further south with the US Marines in Khan Neshin, sometimes called Khanashin. The town, if it can be called that, is a ramshackle linear development, set back from the lower reaches of the Helmand River, in what is locally known as...
With the Afghan strategy debate ranging between the two extremes of opting for a "counter-insurgency" or "counter-terrorism" approach, never more has it been necessary to know the nature of the "enemy" with which we are dealing, its structures, organisation, affiliations and, crucially, its mindset. Getting that right determines whether counter-insurgency is a practical proposition. This is a strategy where the people is the "prize", requiring...
The art of analysis is collecting disparate strands of information, pulling them together and drawing from them conclusions which may not be apparent from any one source, however good that might be.Leaping into the frame is an outwardly anodyne piece from the Russian RIA Novosti agency, but which adds a couple of invaluable "nuggets" to our growing collection, confirming and clarifying two important aspects of the situation in Afghanistan.The...
At current rate of spending, General Sir David Richards has effectively committed us to an additional £20 billion in public expenditure – this being about the least we can get away with for the five more years he is expecting British troop numbers to remain at current levels in Afghanistan.With the Labour administration expected to fall in the forthcoming general election, this of course is a sum that Mr Cameron's "modern" Conservatives...
As we move into the next phase of the charade that is the Afghan presidential election, not a few commentators are pointing out that 7 November, the date chosen for the run-off, brings the country perilously close to the winter season, when many areas of the country could be socked in by snow.Even without that, Ben Farmer in The Daily Telegraph points out that the run-off will be a "logistical nightmare". A fleet of 3,500 trucks will be...
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