Is Afghanistan doomed? That's what you'd think from the press reporting:
Afghanistan's police and army are losing too many men in battle, and may need up to five more years of western support before they can fight independently, the top US and Nato commander in the country has told the Guardian.
General Joseph Dunford also said in an interview that it was too early to judge whether Nato had been right to end combat operations in Afghanistan this spring. Western forces have officially offered only training and support to the Afghan army and police during the brutal fighting season of the summer months.
Dunford admitted that Nato and Afghan commanders are concerned about Afghan casualty rates, which have regularly topped more than 100 dead a week. "I view it as serious, and so do all the commanders," Dunford said. "I'm not assuming that those casualties are sustainable."
The rapidly expanded security forces, now 350,000 strong, did not need help in basic battle skills, Dunford told the Guardian. But they still struggle to support themselves in areas varying from logistics and planning to intelligence-gathering and back-up from planes and helicopters in difficult battles.
In part, this is "duh" territory. Yes, the Afghans still need our help with supporting functions that they can't handle yet. That's why we need to stay and/or provide contractors to help the Afghans even after we largely withdraw after 2014.
And heck, I'm still wondering why we didn't have an offensive in Regional Command East in the 2012 fighting season as our surge plan originally included. We went right to transitioning to Afghan control without knocking down the Taliban there as we did in Regional Command South in the first of what was supposed to be a phased offensive.
The main news is the casualty rate. It is high. On the bright side, it indicates the Afghans are out there fighting. So it isn't all bad.
The questions are whether the Afghans can sustain that rate until they win; will the casualties continue at this rate; and whether the enemy is suffering casualties that they can endure.
Let's go to a press conference by LTG Mark Milley for more. Excuse the lengthy selection. I'll highlight and summarize after:
The -- I read that article actually -- read both the transcript and what General Dunford said. What General Dunford actually said was, he didn't assume that it was sustainable, as opposed to declare that it was unsustainable. There's a slight difference, but I think it's a substantial one, or it has substantive different in meaning.
But bottom line is, here's my assessment: The Afghan security forces are suffering more casualties, no question about it. There's more Afghan security forces, and they're out there putting the wood to the enemy, every single day, day in and day out across the entire battle space. They're fighting significantly against all of the various groups. And they are suffering. They're taking casualties. They're inflicting a hell of a lot more than they are taking by the way, but they are taking casualties.
On average, they're -- it's probably somewhere in the range -- it depends on the week -- but somewhere in the range of 50 to 100 or so Afghan security forces are killed in action per week. And -- and that's not at all insignificant. That is significant. And we're paying attention to that, and we want to continue to work with them on the tactics, techniques, procedures of good sound tactics in order to minimize their own casualties.
So we're working heavily on counter-IED, for example. On all the technological devices that we use we are training the Afghans to use those; on proper movement techniques, et cetera.
Also a big one is medical evacuation, because any time you take casualties there's obviously an impact on unit moral et cetera. So you want to make sure that an individual soldier, regardless of what country they're from, any individual soldier wants to ensure that they're getting -- gonna get adequate medical care if they're injured.
So we're working hard to improve the medical evacuation system. Everywhere from point of injury all the way up to rotary wing medevac in order to evacuate the soldiers that are wounded in a timely way, and then -- and get them to appropriate medical care.
In addition to that, close-air support and attack helicopter support; we provide both of those for the Afghans when requested. But they are now developing an attack helicopter capability with their MI-35s and a lift capability with their MI-17s.
It's early. They've been running air assaults. They have been supporting themselves in a variety of ways, but those two capabilities are important in order to make the battlefield uneven in favor of the friendly forces.
Also, indirect fire -- the Afghans now, this summer, are employing D-30 artillery in much greater use than they were in previous years, and they're getting up -- trained up to a level where they can plan, coordinate, call for fire, address fire, et cetera.
Same thing, most importantly, with mortars. Probably the most responsive fire-support system that any infantry-based force can have is 60 millimeter and 82 millimeter mortars. So the Afghans are employing those to much greater effect than they have been in times gone by.
