Stolterberg? He should stay on his meds.

"NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday reaffirmed the alliance's commitment to stabilizing Afghanistan and ensuring that the gains made are preserved after the foreign combat mission ends in 2014.

Afghan security forces have been largely left to fight the Taliban on their own this year, in their first real test since the militant Islamists were ousted from power in 2001 by U.S.-led forces.

Government forces hold cities and towns and district centers have also largely held out but police and army casualties have been described as "unsustainable" and the Taliban have regained territory in strategic provinces where they have resumed the role of de facto government."  Reuters

***************

"Afghan forces are dying at an unsustainable rate on the battlefield, a senior U.S. commander said Wednesday , in a troubling sign ahead of the departure of most U.S. and NATO troops by the end of this year.

Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, a senior commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said 4,634 members of Afghanistan’s police and army have been killed in action this year. That is already an increase from the total for 2013, when 4,350 members died in the line of duty.

“This is not sustainable,” he told reporters in a video briefing from Afghanistan.""  Washpost

------------------

The Taliban are once again governing large parts of Afghanistan.  The Afghan armed forces cost about 25% of Afghan GDP.  Most of that military budget money comes from the US.  Lucky us!  There are 195,000 people in their armed forces.

Now we learn from this man Anderson that KIA losses are so high that they are "unsustainable."

Excuse me?  What is it that we think we are doing there?  pl  

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-afghanistan-nato-idUSKBN0IQ18220141106

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/afghan-forces-casualties-not-sustainable-us-commander-says/2014/11/05/a3df595a-6514-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

Comments

[bth]

There are 31 million people in Afghanistan.

[bth]

In 2001 there were around 21 million in Afghanistan. There has been almost a 10 million person population growth in Afghanistan since the 911 attack.

[curtis]

What is it that we think we are doing there?

[snark]
Why, why making the area safe for crony capitalism of course. Dick Cheney and friends need a fresh new group of peasents to fleece now that the current ones are getting rowdy and uppity. Obvious on the face of it.
[/snark]

(software obviously has problems with brackets)

[Matthew]

Col: the reference to Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson made me look him up. See http://www.isaf.nato.int/leadership.html

The short biographies, particularly of the enlisted men in leadership, are quite interesting.

[Fred]

Col.,

It seems NATO is now defending: Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and far, far away – Afghanistan. Coming soon – Ukraine! Not to worry though, it won’t be German, Italian, Dutch or Norwegians or pseudo ISIS enemy Turkey sending the troops or footing the bill. Lord knows the Baltic states aren’t sending anyone or spending thier citizens money on these, ah, obligations.

[Peter C]

Stoltenberg must be tasting the high dollar export products while fresh from the fields before the long trip.

[CatMack]

Dear Fred,

I believe you might be unnecessarily harsh on Baltic States. When it was convenient for the U.S., they carried their weight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Estonians and Latvians were bloodied, especially if you consider casualties on per capita basis (see http://icasualties.org/OEF/Nationality.aspx). Even though Lithuanians have not fought much, I heard that Ghor is quite a bad place to spent your time in.

This is separate from the issue of whether their past achievements should have any bearing on future obligations of U.S. taxpayers and citizens to support their independence with blood and treasure.

Best,

M

[Ulenspiegel]

When I was trying to calculate the number of a useful occupation force for Afghanistan in 2002, I found to my real surprise, that nobody knew a good population number, later I found that this issue was actually discussed even in good in academic papers, reasons were e.g. no census for years and large number of refugitives.

Therefore, the 21 million for 2001 is highly speculative and your "population increase" may be to a large extend bogus. :-)

[Eliot]

Would partition be viable alternative to Pashtun domination? Or would the non-Pashtun peoples simply squabble among themselves?

- Eliot

[turcopolier]

Eliot

A lot of these backward countries in the Islamic World are artificial constructs produced by the colonial powers; Russia Britain, France, etc. The peoples who live within the borders have little in common other than some sort of shared Islam. Afghanistan could be partitioned into; Pashtun, Hazara, Turcoman, etc, little states, but they would still fight with each other and the Islamists would still want unity rather than division. pl

[turcopolier]

Ulenspiegal

There are very few reliable population numbers for any of the countries we are concerned with here. pl

[Eliot]

Col. Lang,

Would it be more stable in some respects? Or at least less violent? Each statelet would have more limited means.

