Ground War Strategies Part 5:
Peacekeepers' Dilemma
2130 GMT, 011116
Summary
British and French troops have begun establishing a presence in Afghanistan to prepare the way for a multinational peacekeeping force. Peacekeepers will be deployed along borders between ethnic groups when possible in order to avoid tension with local Afghans. But although this will quickly improve conditions in some areas, it will also hasten the country's fragmentation.
Analysis
A Nov. 14 resolution by the U.N. Security Council encourages all nations to help ensure the safety of Afghan areas no longer under Taliban control. As part of such an effort, about 100 British troops landed at Bagram airport north of Kabul on Nov. 15 to prepare the facility for humanitarian tasks, according to the British Ministry of Defense. Several thousand additional British soldiers are scheduled to arrive in Afghanistan in the coming days.
A multinational peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan will provide convenient political cover for U.S. involvement there. But some peacekeepers will become the target of harassment and attacks. Others, such as forces from Turkey, will work well with Afghan factions but could also contribute to ethnic fragmentation, making the possibility of a lasting peace even more remote.
With the Taliban withdrawing from cities and moving into the mountains after the recent Northern Alliance advance, the United States and its coalition partners are faced with the need to bring a measure of stability to Afghanistan. The United States has little hope for a robust liberal democracy to flourish in the Afghan rubble. But Washington is under international pressure to bring in relief supplies and pre-empt a repeat of past ethnic violence.
It appears Washington hopes to keep its own military involvement, and that of coalition partners, to a minimum. Leaks to both the New York Times and the Washington Times suggest the U.S. government would prefer that Afghans police themselves as much as possible. This would both minimize foreign casualties and avoid creating the impression of a Western invasion.
But this option won't work; the country is simply too unstable. Reports are already emerging of conflicts between local warlords and within the Northern Alliance itself. Picking an ethnic faction, like the Uzbeks of the Northern Alliance, and allowing them to police Pushtun-dominated communities would jeopardize U.S. relations with Pakistan and reignite frictions among Afghans.
Given the likely failure of the Afghan-only option, foreign forces are necessary -- but they probably won't include many Americans. The British forces were the first on the ground, and about 4,000 more are standing by, including Royal Marine commandos, Parachute Regiment units and support units like the Royal Engineers. And around 60 French soldiers are reportedly securing the airport at Mazar-e-Sharif, with about 240 more on the way, according to Reuters.
The next wave will include even more Western soldiers. Canada has offered 1,000 troops, and Germany is sending 3,900 soldiers.
But the key to the peacekeeping operation, at least politically, may be the participation of military units from Muslim nations. These soldiers would make a big difference in the battle for world opinion by adding credence to the assertion that Afghanistan is not the battleground for a Christian versus Islamic conflict. They would also take the place of U.S. troops, whose popularity among the Afghan citizenry is questionable.
Most of these nations are awaiting a more specific U.N. request for peacekeepers expected next week. An official U.N. umbrella will give political cover to governments of Muslim-dominated nations that are afraid of looking like proxies for the United States.
Turkish soldiers, for one, will likely deploy next week. Newspapers across Turkey reported Nov. 15 that as many as 3,000 soldiers are on standby for a possible international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. These troops regularly train with Turkey's fellow NATO members such as the United Kingdom.
The Muslim nations of Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan and Malaysia have all expressed a similar interest as well. Noticeably absent in the deployment will be the United States, Russia and probably Pakistan. Keeping Pakistani troops -- who will likely favor the Pushtuns -- out of Afghanistan will allay the fears of neighboring countries such as Iran and Uzbekistan, who want to keep Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan to a minimum.
The initial role for peacekeepers will be to stabilize the situation on the ground enough to allow more troops into Afghanistan and to offer a modicum of safety to relief efforts. Troops will secure airports and primary road links as well as set up command and communications facilities.
For several reasons, initial deployments will focus on Kabul. The capital's symbolic value and volatile ethnic mix make it a political tinderbox, and its airport is vital for relief and peacekeeping operations. Other population and transport centers such as Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat will be the focus of later deployments.
But even after all the peacekeepers are fully deployed, there will not be enough of them to guarantee security through the whole country. Troop contributions from other nations will likely be similar, if not lower, to the potential 4,000-strong British contingent. Such totals will simply be too low to patrol the country, even by U.N. standards.
The United Nations has more than 16,000 troops deployed in Sierra Leone, which is one-tenth the size of Afghanistan. East Timor has an even higher troop concentration: 8,000 soldiers covering 9,000 square miles. An equivalent-size force in Afghanistan would need to approach 400,000 soldiers -- four times larger than Soviet military deployments in the country in the 1980s.
Rather than patrol the entire country, peacekeepers will be concentrated in major cities, transportation corridors and at points of friction between ethnic groups. This pattern of deployment will make them targets for retribution from Taliban forces and vulnerable to local warlords looking for fame or ransom.
Compounding the danger is the fact that peacekeepers may also find themselves clashing with factions of the Northern Alliance. Some alliance commanders already have said they oppose peacekeeping deployments in Kabul, a city they assert is already peaceful under their control.
Sniping and mortar attacks on base areas should be expected as well as ambushes on relief convoys and theft from food depots. If past operations are any guide, peacekeeping fatalities can be expected. Sixteen peacekeepers have been killed in East Timor, 46 in Sierra Leone and 13 in Kosovo, according to the United Nations. Casualties in Afghanistan could very easily exceed these.
The deployment patterns will also reflect an effort to minimize tension between peacekeepers and native Afghans. European forces will be stationed near high-value areas like airports, relief offices and communications centers. But they will be kept away from potentially hostile missions such as street patrols and road checkpoints. "Neutral" troops, such as those from Indonesia or Jordan, will be assigned to high-tension areas where multiple ethnicities come into contact.
Turkish troops, however, are ethnically tied to the Uzbeks who inhabit the north. Turkish deployments in Uzbek-heavy areas will alleviate tensions and facilitate the distribution of relief supplies. But there is a danger that the Turks will work too closely with the Uzbeks, sharing intelligence or even military hardware. This would strengthen the Uzbeks' position versus other ethnicities, such as the Tajiks and Hazaras, and contribute to the establishment of a state-within-a-state.
In a country as unstable and fragmented as Afghanistan, a lasting peace agreement among the various ethnic factions is even more unlikely if a more powerful Uzbek faction begins exerting pressure. Peacekeeping forces will then find themselves in a position where they must either abandon the country or accept an unending deployment in a hostile environment. |
