Thursday, January 14, 2010

Isolating the Battlefield

The Sri Lankan success against the Tamil Tigers had a big assist from the Sri Lankan navy's ability to finally degrade the Tigers' sea lines of supply back to India:

A former navy commander has admitted that it was a lot of new technology, in the last few years of fighting, that played a major role in cutting government shipping losses (to enemy suicide boat attacks), and keeping the separatist rebels from bringing in weapons and munitions to the island nation.

If the enemy there had still had their supplies, the Sri Lankans would still be fighting their war.

The borders matter in Afghanistan. In order to deny our enemies supplies and reinforcements/replacements from Pakistan, we have to do the same on land. I remain worried that our focus on securing the people of Afghanistan will neglect this vital component of protecting them.