Or would it simply be a replay of civil war years, where each and every warlord had their own foreign backer? The statelets would certainly be vulnerable to another Islamist movement like the Taliban, they could be defeated one by one till it was far too late to mount an effective non-Pashtun alliance.

What is our best worst option?

- Eliot

[turcopolier]

Eliot

IMO there would be a mosaic of warring statelets. pl

[Fred]

CatMack,

If the Baltic States are offended too bad but that is not the intent of my comment. The soldiers of their armed forces did not create the political climate that caused their politicians to order them abroad any more than ours did.

Let me know how much their nations were paid for this military commitment. Most of these nations are not living up to thier article 3 obligations under the NATO treaty but are receiving billions in direct and indirect US tax subsidies as well as obtaining a commitment from the US to defend them. That obligation means the US gains the potential destruciton of our nation in a nuclear war to defend these states of the former Warsaw Pact should any of these countries provoke a Russian Federation action.

[Tyler]

Listening to some schmuck on Fox News talking about Russia's military and he lets loose this kneeslapper:

"Except for thier airborne, marine, and spetznatz units, the Russian military is a joke!" - General Bob Gates

Yeah cause the tripod of SOCOM, drones, and CAS the US military is built on is super duper stable.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Until the meanest one destroys the others and creates a larger state- conforming largely to the contours of present-day Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria.

[bth]

The last formal Afghan census was conducted in 1979. Estimates from the UN, World Bank and CIA are about 21 million in 2001 and between 30.5 in 2013 to 31.8+ million in 2014.

[CatMack]

Dear Fred,
You raise a number of interesting issues. I agree that the former Warsaw Pact countries do not follow Article 3 and continuously degrade their self-defence capabilities and military preparedness. I see this driven by at least three mutually reinforcing factors that I will try to explain using Poland as an example.

First, the elites are afraid of the people and much effort has been put into separating military from the society. Therefore, there are no reserves to speak of, no mobilization resources, wartime stocks are sent off to places such as Syria and Ukraine and so on. Second, society itself has been educated into pacifism, historical and economic ignorance and, beyond brief moments of panic, is locked into passive-aggressive mind-set unwilling to accept the responsibility for its own security. Third, in the imperial new world order these militaries were assigned expeditionary support roles and perform as such. Not for the first time in the history. Poles massacred Haitian Revolution and Spanish guerrillas during Napoleonic wars or suppressed Golden Square coup in Iraq in 1941.

I disagree with you that billions of subsidies were provided to these countries. Past 10 years, Poles received from U.S. two retired frigates and a couple of transport planes to support logistics in Afghanistan. Babak will be pleased to know that Herculeses flown by the stalwart of Western democracies are actually older than ones operated by IRIAF. Pennies. In 2009, the amount of money U.S. spent on supporting Poland was 31 million USD, compared to 2.5 billion to Israel or 1.2 billion given to Russia (nuclear disarmament I suppose, https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1299.pdf). As opposed to Pakistan or Turkey, there were no civilian lines of credit, subsidies or foreign aid open to Poland that I am aware of. All big ticket purchases, such as insane F-16 acquisition, were paid by Poles in cash.

Top Polish leaders took 15 million in personal bribes, fittingly delivered in cardboard boxes, for organizing the CIA black site in Poland. I believe that no money was paid for having Poland join in the Iraq War: perhaps a vague promise of the position of UN Secretary for the president at that time sufficed.
I will pass on the U.S. NATO treaty obligations. I do not think anyone considers them serious. Overall, I would say that U.S. taxpayer benefited from the Central European vassals. At least one imperial success story.

Best,

CatMack

[CatMack]

Babak, Eliot,

One could consider drugs a stabilizing factors. Seems that everybody but Hazara are on it. At the current scale, running drug economy requires efficient and bi-directional supply chains (precursors, agricultural inputs, processed drugs). Supply lines are going both to Karachi and to lesser extent, North.

It would take enormous lack of foresight by warlords to allow the conflict between their domains to get hot and risk breaking the drug economy. Seems to me that all current players have a single unifying trait. They have proved themselves as not only survivors, but skilled businessman. I believe that their money grabbing instincts can be relied upon to prevent an outright civil war. External factors also changed since 1990s.

This means that Afghanistan will not disappear on 1 January 2015, at least not for Europeans. Each day a couple tons of it will keep arriving in Rotterdam, Marseille and Felixstowe.

