>From the Stratfor boys-
Success Against Taliban Hinges on Pakistan
Summary
Pentagon officials are signaling that the war in Afghanistan will be hard and long. Questions have been raised as to why the Taliban does not believe its position is hopeless. The Taliban believes it is possible, with strategic luck, not only to survive but also to draw the United States into a quagmire. The key to all of this is Pakistan.
Analysis
It is now official: The Taliban fighters are tough. Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Staff, recently expressed surprise at how doggedly they were resisting U.S. attacks, saying, "They are proving to be tough warriors.''
He understates the matter. In a nation of warriors toughened by culture, heritage and experience, the Taliban battled its way to power and held it. Even more important, the Taliban does not intend to give up power willingly, nor does it expect to lose the war.
Stufflebeem's statement is an important punctuation mark in the Afghan war. The Bush administration had hoped that an intense bombing campaign carried out prior to winter might shatter the Taliban's hold on power, and Stufflebeem is now conceding that this is not likely. In other words, the Joint Chiefs have signaled to the public that the United States probably will not be able to knock the Taliban out quickly by pounding the regime from the air. The war in the Afghan theater will go on into the winter and certainly into 2002 at least.
Stufflebeem expressed surprise that the Taliban does not seem to understand it cannot win. The fact is, it believes it can. The Taliban's view of the war is fairly simple: The air campaign is unpleasant but not, by itself, decisive. Air campaigns rarely are. They are particularly ineffective when aimed at a well dug- in infantry force. When we add to that Washington's overwhelming political need to minimize civilian casualties in order to keep Islamic states in the U.S.-led coalition by, the Taliban understands that the ability of the United States to strike decisively from the air is severely limited.
In the worst-case scenario, U.S. air power will allow Northern Alliance troops to take Kabul. Even were that to happen, the nucleus of Taliban power is not in Kabul -- a city notoriously hard to hold -- but in the southern city of Kandahar. The southern elements who are considering which way to jump do not want to side with a loser. Right now, various allies in Afghanistan are carefully evaluating U.S. actions to judge how committed and capable the United States is. They are in no rush to judge. Therefore, the Taliban feels fairly secure in southern regions.
As for Kabul, the Taliban understands an assault by the Northern Alliance would have more to do with the Pakistani government than with the Northern Alliance itself. Pakistan helped create the Taliban. If the regime were to fall, the last people the Pakistanis would support for control of Afghanistan are the members of the Russian-dominated Northern Alliance. Islamabad has made it clear to Washington that the use of Pakistani facilities depends on the United States preventing the creation of a government founded on the Northern Alliance.
This has forced the United States into the strange position of trying to create a new Afghan government before it has overthrown the old one. Because everyone is waiting to see whether the Taliban can be ousted before they commit themselves to the American cause, an insane situation has been created. The Taliban cannot be destroyed before a coalition government is waiting in the wings. Many people in Afghanistan won't risk membership in an anti-Taliban coalition until after the United States has demonstrated that the Taliban can be defeated. The Taliban is, of course, fully aware of the situation and is therefore in no hurry to capitulate. In fact, it really doesn't think it will lose.
There is, however, a deeper reality beneath the temporary comedy. The United States is not going to disengage; it would be absolutely impossible either from a domestic political or geopolitical perspective. The United States also cannot afford to create an Iraq-type situation of endless air campaigns leading nowhere. A solution must be found.
The heart of the problem is not in Afghanistan. It is in Pakistan. This is not just because the United States needs Pakistani territory for its military campaign or because of Pakistan's political influence inside Afghanistan -- although both of these are extremely important. Rather, it is because the Taliban cannot survive a protracted struggle without protected sanctuary and a source of strategic supply. Pakistan is the center of gravity for the Taliban's military machine.
Parallels to this war are found, in part, in Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In both cases, light infantry forces defeated more powerful military machines that enjoyed complete air superiority and were able to emerge victorious from virtually any engagement. Despite absorbing much higher casualties than the Americans and Soviets, the Vietnamese and Afghans were able to win because they had a much greater political tolerance for casualties over time than did their opponents. This defined the conditions for their victories.
The ability to sustain combat over time was essential for victory. For this, Vietnamese and Afghans needed two things. The first was the supply of weapons and other materiel from outside the country. The second was the availability of secure staging areas from which to recruit and train new troops. For the North Vietnamese, the solution was the delivery of weapons from the Soviet bloc to North Vietnam, followed by transfer to the combat theater over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In the case of Afghanistan, weapons were transferred from the United States, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere and then carried into Afghanistan -- while Pakistan served as sanctuary, recruiting depot and training base.
Guerrilla armies live off the land. True guerrilla armies that defeat great powers are rare. Infantry armies supplied from outside can defeat great powers. Therefore, the heart of the matter for the Taliban is whether Pakistan will supply the wherewithal to resist the United States. If the United States manages to cut off that support and deny sanctuary, the Taliban's future will be much bleaker -- even hopeless. But if Pakistan does keep providing the needed resources, the Taliban could win.
The future of Pakistan in this war is very much in doubt. Recent reports that U.S. helicopters were fired at on the ground in Pakistan may well signify a Taliban-orchestrated campaign against U.S. forces there. This could give rise to a situation in which the Pakistani government sides with the United States but cannot or will not control its own countryside along the frontier. Pakistan could both serve the United States and supply the Taliban.
Under this scenario, the United States would have three options. One would be to accept the situation. The second would be to conduct operations to stop the flow of arms into Pakistan without attempting to clear the border area of Taliban base camps. The third would be to extend the war into Pakistan. The logic of the situation requires the third option because enough weapons can seep into Pakistan --or are already there -- to support the Taliban's efforts. Of course, this would require the deployment of massive numbers of troops in Pakistan, which Islamabad would oppose.
This option, however, would delight the Taliban and al Qaeda. It would drag the United States deeper into the quagmire while allowing opponents to claim that this was proof the United States was not anti-Taliban but anti-Islamic. This is obviously the last thing the United States would want. On the other hand, a fight in Pakistan would be much easier than a fight in Afghanistan, and it would undoubtedly have the vigorous support of a real strategic asset: India. A victory in Pakistan would cut off sanctuary and create the real foundation for defeat of the Taliban. However, it would also tear apart the coalition, driving many Islamic countries from a position of uneasy support to active hostility toward the United States.
All actions against the Pakistanis -- particularly those involving India -- inevitably must take into account the nuclear dimension. Thus, apart from political considerations, joint U.S.- Indian operations against Pakistan would either have to take out Pakistani nuclear capabilities with a high degree of certainty or be prepared to accept a nuclear threat. This further decreases the probability of operations directed against Pakistan.
The United States badly wants the Pakistani government to continue its policies and to gain complete control of its frontiers on its own. This is absolutely critical to the United States. It is equally critical to the Taliban that this either be prevented, or that the United States be forced to push the Pakistani government aside and take matters into its own hands.
Thus, as the war moves beyond the initial phase, the Pakistani frontier region will be crucial. This is where the war will be decided. If the area cannot be sealed off, the Taliban will continue to enjoy sanctuary and receive supplies, possibly fighting the United States to a standstill. If, on the other hand, the frontier is sealed except to U.S. forces and to supplies for U.S. allies, Afghanistan can be finished off.
Kabul is therefore a sideshow, as is the air campaign. Pakistan is the heart of the matter. At this moment, it does not appear to STRATFOR that the Pakistani government has the ability or the will to seal the border. Indeed, it is not clear to us that U.S. assets in Pakistan are fully secure.
However, changing the situation on the ground in Pakistan would merely be difficult, not impossible. And that change is the key to creating despair in the ranks of the Taliban.