Two years ago this month, fewer than 100 men of the Army's Fifth Special Forces Group, based out of Fort Campbell, Ky.--almost all of them noncommissioned officers--essentially took down the Taliban regime on their own. Along with a handful of Air Force special-ops embeds, they succeeded where the British and the Soviets before them in Afghanistan had failed, because they had been given no specific instructions.
The historical perspective here is highly distorted. The British and the Soviets took over Afghanistan with the greatest of ease. They were not able to hold onto it.
The bureaucratic layers between the U.S. forces and the secretary of defense were severed. They were told merely to link up with the "indigs" (indigenous Northern Alliance and friendly Pushtun elements) and make it happen.
These allies were great assets in fighting the Taliban. When the problem changed from defeating the Taliban to establishing a functional government, they became great liabilities.
Our problem in Afghanistan now is political, not military. Sure, if we turned the special forces loose they could chase the Taliban remnants more effectively. If they get very effective, the bad guys will simply pull back to their protected sanctuaries in the NWFP, where they work hand in glove with the Pakistani security forces, and allow us to declare temporary victory. When we leave, they come back. We are not going to occupy the place forever.
They are patient, and they are not stupid.
Can we find our way back to 2001 in Afghanistan and to 2002 in the Philippines, when the Fifth and First Special Forces Groups led the way to military transformation?
I would be very curious to know what "military transformation" Kaplan thinks occurred in the Philippines in 2002, and what he thinks that transformation accomplished. |