Just a naive, neoliberal opinion.

Best,

CatMack

[Fred]

Catmack,

What university are you teaching in? Just curious mind you.
Here's some economic data from regarding US investment in Poland. That's $30 billion not invested in the US but Poland over two decades.
http://www.msz.gov.pl/en/news/poland_us_trade_talks
I'm sure Secretary Pritzker will treat Poland better than she treated her family:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/four-things-to-know-about-penny-pritzker-a-billionaire-and-obama-s-commerce-secretary-pick-20130306

[Babak Makkinejad]

"Foresight" is something that the warlords cannot afford; even if they were culturally not predisposed against it.

They are men with a native peasant cunning; they are not statesmen.

Yes, they might be skilled businessmen in the sense of the ancient Oriental Bazar but they are not industrialists - men of vision like Ford, Carnegie, Mellon or Rockefeller.

"...their money grabbing instincts can be relied upon to prevent an outright civil war.." is, in my opinion, wishful thinking.

People like war, specially men, and while booty always plays a role, other factors also are present and often dominate.

The warlords proved that they could not govern Afghanistan as a polity when they destroyed the government of Najibullah and then proceeded to fight among themselves and destroyed what had not been destroyed before.

I agree that the external situation has changed. One is this: Iranians have publicly indicated that they are ready to make a deal with the drug lords to transport drugs through Iran as long as they do not sell it in Iran.

Let Turkey and EU states - their enemies - deal with it.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Stupid, I agree. And then to what purpose?

Is the 82-Airborne going to land in Moscow?

[Fred]

Tyler,

We've got great allies in NATO, though they might be a bit too busy near NATO's HQ to help with all those obligations that just keep on piling up:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2824057/Brussels-burns-100-000-protesters-clash-police-march-against-EU-austerity-measures.html

[CatMack]

Babak,

A cynic could say that a brutal civil war is the best outcome West can hope for at this point. It complicates situation for Iranians, with expected waves of refugees and Iranian resources diverted to creating buffers and protecting Shia. It stirs up competition for U.S. attention between Pakistan and India. It creates pressures on SCO ‘stans and Soviet underbelly. It collapses drug production to more manageable wartime levels of 3000 or so of tons of opium harvested. Scorched earth against Chinese grab for resources, real or illusional. Finally, it frees D.C. bureaucracies from having to defend themselves against SIGAR / John Sopko and his inquisition.

After the first winter population will again be back to more sustainable level of 21 million, but none of this will be witnessed on CNN. A nice, clean solution where this Afghan glass house collapses onto itself, like WTC 7 on 9/11, without any nasty externalities for the U.S. or the broader West.

[CatMack]

Dear Fred,
I have never had any teaching responsibilities. I am in the private sector now, but I do retain a mostly curtesy affiliation with one of state universities, exclusively relating to research. I guess one could say system worked and prevented any students from having their personalities damaged by prolonged exposure to me.

The link you provided does not really mention the total amounts. I read it as a mostly a PR piece. I would use as a reference a nice brief available at http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ics/2013/204716.htm. I double checked numbers with EIU and they match.
Previously we established that there was very little U.S. public money provided to Poland. As to private investments, they are around 10 billion USD invested in Poland by U.S. entities since 1990, see under “Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Statistics” header. Some were underwritten by U.S. taxpayer through OPIC and ExIm Bank. The net profit from the investment is upwards of 1 billion USD per year:

“In 2011, net U.S. FDI to Poland was negative, meaning U.S. companies operating in Poland in aggregate either repatriated profits, reduced their equity capital, or Polish subsidiaries gave intra-company loans to their U.S. headquarters.”

I do not know if U.S. taxpayer has been paid for the risks it had taken. I suppose not.

In principal I believe that free trade between equal private parties is to the benefit of both. This is not how business is done now. I can point you to many instances in which U.S. entities would use the political leverage and overt corruption against Poles, enjoying complete immunity. Only recently a 4 billion USD corruption case surfaced which involves HP and IBM (http://www.propublica.org/article/cash-cars-and-contract-ibm-hp-and-oracle-in-the-crosshairs-of-overseas-corr). The U.S. entities mostly sell to Polish government and state-owned enterprises, there is little in terms of true B2B relationships. The insanity is mostly due to Polish ineptitude, but Americans exploit and further it using the worst possible colonial patterns.

Best,

CatMack