USS Clueless              Voyages of a restless mind

Main: normal long no graphics Contact Log archives Best log entries Other articles Site Search

Stardate 20011112.0434 (On Screen): War in Afghanistan is as much like a game of poker as it is like chess; there is a certain amount of combat, of course, but casualties tend to be low because the fighters are interested in glory. That also means they tend to switch sides constantly because everyone wants to be on the winning side. The individual soldiers are volunteers and readily abandon commanders if they lose confidence in them; the commanders need to guarantee not just a steady stream of money, but more importantly a steady stream of glory and honor -- and what better way than to switch sides when the flow of the war changes?

So one of the most important benefits of the fall of Mazar-e Sharif is that it makes the Northern Alliance look strong and the Taliban look weak. One of the tactics that the US special forces were trying to use in the first weeks after the beginning of the war was to make contact with warlords all through the nation to try to convince them to change sides. Those who oppose the war were quick to dismiss this effort as a failure when it did not cause wholesale defection within the first few days, but like most other aspects of war this is an ongoing effort and one which has not ceased since then. (Nor is this something that the US alone was working on; the Afghans themselves routinely communicate by radio with their opponents and negotiate like this.) With the fall of Mazar-e Sharif, it became that much easier to convince various warlords who had been supporting the Taliban to change sides, and at least some of the cities (i.e. towns) which have fallen to the Northern Alliance since then have done so because the occupying Taliban forces defected to the Northern Alliance.

According to this report, the Northern Alliance claims to have taken Herat, a city in western Afghanistan. Herat is important as a gateway to Iran, and so this may be important in case Iran had decided that it wanted to start supporting the Taliban, since without Herat it would be far more difficult for supplies from Iran to reach the Taliban. (The elected government of Iran definitely does not want to do this, but the theocracy might do so; the power struggle in Iran is interesting.)

Herat would also represent another domino falling in the collapse of the Taliban, and make it that much easier to convince other warlords to change sides.

This demonstrates a different aspect of war: apparent progress and real progress don't track. The fall of Mazar-e Sharif and the subsequent collapse of the Taliban in the northern part of the nation didn't just happen; it was the result of several weeks of careful preparation by the US and the Northern Alliance. Contact had to be made and negotiations had to be carried out between the US and Northern Alliance, US forward air observers had to be inserted to coordinate with Northern Alliance troops outside Mazar-e Sharif and in other places, the Northern Alliance had to marshal supplies and units in preparation, and then a major assault had to be planned. And while all this was going on, anti-war activists were lamenting how nothing was happening (and chanting "quagmire!"), and pro-war activists were bitching about the same thing, though for different reasons. In actuality, what you've been seeing is steady progress the entire time. Sometimes the result of several weeks of careful preparation is a major advance against the enemy, but that advance can't happen without all that careful preparation, and preparation is unromantic and doesn't generate headlines (not least of which because preparation is largely kept secret). (discussion in progress)

Update: The BBC reports that Taliban defenses at Kabul are crumbling. While there is little military benefit in taking the city as an objective, if it can be taken now for cheap (i.e. lower casualties), it's certainly not a good idea to eschew that opportunity since it might cost more later. When your enemy is on the run, it's nearly always a good idea to take advantage of opportunities while the situation is still fluid. Also, the fall of Kabul might increase the process of defection of support for the Taliban. I'm still not hopeful for a quick end to this war, but it's a higher probability now than it was a week ago. If Kabul does fall, it will be necessary to make a massive and immediate effort to move supplies into the city.