So that -- those capabilities, once they're brought to the fight at the unit levels will change, we think, the quote/unquote "significant amounts of casualties" that they're having.
The IEDs are big. Direct fire is big. IED, counter IED technologies, and tactics, techniques and procedures will work toward that. And then for the direct fire stuff, a lot of that -- in a direct firefight, as you well know, indirect fire tends to put the playing field in favor of the friendly forces.
So the bottom line is working on capabilities to address that.
But I think there's a broader question here on casualties. And I've given this a fair amount of thought over the summer. And some people say, well, you know, the U.S. Army or the U.S. Marines or the German army or the British army, et cetera, could never sustain those rates of casualties. And those rates approach rates that we took in Vietnam at the time.
But I think that the ability to take casualties is directly related to the political object to be achieved. And for the Afghans, I think that's significant. For them, they are fighting for their country. They're fighting for the very existence of their future. And I don't -- I -- of the -- there's 24 maneuver brigades out here. There's over 100 kandaks. There's six different corps. And there hasn't been a single unit, police or army, that has shattered and lost their cohesion, lost their ability to carry on the fight as a result of casualties.
I think that speaks volumes. That speaks volumes about their cohesion, their dedication, and their willingness to defend their own country. And I think they are fully cognizant of the fact of the enemy they are fighting who wants to take over their country. And they are fully aware that if they fail in their fight, they'll live under Taliban rule again.
So they are determined -- and I've seen it over and over and over again throughout the last four months. These guys are absolutely determined to fight for their country. And they're doing a good job at it. And, yes, they are suffering.
Is it sustainable or unsustainable? I think that's an open question. I personally believe that -- you know, I walked around the hospital just yesterday. And I don't -- I think there was probably about 80 or 90 Afghan wounded in action in there. And these are pretty serious wounds.
And I got to tell you, these guys are hard guys. These are tough, physical tough people and mentally tough people.
And -- you have to almost go back in time to, I don't know, the middle of the 1800s or something like that in the United States where the Union and Confederate armies are marching in boots and bare feet back and forth over the mountains of Virginia and Georgia to find people as hard and as tough as these people.
So taking casualties is significant, and we, as ISAF and advisers, are working a whole wide variety of programs to try to reduce those casualties. That's on the one hand.
On the other hand, I believe this enemy is resilient. But I got to tell you, the Afghan security forces are very resilient. They're hard. They're tough. And I don't think the rates of casualties, although significant, I don't think that's going to shatter or break the security force.
So Afghan forces are taking significant casualties. A number of factors that would reduce casualties by making Afghans more effective on defense and offense will reduce the casualty rates. So far the enemy is also suffering; and so far Afghan units are still in the fight despite their own casualties. But of course you have to worry about whether these rates are sustainable and work to reduce casualty rates in case they aren't.
We worry that the more fanatical Taliban can endure casualties more than the government. But remember that in the Iran-Iraq War, everyone assumed that Iran could endure casualties easily while Iraq was vulnerable on that score. By 1988, it was Iran that found their levels of casualties unsustainable and their morale broke. So don't assume the Taliban are immune to the worries we have for the Afghan security forces.
The main handicap the government side has is that if government forces shatter, they pave the way for insurgents to march into the cities. If insurgent morale shatters, they fade back into the countryside and retreat into Pakistan to regroup and resume the fight.
So if Taliban morale breaks first as they press what they hope are more vulnerable Afghan units, that should be the signal for Afghan forces to go on offense to savage the shattered enemy. This is what Iraq did in 1988, smashing the Iranians at Fao and then plunging into Iran at numerous point to largely route the Iranians who no longer had the stomach for the fight.
Turning over responsibilities for fighting to local forces is COIN 101. Heck, it's ally support 101. We're only just now getting ready to turn over command-and-control responsibilities to South Korea to defend against North Korea. And we still have capabilities that South Korea does not have. So just because we are transitioning to Afghani units in the lead, don't assume we are retreating. This is a dangerous optic, I admit. But that's spin and not reality unless we make it so and give up in defeat.
