In Afghanistan, the enemy brings in weapons and men for large attacks from Pakistan--whether recruited there or just trained there. If we abandon the border, won't we just invite those large groups of Taliban to penetrate further into Afghanistan to attack our outposts in Afghan cities and towns? Afghanistan is much more rural so our troops will have to spread out quite a bit to protect all those small villages unlike Iraq with large urban areas to focus on.
Wouldn't it be better to put a network of interlocked US/Coalition/Afghan outposts along the crucial border areas that make sure no outpost is beyond help from nearby forces? That way we keep the threat in the interior to smaller levels where Afghan forces with Western advisors and a more limited number of US and NATO units can provide security to population centers (See here).
We recognize that our battle spans both sides of the Afghan-Palistan border (AfPak), but let's not pretend that the border isn't important. If we abandon the border, the enemy will follow us to wherever we stand. And the enemy may be able to make those border areas inside Afghanistan their sanctuary rather than Pakistan, just as Pakistan seems poised to wrest control of border areas from their own jihadis.
But reports that we have organized anti-Taliban Afghans near the border and our operations on the other side of the border with UAVs in cooperation with the Pakistanis have made me feel better, by showing that we hadn't abandoned the border. We can't seal the border, as this 101st AB brigade commander stated. But it is important to try.
As long as we can maintain good intelligence on Taliban movement with surveillance assets, our (American and allied) special forces and intelligence people on the ground in the border regions, and locals who fight with our support, this isn't so much abandoning the borders as it is pulling back US outposts vulnerable to surprise attacks from enemies massing inside Pakistan first. If we can hit the enemy in this network of surveillance and strikes, we can keep the enemy from penetrating in strength to more densely populated areas.
Strategypage makes me feel better about the border strategy:
Eastern Afghanistan is alive with the sound of the Pakistani Taliban dying. Several Islamic terrorist groups across the border in Waziristan are trying to escape the Pakistani Army, CIA missiles and fed-up tribesmen, by fleeing across the border. But these heavily armed refugees find more armed and angry tribesmen, plus Afghan and NATO troops. For an Afghan, this is no way to spend the Winter. It's too cold to be chased through the snow filled mountain passes. ...
NATO forces are also using some ancient tactics. Instead of trying to halt hostile gunmen from sneaking across the border, they are carefully watching the towns and villages the enemy needs to visit for food and other supplies (like batteries for radios and news of the local situation). The locals are fed up with the Taliban and drug gangs, who act like thugs and bullies and have been at it for over a decade. The government and NATO has encouraged the formation of self-defense militias and put more checkpoints on the few roads, to prevent the Taliban and gangsters from rapidly moving gunmen around via pickups and SUVs (which the drug gangs can afford, and many of these vehicles are usually a sure sign the gangs are around).
So we do have a network, as I wanted. But it relies far less on regular infantry as I mentioned. This works as long as there aren't important objectives in the forward kill zone inside the border belt where we are using this approach, since it is a network for attriting the enemy in the area and not protecting the area from the enemy (although we help locals defend themselves, and attriting the enemy keeps them atomized to pose less of a threat to local defense forces). We can afford to give ground, let the enemy move forward, find them and strike them, and still protect the critical population centers deeper inside Afghanistan.
At some point we'll have to control the border on the Afghan side to keep Afghanistan from being the rear area safe haven for Pakistan's Taliban. We have to beat both groups of Taliban before we can really say we've achieved a real victory with the potential to last past our future draw down.
