The first real test of Afghan fighting capacity looks good:
The Taliban launched a series of attacks at the start of the latest fighting season to test Afghanistan's new security forces, but government forces have blunted the assaults and responded with offensive operations throughout the country, a top coalition operations officer said. ...
"They are sustaining the casualties without much setback," Marine Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman said in a telephone interview from Afghanistan. "Everyone wants to minimize (casualties), but essentially …it has not slowed the momentum."
The ability to slug it out and win is good. But support functions are still important to keep the troops fighting.
To make up for future lack of American air power, the article notes that Afghans are using vehicle ambulances and we are providing artillery and mortars for fire support.
I don't think that will be sufficient. Air evacuation is far better for morale. And the loss of precision American air power is not balanced by artillery--which will have low availability rates from lack of maintenance--and mortars, both of which will lack the accuracy of our air power.
While mortars and vehicle ambulances can supplement air power, I think we need to keep some of our air power available for smart bombing Taliban to keep them cautious in battle with Afghan forces. I think we need to hire contractors with our aid to Afghanistan to run air evacuation units and to provide maintenance and advice to Afghan artillery units.
Remember, at some level COIN 101 envisions turning over security responsibilities to local government forces. So the withdrawal of American forces isn't the same as admitting defeat. As I've written, it can unfortunately be seen as retreat unless we are careful to manage the optics. Local allies have to believe they are strong enough to fight and win without us. Locals have to believe we are still with them to provide key support that everyone knows they cannot provide. And the enemy has to quickly learn that our departure from the front lines isn't an opening for the enemy to win.
The Afghan grunts are showing that the Taliban don't have a free run at victory without our troops in the direct fight. Now it is up to us to provide the visible support (logistics, intelligence, firepower, medical support) for those guys doing the fighting and dying on the ground to secure what we've gained in our long campaign in Afghanistan.
Our Afghan allies won't do as good a job as we could, but it is certainly good enough to defeat the Taliban. Eventually we'll be able to downgrade our support for air power, intelligence, logistics, and firepower. But we're years away from that. Or we should be years away from that.
UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for the link.
An Afghan general says that the Taliban are pushing ill-trained recruits across the border, but Afghan units are handling it.
