Mark Helprin's usual clear insightful take on things. Tactically, is Afghanistan like Vietnam? Sort of, if you look at it like the Taliban is S. Vietnam government and the Northern Alliance is the Viet Cong:
October 3, 2001
What to Do in Afghanistan,
And Why
By Mark Helprin, a novelist and Journal contributing editor.
The pre-eminent imperative of the war on terrorism must be to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction that may find their way from the fever swamps of the Middle East to the air above American cities. The Bush administration has chosen not to address its imperatives in order, perhaps because simultaneous military operations against many Islamic states might goad and unify the Muslim world as never before, endangering oil supplies, trade routes, and strategic corridors.
Rather than chance all of this, the administration may plan to finesse the extraction of these weapons via a coalition that it hopes will roll from strength to strength. Given that the contingent of Islamic states is frightened, unstable, and deeply sympathetic to what is supposed to be the object of its enmity, the coalition may fail, leaving the issue of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons unattended except by impotent diplomacy, and the weapons themselves untouched and ready for use.
The course the president has chosen is one of great risk, but so is its alternative. Now that the decision has been taken, the object should be to exploit its many potential advantages and carry it through to victory. Apparently we are to begin with Afghanistan, a perilous choice that also holds out the prospect of success.
There are many reasons not to act in Afghanistan. Military action will kill innocents among a people who are themselves victims of the Taliban, in a country that has already been destroyed, and which habitually swallows invaders in its remote, landlocked mountains. In "the Russian Vietnam," pursuit of terrorists who have long dispersed will yield American casualties and Muslim frenzy all over the world. We will have unleashed great violence and achieved neither a decisive victory, nor the pacification of Afghanistan, nor the suppression of terrorism.
As true as this may be, it is also true that the government of Afghanistan is the proximate source of a massive attack upon the United States, and if left unmolested will be so again. A devastating response is not only unimpeachable, its absence would give license to those who would repeat or refine the outrage. The existence of civilians in a country cannot exempt its military from counter-attack, especially if civilians are not targeted. Although the terrorists have dispersed, they do so only because of the threat of assault, which breaks their stride, and thus saves lives in cities far from the valleys of Afghanistan.
Successful military action will nurture previously uncoordinated efforts against the Taliban on the part of Russia, Iran, the U.S., Uzbekistan, and even China. As much as it may distress the Muslim world, it cannot fail to impress it (and this same community furthermore would have to take note that it was, after all, action in coordination with a Muslim faction, underwritten and undertaken by half a dozen Islamic states). It will liquidate the Taliban's military infrastructure and al Qaeda's base of support. Historical precedent -- which in any case is not absolute -- can be confounded. By taking advantage of Afghanistan's remoteness, isolation, and difficult terrain, the Taliban can be deposed. This should be the chief aim of a campaign in Afghanistan, as it would convince regimes that harbor or would harbor terrorists that the United States will carry through with its demands until they are met, even in the remotest part of the world, at great cost, and at the head of an improbable coalition.
With such a credential, and having built up its reserves of military power, the U.S. could then turn to Syria, for example, to inquire about its chemical and biological weapons. Cognizant of the Sixth Fleet off its coast, Israel to the south, and Turkey to the north, Syria might be uncharacteristically forthcoming, as might Libya next, and so on. May the coalition roll from strength to strength. But it will do so only if it succeeds in Afghanistan, its first endeavor, where its objectives must be clear, its strategy appropriate, and its preparations meticulous.
Perhaps the best way to describe the fundamental strategic situation is to ask the following question: What would have been the outlook for the government of South Vietnam if in 1964 the United States had entered the war on the side of the Vietcong, with China as its partner and the South completely isolated and cut off from all sources of supply? The answer is obvious, and it is pertinent because the Taliban are the government, and the Northern Alliance are the guerrillas. The Northern Alliance will have NATO and Russia at their side and the Taliban will have them at their throat. If the U.S. disciplines itself merely to remove the Taliban rather than to build a nation, then Afghanistan's mountainous terrain, over which airplanes can easily glide, will work in America's favor. American pilots will be the guerrillas. Americans will choose the time and place of battle. Americans will have freedom of maneuver -- while the Taliban attempt to hold facilities, cities, and fixed positions.
If openings exist in the hunt for al Qaeda, special forces should exploit them, but the prime tactical objective must be to decimate from the air such Taliban concentrations as would block a Northern Alliance advance. The Northern Alliance has been unable to overcome these unaided, but with American tactical air support the outcome should not be in doubt. If the Taliban are thus deposed, the Northern Alliance and factions that will have adhered to it will attempt to exercise control. The U.S. can support them materially, as Iran, Russia, and Uzbekistan have to date, but the American paradigm must be a raid. We cannot pacify Afghanistan, and we cannot stay there, even if it means that we must go in again.
The U.S. has obtained overflight and/or basing rights (acknowledged or otherwise) in a ring around Afghanistan. With the support of NATO, Russia, India, and (quietly) bases in the Gulf states, and with planes incoming from the continental U.S., Guam, Diego Garcia, and carriers in the Gulf of Oman, the United States can also operate from the Baghran air base, held by the Northern Alliance within Afghanistan and thus allowing for ready search and rescue and saturation air power. By means of vigilant ground forces, attack helicopters, and AC-130 Spectre gunships (the firepower of which is stunning even to those at whom it is not directed), all exposed bases can be well defended, as they must be, for they will be attacked.
The Taliban probably have far fewer than the 400 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles they claim. After 15 years of less-than-perfect care many of these missiles will fail to operate, and, because they are American-made, the American air forces have ways of countering them, as they can counter as well the Taliban's former Soviet anti-aircraft missiles and radar-directed guns. But some planes will inevitably go down, and when they do their pilots must be protected by withering fire and extracted without delay.
Contrary to the common wisdom, Afghanistan is fairly rich in military targets. Coinciding with the common wisdom, the United States is richer yet in the highly specialized and effective equipment necessary to convert aging military hardware into scrap metal. The Taliban arsenal is not impressive relative to that of a modern state, but relative to the assets of the Northern Alliance it is, and that is just the point. While the intelligence is inexact, the Taliban appear to possess several dozen operational aircraft, a few hundred anti-aircraft guns and missile batteries, several thousand tanks and armored personnel carriers, a thousand or more artillery pieces and rocket launchers, and thousands of vehicles. If their heavy weapons are denied to them; if because their communications, transport, and stores are destroyed they cannot communicate, concentrate, move, or resupply; if they cannot move along the roads; if they cannot mass and maneuver; and if they cannot gather or receive intelligence, the Northern Alliance, with newly abundant Russian weapons and American tactical air support, will defeat them.
Using careful and appropriate strategy, the United States can remove the Taliban from power and deny al Qaeda an effective base in Afghanistan. But, no matter how successful, this will have been a useless exercise unless it is merely the preamble to greater initiatives supported by greater power. Of these further initiatives and the immense military buildup to make them credible, there has been up until now not even a hint. That is rather alarming, for the United States must excise weapons of mass destruction -- its most clear and present danger -- from the unstable, terrorist-linked dictatorships that may loose them against us. Whatever happens in Afghanistan, this is the pre-eminent imperative.
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